For those in BL, would you have gone into coding? Forum

[AJordan]

Yeah, I think people with little to no work experience think the money is all that it's about, but when you've been working for a while, you realize that liking your job -- the thing you spend a significant portion of your time as adult doing -- is also incredibly important. But the people who were just chasing dollars in undergrad/early career often have not spent the time to figure out what it is that they actually like doing in a job and so have a difficult time identifying the field in which they will be successful and happy, which leads to a lot of unhappy people plugging away in jobs they hate for 40+ hours a week for 40+ years - no fun.

This argument gets a lot tougher to make once anyone but you relies on your income.

Are you suggesting that it’s impossible to support a family on a job that you like? Because that’s all the above post is saying, that people should think about what they like to do, not *only* what will make the *most* money. The point isn’t “don’t worry at all about making money!”, it’s “don’t worry *only* about money, think about both salary *and* job satisfaction.”

Certainly not. Just that the conversations with spouses/dependents are difficult to have when you're in a spot where you can realistically bring in 250k with a job you hate (but can survive doing) vs 75k with a job you love. I think it becomes especially difficult once you have kids. It's viable to say, "suck it up at work and let's use the money to buy downtime and enjoy it". I've found that to be a very convincing argument. Even attempting to form a counter feels pretty selfish. Maybe I just need therapy.

[Anonymous User]

but also there are many more lucrative things than law school out of undergrad that aren't comp sci that many (most?) biglawyers who hate it could have pursued

You mean finance/IB/consulting? Or do you mean just general business roles? Like the long post above noted, the former category is harder to get for most (not virtually automatic like it is for BL after getting into a T14) and the latter has a less clear path to six figures. Either path involves more risk than coding/BL (assuming you can get into a relatively good law school).

To add some color - MBA admissions seem subjective and risky to me compared to law school admissions which are roughly just a question of GPA/LSAT. I have a friend with a 750 GMAT, decent UG GPA for business school, and an interesting background who didn't get into a single T10 business school. That same percentile for LSAT would have got him a look at at least a few T14s. Lawyers are inherently risk averse.

I hate the idea that a career isn’t worth aiming for unless it earns you 6 figures out of school.

Yeah, I think people with little to no work experience think the money is all that it's about, but when you've been working for a while, you realize that liking your job -- the thing you spend a significant portion of your time as adult doing -- is also incredibly important. But the people who were just chasing dollars in undergrad/early career often have not spent the time to figure out what it is that they actually like doing in a job and so have a difficult time identifying the field in which they will be successful and happy, which leads to a lot of unhappy people plugging away in jobs they hate for 40+ hours a week for 40+ years - no fun.

This argument gets a lot tougher to make once anyone but you relies on your income.

I have four people relying on my income and find the argument pretty straightforward.

[Anonymous User]

You weren’t responding directly to me, but I said I hate the idea that a career isn’t worth aiming for unless it earns you 6 figures out of school. I didn’t say that everyone can just do whatever they want and everything will work financially. In particular, I don’t like the idea that earning 6 figures *the year you graduate from school* should determine what you do. What I wish is that people had better information about the *variety* of jobs out there *and how their earning capacity develops over time.* I know it sounds incredibly boomer to talk about working your way up a career ladder so I won’t say that exactly, but I do think people are very bad at thinking longer term. Because I do think that being a job you hate is worse for you long term than not making 6 figures.

(I also think that “wanting 6 figures to raise a family in a HCOL area” presumes a lot - that you want to raise a family, that you want to live in a HCOL area, that you don’t have a working spouse maybe - that generally doesn’t apply right out of school. Obviously those things can apply, but I don’t think a ton of people deciding between coding or law school for the money are actually facing these circumstances *right at the start of their career.*)

That said - I’m way more sympathetic to the “chase the dollars” approach for people who grew up in poverty and have to support their family and/or want to be able to materially contribute to their community. Still don’t think law/coding are the only way to do that, but there’s a meaningful motive there.

I’ll also be a cliche and point out that quite a bit of research suggests that not having enough money absolutely contributes to unhappiness, but once your needs are met and after about $75k, more money doesn’t make you happier. (Like I can see that stretching up to what’s technically 6 figures in HCOL areas, but it’s not like people debating coding v. law purely for the money are expecting to make $100k. They’re talking about making more.)

I'll avoid pushing back on most of these points, but the bolded seems absurd to me. Are you seriously suggesting that people should only consider what life will look like after undergrad when picking a major/career path?

Most people have an idea even before they pick a major whether they might want to have a family and/or where they want to live. It would be stupid NOT to take that into account when selecting a career. Plus, as others have pointed out, it's a lot harder to make a career pivot later on when you might start needing the money the most.

Again, I'm not talking about fuck you money. I'm talking about low six figures, which, in my HCOL city of Boston, you would absolutely need to afford a house an a halfway decent school district. I wouldn't fault anybody for wanting that and picking a career path accordingly, whether they are from the projects and wanted more or whether they grew up in one of those districts and want to be able to maintain that for their future family.

Again, all of this is distinct from the original crux of this thread. The idea that it's easier to go into coding to make biglaw money isn't necessarily true. The idea that you should pick either coding or the law simply because you want to make high six figures or even seven is also absurd. They shouldn't even pick them just for a low six figure salary. I'm not fighting those points. What I'm saying is that both paths are reasonably low risk*-high reward ways to set yourself up for a low six figure salary that would set you up for an upper middle class life in a HCOL city, and that is an important (I would say very important) factor for a recent high school graduate to consider. Not saying everyone should do coding, and not saying everyone needs six figures. Not saying these are the only paths to six figures either. But they are relatively low risk paths that will get you there if you so desire.

*Assuming you can gain admission to a law school that feeds into biglaw and/or get a scholarship to offset high capital investment.

[jotarokujo]

but also there are many more lucrative things than law school out of undergrad that aren't comp sci that many (most?) biglawyers who hate it could have pursued

You mean finance/IB/consulting? Or do you mean just general business roles? Like the long post above noted, the former category is harder to get for most (not virtually automatic like it is for BL after getting into a T14) and the latter has a less clear path to six figures. Either path involves more risk than coding/BL (assuming you can get into a relatively good law school).

To add some color - MBA admissions seem subjective and risky to me compared to law school admissions which are roughly just a question of GPA/LSAT. I have a friend with a 750 GMAT, decent UG GPA for business school, and an interesting background who didn't get into a single T10 business school. That same percentile for LSAT would have got him a look at at least a few T14s. Lawyers are inherently risk averse.

not just finance, but also sales, quant (harder to get), accounting. it's not hard to find a more lucrative career if you take the average biglaw tenure which is only a few years

we have to go to the starting for a lot of biglaw lawyers who hate it, which is a pretty good undergrad school with a good gpa. i find folks who actually went to a less reputable undergrad and had no more lucrative options don't hate biglaw as much

[Anonymous User]

but also there are many more lucrative things than law school out of undergrad that aren't comp sci that many (most?) biglawyers who hate it could have pursued

You mean finance/IB/consulting? Or do you mean just general business roles? Like the long post above noted, the former category is harder to get for most (not virtually automatic like it is for BL after getting into a T14) and the latter has a less clear path to six figures. Either path involves more risk than coding/BL (assuming you can get into a relatively good law school).

To add some color - MBA admissions seem subjective and risky to me compared to law school admissions which are roughly just a question of GPA/LSAT. I have a friend with a 750 GMAT, decent UG GPA for business school, and an interesting background who didn't get into a single T10 business school. That same percentile for LSAT would have got him a look at at least a few T14s. Lawyers are inherently risk averse.

not just finance, but also sales, quant (harder to get), accounting. it's not hard to find a more lucrative career if you take the average biglaw tenure which is only a few years

we have to go to the starting for a lot of biglaw lawyers who hate it, which is a pretty good undergrad school with a good gpa. i find folks who actually went to a less reputable undergrad and had no more lucrative options don't hate biglaw as much

Agree - I found the same thing. The people with mediocre resumes and not much drive in life were perfectly happy to ride the biglaw train and be treated like a peon. The people who went to HLS or whatever with a 4.0 from Princeton undergrad and a 175 LSAT were fuming at being treated like a bumbling idiot who can't be trusted to move a comma around. It's the people in the latter group who ultimately could have been doing a lot more exciting things with their lives (like MBB to being an executive at a small or mid-sized company).

The job satisfaction in biglaw is uniquely miserable compared to most jobs, and the rampant incidence of divorce, obesity, mental health issues and desperate unhappiness should not be ignored.

[Anonymous User]

but also there are many more lucrative things than law school out of undergrad that aren't comp sci that many (most?) biglawyers who hate it could have pursued

You mean finance/IB/consulting? Or do you mean just general business roles? Like the long post above noted, the former category is harder to get for most (not virtually automatic like it is for BL after getting into a T14) and the latter has a less clear path to six figures. Either path involves more risk than coding/BL (assuming you can get into a relatively good law school).

To add some color - MBA admissions seem subjective and risky to me compared to law school admissions which are roughly just a question of GPA/LSAT. I have a friend with a 750 GMAT, decent UG GPA for business school, and an interesting background who didn't get into a single T10 business school. That same percentile for LSAT would have got him a look at at least a few T14s. Lawyers are inherently risk averse.

not just finance, but also sales, quant (harder to get), accounting. it's not hard to find a more lucrative career if you take the average biglaw tenure which is only a few years

we have to go to the starting for a lot of biglaw lawyers who hate it, which is a pretty good undergrad school with a good gpa. i find folks who actually went to a less reputable undergrad and had no more lucrative options don't hate biglaw as much

Agree - I found the same thing. The people with mediocre resumes and not much drive in life were perfectly happy to ride the biglaw train and be treated like a peon. The people who went to HLS or whatever with a 4.0 from Princeton undergrad and a 175 LSAT were fuming at being treated like a bumbling idiot who can't be trusted to move a comma around. It's the people in the latter group who ultimately could have been doing a lot more exciting things with their lives (like MBB to being an executive at a small or mid-sized company).

The job satisfaction in biglaw is uniquely miserable compared to most jobs, and the rampant incidence of divorce, obesity, mental health issues and desperate unhappiness should not be ignored.

This tracks. Someone who is used to being told their whole life that they are special, brilliant snowflake will chafe at the realization that they actually are just a cog in the machine. If this is the same person who was obsessed with executives at small companies doing fascinating work for fabulous pay and reasonable hours......well, I think the group collectively addressed that in the previous thread.

[Anonymous User]

You weren’t responding directly to me, but I said I hate the idea that a career isn’t worth aiming for unless it earns you 6 figures out of school. I didn’t say that everyone can just do whatever they want and everything will work financially. In particular, I don’t like the idea that earning 6 figures *the year you graduate from school* should determine what you do. What I wish is that people had better information about the *variety* of jobs out there *and how their earning capacity develops over time.* I know it sounds incredibly boomer to talk about working your way up a career ladder so I won’t say that exactly, but I do think people are very bad at thinking longer term. Because I do think that being a job you hate is worse for you long term than not making 6 figures.

(I also think that “wanting 6 figures to raise a family in a HCOL area” presumes a lot - that you want to raise a family, that you want to live in a HCOL area, that you don’t have a working spouse maybe - that generally doesn’t apply right out of school. Obviously those things can apply, but I don’t think a ton of people deciding between coding or law school for the money are actually facing these circumstances *right at the start of their career.*)

That said - I’m way more sympathetic to the “chase the dollars” approach for people who grew up in poverty and have to support their family and/or want to be able to materially contribute to their community. Still don’t think law/coding are the only way to do that, but there’s a meaningful motive there.

I’ll also be a cliche and point out that quite a bit of research suggests that not having enough money absolutely contributes to unhappiness, but once your needs are met and after about $75k, more money doesn’t make you happier. (Like I can see that stretching up to what’s technically 6 figures in HCOL areas, but it’s not like people debating coding v. law purely for the money are expecting to make $100k. They’re talking about making more.)

I'll avoid pushing back on most of these points, but the bolded seems absurd to me. Are you seriously suggesting that people should only consider what life will look like after undergrad when picking a major/career path?

Most people have an idea even before they pick a major whether they might want to have a family and/or where they want to live. It would be stupid NOT to take that into account when selecting a career. Plus, as others have pointed out, it's a lot harder to make a career pivot later on when you might start needing the money the most.

Again, I'm not talking about fuck you money. I'm talking about low six figures, which, in my HCOL city of Boston, you would absolutely need to afford a house an a halfway decent school district. I wouldn't fault anybody for wanting that and picking a career path accordingly, whether they are from the projects and wanted more or whether they grew up in one of those districts and want to be able to maintain that for their future family.

Again, all of this is distinct from the original crux of this thread. The idea that it's easier to go into coding to make biglaw money isn't necessarily true. The idea that you should pick either coding or the law simply because you want to make high six figures or even seven is also absurd. They shouldn't even pick them just for a low six figure salary. I'm not fighting those points. What I'm saying is that both paths are reasonably low risk*-high reward ways to set yourself up for a low six figure salary that would set you up for an upper middle class life in a HCOL city, and that is an important (I would say very important) factor for a recent high school graduate to consider. Not saying everyone should do coding, and not saying everyone needs six figures. Not saying these are the only paths to six figures either. But they are relatively low risk paths that will get you there if you so desire.

*Assuming you can gain admission to a law school that feeds into biglaw and/or get a scholarship to offset high capital investment.

Oh, I think I see where the confusion lies. I'm actually kind of saying the opposite. I'm not saying that no one has any idea what they want wrt family/location when they graduate or that they shouldn't take those things into account. I'm saying that many people (at least, a lot of the implied audience for this kind of thread) don't actually have those obligations when they graduate and can afford to start in lower-paying jobs to advance in a field and figure out what they're good at/what they like before they reach the point where they need [fill in the amount of money here], because salaries increase over time and it seems shortsighted that the only way to get to an UMC life is in a field that starts you in very high-salary jobs right away. I get that you're not really saying that, just that that's the attitude I was responding to.

But also my liberal arts background is showing, where your major doesn't really determine what job you get in such a way that picking your major in UG shapes your entire life, which I know isn't always realistic. Maybe if you want to do coding, you *have* to major in compsci, but I think pivoting through work experience after undergrad is actually often easier than pivoting after you've ensconced yourself in biglaw (and hate it).

Anyway, I don't think we're as far apart as it sounds. I'd agree that coding and law *can* be relatively low-risk paths to decent income (although I think assuming you can gain admission to a law school that feeds into biglaw is actually a biggish assumption, and also think that way more people can't hack coding than go into college planning to major in compsci).

[Anonymous User]

but also there are many more lucrative things than law school out of undergrad that aren't comp sci that many (most?) biglawyers who hate it could have pursued

You mean finance/IB/consulting? Or do you mean just general business roles? Like the long post above noted, the former category is harder to get for most (not virtually automatic like it is for BL after getting into a T14) and the latter has a less clear path to six figures. Either path involves more risk than coding/BL (assuming you can get into a relatively good law school).

To add some color - MBA admissions seem subjective and risky to me compared to law school admissions which are roughly just a question of GPA/LSAT. I have a friend with a 750 GMAT, decent UG GPA for business school, and an interesting background who didn't get into a single T10 business school. That same percentile for LSAT would have got him a look at at least a few T14s. Lawyers are inherently risk averse.

not just finance, but also sales, quant (harder to get), accounting. it's not hard to find a more lucrative career if you take the average biglaw tenure which is only a few years

we have to go to the starting for a lot of biglaw lawyers who hate it, which is a pretty good undergrad school with a good gpa. i find folks who actually went to a less reputable undergrad and had no more lucrative options don't hate biglaw as much

Agree - I found the same thing. The people with mediocre resumes and not much drive in life were perfectly happy to ride the biglaw train and be treated like a peon. The people who went to HLS or whatever with a 4.0 from Princeton undergrad and a 175 LSAT were fuming at being treated like a bumbling idiot who can't be trusted to move a comma around. It's the people in the latter group who ultimately could have been doing a lot more exciting things with their lives (like MBB to being an executive at a small or mid-sized company).

The job satisfaction in biglaw is uniquely miserable compared to most jobs, and the rampant incidence of divorce, obesity, mental health issues and desperate unhappiness should not be ignored.

This tracks. Someone who is used to being told their whole life that they are special, brilliant snowflake will chafe at the realization that they actually are just a cog in the machine. If this is the same person who was obsessed with executives at small companies doing fascinating work for fabulous pay and reasonable hours......well, I think the group collectively addressed that in the previous thread.

Getting a top GPA from a top undergrad school, getting a great LSAT score, and then getting into a top law school does make you fairly special and brilliant, relative to the vast majority of America. It is reasonable to expect that a job would look to leverage those talents rather than treating you like the equivalent of a Burger King worker.

And yes, there are vastly better and more fulfilling career paths, which explains the gruesome attrition level in biglaw, and in the practice of law entirely.

[nixy]

not just finance, but also sales, quant (harder to get), accounting. it's not hard to find a more lucrative career if you take the average biglaw tenure which is only a few years

we have to go to the starting for a lot of biglaw lawyers who hate it, which is a pretty good undergrad school with a good gpa. i find folks who actually went to a less reputable undergrad and had no more lucrative options don't hate biglaw as much

Agree - I found the same thing. The people with mediocre resumes and not much drive in life were perfectly happy to ride the biglaw train and be treated like a peon. The people who went to HLS or whatever with a 4.0 from Princeton undergrad and a 175 LSAT were fuming at being treated like a bumbling idiot who can't be trusted to move a comma around. It's the people in the latter group who ultimately could have been doing a lot more exciting things with their lives (like MBB to being an executive at a small or mid-sized company).

The job satisfaction in biglaw is uniquely miserable compared to most jobs, and the rampant incidence of divorce, obesity, mental health issues and desperate unhappiness should not be ignored.

This tracks. Someone who is used to being told their whole life that they are special, brilliant snowflake will chafe at the realization that they actually are just a cog in the machine. If this is the same person who was obsessed with executives at small companies doing fascinating work for fabulous pay and reasonable hours......well, I think the group collectively addressed that in the previous thread.

Ah yes, the excitement of being "an executive" at a small/mid-sized company, utterly regardless of what being "an executive" actually means or which company, compared to the those broken-down wrecks in biglaw. (I totally get that lots of people hate biglaw with good reason, but I'm amused by the repeated stereotypes.)

[Anonymous User]

not just finance, but also sales, quant (harder to get), accounting. it's not hard to find a more lucrative career if you take the average biglaw tenure which is only a few years

we have to go to the starting for a lot of biglaw lawyers who hate it, which is a pretty good undergrad school with a good gpa. i find folks who actually went to a less reputable undergrad and had no more lucrative options don't hate biglaw as much

Agree - I found the same thing. The people with mediocre resumes and not much drive in life were perfectly happy to ride the biglaw train and be treated like a peon. The people who went to HLS or whatever with a 4.0 from Princeton undergrad and a 175 LSAT were fuming at being treated like a bumbling idiot who can't be trusted to move a comma around. It's the people in the latter group who ultimately could have been doing a lot more exciting things with their lives (like MBB to being an executive at a small or mid-sized company).

The job satisfaction in biglaw is uniquely miserable compared to most jobs, and the rampant incidence of divorce, obesity, mental health issues and desperate unhappiness should not be ignored.

This tracks. Someone who is used to being told their whole life that they are special, brilliant snowflake will chafe at the realization that they actually are just a cog in the machine. If this is the same person who was obsessed with executives at small companies doing fascinating work for fabulous pay and reasonable hours......well, I think the group collectively addressed that in the previous thread.

Ah yes, the excitement of being "an executive" at a small/mid-sized company, utterly regardless of what being "an executive" actually means or which company, compared to the those broken-down wrecks in biglaw. (I totally get that lots of people hate biglaw with good reason, but I'm amused by the repeated stereotypes.)

I must have missed the job boards with post after post on how miserable life as a C-suite executive is? You can bloviate all you like, but biglaw is a uniquely miserable experience, which inflicts massive mental and physical harms on its labor force.

[nixy]

I must have missed the job boards with post after post on how miserable life as a C-suite executive is? You can bloviate all you like, but biglaw is a uniquely miserable experience, which inflicts massive mental and physical harms on its labor force.

You're comparing apples (being a biglaw *associate*) to oranges (being a *C-suite executive*). There aren't a ton of biglaw partners on here bitching about their jobs, either. You act as if people somehow magically leap from UG or their MBA to being a C-suite executive without also going through a whole lot of shit to get there.

I'm on board with biglaw being miserable for many people, just not the idea that generic business jobs, like being an "executive" (as if there's no difference between any of those kinds of jobs) at a "company" (of any kind regardless of size, structure, or culture) are the magical happiness-inducing alternative.

[Anonymous User]

but also there are many more lucrative things than law school out of undergrad that aren't comp sci that many (most?) biglawyers who hate it could have pursued

You mean finance/IB/consulting? Or do you mean just general business roles? Like the long post above noted, the former category is harder to get for most (not virtually automatic like it is for BL after getting into a T14) and the latter has a less clear path to six figures. Either path involves more risk than coding/BL (assuming you can get into a relatively good law school).

To add some color - MBA admissions seem subjective and risky to me compared to law school admissions which are roughly just a question of GPA/LSAT. I have a friend with a 750 GMAT, decent UG GPA for business school, and an interesting background who didn't get into a single T10 business school. That same percentile for LSAT would have got him a look at at least a few T14s. Lawyers are inherently risk averse.

not just finance, but also sales, quant (harder to get), accounting. it's not hard to find a more lucrative career if you take the average biglaw tenure which is only a few years

we have to go to the starting for a lot of biglaw lawyers who hate it, which is a pretty good undergrad school with a good gpa. i find folks who actually went to a less reputable undergrad and had no more lucrative options don't hate biglaw as much

Agree - I found the same thing. The people with mediocre resumes and not much drive in life were perfectly happy to ride the biglaw train and be treated like a peon. The people who went to HLS or whatever with a 4.0 from Princeton undergrad and a 175 LSAT were fuming at being treated like a bumbling idiot who can't be trusted to move a comma around. It's the people in the latter group who ultimately could have been doing a lot more exciting things with their lives (like MBB to being an executive at a small or mid-sized company).

The job satisfaction in biglaw is uniquely miserable compared to most jobs, and the rampant incidence of divorce, obesity, mental health issues and desperate unhappiness should not be ignored.

This tracks. Someone who is used to being told their whole life that they are special, brilliant snowflake will chafe at the realization that they actually are just a cog in the machine. If this is the same person who was obsessed with executives at small companies doing fascinating work for fabulous pay and reasonable hours......well, I think the group collectively addressed that in the previous thread.

Getting a top GPA from a top undergrad school, getting a great LSAT score, and then getting into a top law school does make you fairly special and brilliant, relative to the vast majority of America. It is reasonable to expect that a job would look to leverage those talents rather than treating you like the equivalent of a Burger King worker.

And yes, there are vastly better and more fulfilling career paths, which explains the gruesome attrition level in biglaw, and in the practice of law entirely.

No, it does not. I went to a top undergrad, had a good GPA, got a great LSAT and went to to a top law school. You know how I know I'm not special or brilliant? Because I'm an associate in biglaw. The brilliant ones from my law school are working at the WH, clerking for SC feeders or starting their own consulting firm. The brilliant ones from my undergrad founded their own businesses.

The only thing I've proven thus far in my life is that I'm good at taking tests. My award for that very specific skill set is that I get a very stable, high paying job.

If you really want to be treated special, you have to do something special. Otherwise, chill and bill baby - or go to one of those vastly better and more fulfilling career paths that you think are abundant.

[basketofbread]

This is one of the saddest threads I’ve seen on this forum in a long time. It’s inspired me to try and abandon this place forever.

[Anonymous User]

This is one of the saddest threads I’ve seen on this forum in a long time. It’s inspired me to try and abandon this place forever.

What specifically is sad about this thread? It seems pretty representative of the tone around here....I feel like this exact discussion about coding/finance/"business" has happened a billion times, always with the same views. But I agree that the quality of discussion here generally has really declined, not only since the heyday before the site was bought but even since then.

[Anonymous User]

This is one of the saddest threads I’ve seen on this forum in a long time. It’s inspired me to try and abandon this place forever.

What specifically is sad about this thread? It seems pretty representative of the tone around here....I feel like this exact discussion about coding/finance/"business" has happened a billion times, always with the same views. But I agree that the quality of discussion here generally has really declined, not only since the heyday before the site was bought but even since then.

I'm not sure why posters don't just agree that the majority of BL associates who don't make it to partner are paying a premium to work in an industry they like by choosing not to go into coding rather than the tired sour grapes trope of "we're lawyers and we're too dumb to make it in coding." It seems that everyone, including actual coders in the field, scoff at the belief that you have to be something special to make $200K-250K as a programmer with 5+ YOE. Except lawyers (who are maybe trying to justify why their post-firm paycheck is less than someone without an advanced degree with the same YOE).

[Anonymous User]

This is one of the saddest threads I’ve seen on this forum in a long time. It’s inspired me to try and abandon this place forever.

What specifically is sad about this thread? It seems pretty representative of the tone around here....I feel like this exact discussion about coding/finance/"business" has happened a billion times, always with the same views. But I agree that the quality of discussion here generally has really declined, not only since the heyday before the site was bought but even since then.

I'm not sure why posters don't just agree that the majority of BL associates who don't make it to partner are paying a premium to work in an industry they like by choosing not to go into coding rather than the tired sour grapes trope of "we're lawyers and we're too dumb to make it in coding." It seems that everyone, including actual coders in the field, scoff at the belief that you have to be something special to make $200K-250K as a programmer with 5+ YOE. Except lawyers (who are maybe trying to justify why their post-firm paycheck is less than someone without an advanced degree with the same YOE).

You're wrong and everybody in this thread disagrees with you, including those who actually tried coding and switched to biglaw. Nice troll dig, though.

[jotarokujo]

This is one of the saddest threads I’ve seen on this forum in a long time. It’s inspired me to try and abandon this place forever.

What specifically is sad about this thread? It seems pretty representative of the tone around here....I feel like this exact discussion about coding/finance/"business" has happened a billion times, always with the same views. But I agree that the quality of discussion here generally has really declined, not only since the heyday before the site was bought but even since then.

I'm not sure why posters don't just agree that the majority of BL associates who don't make it to partner are paying a premium to work in an industry they like by choosing not to go into coding rather than the tired sour grapes trope of "we're lawyers and we're too dumb to make it in coding." It seems that everyone, including actual coders in the field, scoff at the belief that you have to be something special to make $200K-250K as a programmer with 5+ YOE. Except lawyers (who are maybe trying to justify why their post-firm paycheck is less than someone without an advanced degree with the same YOE).

agreed. let's not let our desire to justify mistakes prevent us from giving good advice for future folks. to me it's sad to see people in transactional biglaw who don't even like it be there because of money when they could have done something more lucrative. law is not the easiest path to FIRE if you dont like law.

[Anonymous User]

This is one of the saddest threads I’ve seen on this forum in a long time. It’s inspired me to try and abandon this place forever.

What specifically is sad about this thread? It seems pretty representative of the tone around here....I feel like this exact discussion about coding/finance/"business" has happened a billion times, always with the same views. But I agree that the quality of discussion here generally has really declined, not only since the heyday before the site was bought but even since then.

I'm not sure why posters don't just agree that the majority of BL associates who don't make it to partner are paying a premium to work in an industry they like by choosing not to go into coding rather than the tired sour grapes trope of "we're lawyers and we're too dumb to make it in coding." It seems that everyone, including actual coders in the field, scoff at the belief that you have to be something special to make $200K-250K as a programmer with 5+ YOE. Except lawyers (who are maybe trying to justify why their post-firm paycheck is less than someone without an advanced degree with the same YOE).

You're wrong and everybody in this thread disagrees with you, including those who actually tried coding and switched to biglaw. Nice troll dig, though.

Yes, an anecdotal sample size of 2 (1?), compared to N > 900 in the linked thread. I'm convinced.

ETA: AFAIK, the engineer-turned-BL only did their undergrad studies in stem or whatever before making the switch. The hardest part about becoming a SDE is getting your foot in the door, and the experiences posted ITT are a far cry from those actually working in the industry for 5 or more years.

[Anonymous User]

I don't know how you'd find the evidence for it, but my instinct is that while coders can get that $250k/year for most of their lives, if a biglaw lawyer wants to get their compensation much higher (by grinding for partner, finding a unicorn in-house gig, starting their own company/firm etc) it's more doable than the equivalents are for code monkeys.

[nixy]

Yes, an anecdotal sample size of 2 (1?), compared to N > 900 in the linked thread. I'm convinced.

ETA: AFAIK, the engineer-turned-BL only did their undergrad studies in stem or whatever before making the switch. The hardest part about becoming a SDE is getting your foot in the door, and the experiences posted ITT are a far cry from those actually working in the industry for 5 or more years.

I'm not parsing all 900+ reddit comments from that thread, but from skimming, it looks like it's a subset of tech people saying "can you believe that there are tech people out there getting paid so badly," which doesn't seem to prove exactly what you're saying it proves. Also, a bunch of people who are already in the field saying "if you're in tech you can make X amount and you need to negotiate and get paid more" also doesn't say anything about whether lawyers can make it in tech. Saying "you don't have to be special *as a tech person* to make $200-250k as a programmer" isn't the same as saying "anyone can make $200-250K as a programmer."

I mean, I do actually think that most people can learn most things, give time and the opportunity and proper instruction. But I don't think that means anyone who's heading to biglaw would be equally successful at coding.

[axiomaticapiary]

I just want to point out that yeah those jobs do exist where the person in software makes like $300k for a 20 hour week or whatever, but a lot of stuff in tech, especially big tech, are also complete sweatshops. Check out this article about TikTok:

https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/tiktok ... 1651848638

Amazon also has this famously psychotic culture where people memorize Bezos’ aphorisms like “if you hit a wall, climb the wall.” Just saying the grass is always greener. I’ve known a lot of people in tech and some (but not all) worked insanely hard.

Purely rationally, software is probably better since it’s more in demand and you don’t have to go to law school for 3 years, but it was so clear that I had no talent or interest in STEM that for me it was kind of a moot point. The prospects in law are at least better than my original plan, the frozen wasteland of humanities academia

[Anonymous User]

Yes, an anecdotal sample size of 2 (1?), compared to N > 900 in the linked thread. I'm convinced.

ETA: AFAIK, the engineer-turned-BL only did their undergrad studies in stem or whatever before making the switch. The hardest part about becoming a SDE is getting your foot in the door, and the experiences posted ITT are a far cry from those actually working in the industry for 5 or more years.

I'm not parsing all 900+ reddit comments from that thread, but from skimming, it looks like it's a subset of tech people saying "can you believe that there are tech people out there getting paid so badly," which doesn't seem to prove exactly what you're saying it proves. Also, a bunch of people who are already in the field saying "if you're in tech you can make X amount and you need to negotiate and get paid more" also doesn't say anything about whether lawyers can make it in tech. Saying "you don't have to be special *as a tech person* to make $200-250k as a programmer" isn't the same as saying "anyone can make $200-250K as a programmer."

I mean, I do actually think that most people can learn most things, give time and the opportunity and proper instruction. But I don't think that means anyone who's heading to biglaw would be equally successful at coding.

Eh. I agree that lawyers likely won't be successful in coding and that, numerically, the positions paying software engineers $250K+ are probably less than 10-25% of all roles. But to say that lawyers -- people who have a predisposition to work in a sweatshop for 60-80 hours a week -- aren't able to replicate the skills necessary for software engineer positions that pay $250K (many of which are filled by people with 1-2 YOE, see Microsoft SDE II and levels.fyi) -- within their 40-year career span is something I just can't believe.

Again, I have no problem with paying a premium for working in an industry that makes me want to pull my hair out less. But that's not what this conversation is saying.

ETA: Here's another thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquesti ... ng_theres/

This thread is not exactly on point either, and there is some pushback against OP's comment that FAANG isn't for the "genius" or "top 10%." But I think the comments illustrate that many people working in the industry believe the limiting factors to climbing in TC as a software engineer are what I previously mentioned ITT: (1) desire and (2) work ethics (grinding LC). Not intelligence or special talent.

[Hutz_and_Goodman]

Anecdotally, two litigation associates from my former both left for coding (one was in the appellate group)

I think a major consideration for this choice is the issue of “staying current” in coding when you’re in your 40s, 50s and early 60s. In the law it’s no problem for your tech skills to not develop but I would imagine not the case in coding

[Anonymous User]

https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Jo ... DE)/Salary
https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Jo ... ate-Career
https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Jo ... mer/Salary
https://www.payscale.com/research/US/Jo ... ate-Career

https://money.usnews.com/careers/best-j ... mer/salary
https://money.usnews.com/careers/best-j ... per/salary

[/thread]

[Anonymous User]

No. Sig pages are harder to fuck up.