Prospective Summer Walks Over Moscow Work Forum

[Anonymous User]

If you despise me, then how do you feel about a third-world genocidal dictator's kid who gets drunk in Vegas, blows a million bucks in one night at the tables, beats up a girl in his hotel suite, and has his security pay her off to stay quiet? How do you feel about Putin? Is there any sense of proportion involved in how you feel about other humans?

Normally people at least try to be subtle in their deflections.

People have different lifestyles. For me, living on $77K would not be enjoyable. Biglaw pays me enough to get by fine but not lavishly, based on my own standards.

Stop with the strawmanning. The question is only whether biglaw is necessary for law grads in order to "survive," which was, in the most express terms, the claim made. Enjoyment or relative standard of living is completely irrelevant.

If people want to work in big law in order to make money, great. Just say that instead of pretending it is some sort of necessity or that the (standard) big law job is somehow compatible with modern progressive social justice or w/e.* If you are going to sell out, at least own it.


*FWIW I do not view big law as immoral, nor am I progressive; this statement is directed at people upthread who do/are.

[Saami]

If you despise me, then how do you feel about a third-world genocidal dictator's kid who gets drunk in Vegas, blows a million bucks in one night at the tables, beats up a girl in his hotel suite, and has his security pay her off to stay quiet? How do you feel about Putin? Is there any sense of proportion involved in how you feel about other humans?

People have different lifestyles. For me, living on $77K would not be enjoyable. Biglaw pays me enough to get by fine but not lavishly, based on my own standards.

Not even going to bother addressing that first paragraph.

As the user above me stated, you're conflating personal preferences with actual necessity. Okay, for you, $77k isn't enough. Fine. So, you're in big law because you want to achieve a certain standard of living, not because you're too poor to work in a different, lower-paying part of the legal profession. I'm sure someone who makes $5 million per year might say that they need to earn that much to afford their preferred lifestyle. So what? That's a borderline truism. That says nothing about whether they actually need to earn $5 million.

[Anonymous User]

If you despise me, then how do you feel about a third-world genocidal dictator's kid who gets drunk in Vegas, blows a million bucks in one night at the tables, beats up a girl in his hotel suite, and has his security pay her off to stay quiet? How do you feel about Putin? Is there any sense of proportion involved in how you feel about other humans?

People have different lifestyles. For me, living on $77K would not be enjoyable. Biglaw pays me enough to get by fine but not lavishly, based on my own standards.

Not even going to bother addressing that first paragraph.

As the user above me stated, you're conflating personal preferences with actual necessity. Okay, for you, $77k isn't enough. Fine. So, you're in big law because you want to achieve a certain standard of living, not because you're too poor to work in a different, lower-paying part of the legal profession. I'm sure someone who makes $5 million per year might say that they need to earn that much to afford their preferred lifestyle. So what? That's a borderline truism. That says nothing about whether they actually need to earn $5 million.

There was a hilarious post on here some number of years ago walking through how a $1m salary was hardly middle class in NYC. That post included something along the lines of private school for 2 kids, a car, a 4 bedroom in the city, 2 vacations a year, saving for retirement, etc. Too lazy to dig it up.

[Anonymous User]

If you despise me, then how do you feel about a third-world genocidal dictator's kid who gets drunk in Vegas, blows a million bucks in one night at the tables, beats up a girl in his hotel suite, and has his security pay her off to stay quiet? How do you feel about Putin? Is there any sense of proportion involved in how you feel about other humans?

People have different lifestyles. For me, living on $77K would not be enjoyable. Biglaw pays me enough to get by fine but not lavishly, based on my own standards.

Not even going to bother addressing that first paragraph.

As the user above me stated, you're conflating personal preferences with actual necessity. Okay, for you, $77k isn't enough. Fine. So, you're in big law because you want to achieve a certain standard of living, not because you're too poor to work in a different, lower-paying part of the legal profession. I'm sure someone who makes $5 million per year might say that they need to earn that much to afford their preferred lifestyle. So what? That's a borderline truism. That says nothing about whether they actually need to earn $5 million.

What is wrong with desiring to have a comfortable upper middle class life and helping to efficiently operate a free market economy as a means to doing so? Not everyone is a save the whales activist.

[Saami]

There was a hilarious post on here some number of years ago walking through how a $1m salary was hardly middle class in NYC. That post included something along the lines of private school for 2 kids, a car, a 4 bedroom in the city, 2 vacations a year, saving for retirement, etc. Too lazy to dig it up.

There's no way that person didn't grow up with wealthy parents, lol. I've seen similar arguments from an eighth-year associate in DC who said his family barely scrapes by. Meanwhile I lived 5 minutes from the National Mall in 2016-2017 in a shared townhouse with one other person off my $43k government paralegal salary.

What is wrong with desiring to have a comfortable upper middle class life and helping to efficiently operate a free market economy as a means to doing so? Not everyone is a save the whales activist.

If achieving that level of comfort is your goal, so be it. I have my own thoughts on what goals people should be pursuing in life and how they should be spending their time, but I'm not going to lecture everyone who wants to earn a high salary. But again, that's not what this initial conversation was about. It was about necessity---how much does one need to earn to live?

The bolded text is so loaded (I'm actually impressed) that I'm not going to touch it. At least, I'm not willing to type the extraordinarily lengthy essay needed to address all the assumptions and implications packed within those eight words. Kudos. I mean it.

[Anonymous User]

Drawing the line at the firm having work in Russia is some peak shitlibbery. Helping corporations that continually fuck over this country (and the world more broadly) for the working class? Totally acceptable. Some of those corporations are in RUSSIA?!?!?!?! Too far!

Go ahead and tell me "everyone gets to draw their own line." So what? That's a truism. Some lines are completely moronic, though.

I mean this (willfully, I assume) completely ignores that "corporations in RUSSIA??!!?!?!" --at least the kind that hire international biglaw firms-- are mostly de facto partly owned and controlled by Putin. American executives are bad, but few are as bad as Putin. It is not hard to draw a line between "I will help Home Depot lower its tax burden" and "I wont help (de facto state owned) Russian palladium company avoid sanctions." Yes, both are bad in the big scheme of things, but there are gradations to bad.

So is anyone in a China practice planning on bailing out to lower the chances of being the next geo-politically screwed over lawyer?

Mate, I was born in China and was fortunate to have the privilege of going to college and a CCN here in New York. I even worked in the Asian offices for two years, covering Beijing and Hong Kong both. And I literally felt the need to flee back to NYC during the pandemic lol the stupid regulatory commie monkeys there are eating up their own corps and already began to screw international firms/lawyers. Namely, they targetted a barrister chamber in UK for publishing a Uyghurs persecution report. As if that would hurt a chamber where 50% are QC. I don't see my firm's china team doing as much work as before, but that has been the case since 2018.

[nixy]

If you despise me, then how do you feel about a third-world genocidal dictator's kid who gets drunk in Vegas, blows a million bucks in one night at the tables, beats up a girl in his hotel suite, and has his security pay her off to stay quiet? How do you feel about Putin? Is there any sense of proportion involved in how you feel about other humans?

People have different lifestyles. For me, living on $77K would not be enjoyable. Biglaw pays me enough to get by fine but not lavishly, based on my own standards.

Not even going to bother addressing that first paragraph.

As the user above me stated, you're conflating personal preferences with actual necessity. Okay, for you, $77k isn't enough. Fine. So, you're in big law because you want to achieve a certain standard of living, not because you're too poor to work in a different, lower-paying part of the legal profession. I'm sure someone who makes $5 million per year might say that they need to earn that much to afford their preferred lifestyle. So what? That's a borderline truism. That says nothing about whether they actually need to earn $5 million.

What is wrong with desiring to have a comfortable upper middle class life and helping to efficiently operate a free market economy as a means to doing so? Not everyone is a save the whales activist.

There's nothing wrong with prioritizing a comfortable upper middle class lifestyle. It's just not remotely the same as "needing" $250-300k to live a "normal" lifestyle. You do you - you want the lifestyle and you don't have an issue with the job and that's totally fine. But it's absolutely a choice, not necessity, which is where this whole tangent started.

[Anonymous User]

Depends on your interests, but academia/DOJ Honors/meaningful public interest work all are more intellectual and interesting than biglaw.

Sure, but how many of these jobs are actually available? How many require students to have laid some foundation before starting law school? How many of these positions are captured by someone who won't retire for another thirty years?

I think students would absolutely pursue these jobs if schools/government/nonprofits scaled like BigLaw. But those types of organizations don't bring more money in by hiring more employees.

Regarding the moral hand-wringing, my impression is that nonprofits have a harder time soliciting donations than job applications. Would a nonprofit rather receive $5k from a first-year associate or a well-meaning application for a position with fifty other qualified candidates?

DOJ/other FedGov honors have consistent openings, literally every year. You need to have done well enough that biglaw would be an option, but otherwise they're very attainable. Some state govs (California comes to mind) have similar programs. Academia is a bit more strict (if you're not at HYS or Chi you're in for a rough time). Meaningful public interest work depends a lot on what you call meaningful--working legal aid for natives in South Dakota likely has far more openings than Earthjustice SF, for instance.

[Saami]

Academia is a bit more strict (if you're not at HYS or Chi you're in for a rough time).

That's really just a meme perpetuated by people who aren't in academia. Perhaps at one time it was true, but certainly not nowadays. Your publications are by and far the most important things when it comes to applying for entry-level law professor positions. If you don't believe me, look at the ongoing list of entry-level hires this year: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... dit#gid=0/

Only 16 of the 55 currently on the list attended HYSChi (and notably none went to Stanford or Chicago).

[MountainMama]

...However, I don't tell myself that I came to the private sector because I believe I can do more good here than I could have done in government...

I meant to describe a lame economic reality, not imply a moral high ground. The question about the needs of nonprofits is earnest. I agree that spending time helping people is morally superior to spending time helping corporations make money. I dispute the premise that law students are commonly offered a realistic choice between the two professional paths.

There are around 4,000 new lawyers every year from T14 alone. I see 55 new professors and about 200 honors jobs. How many “good” jobs are there looking to hire entirely untrained, inexperienced attorneys? Who is hiring everyone else?

Further, unlike Biglaw, “good” jobs usually require additional qualification. It looks like over half the new professors have PhDs. Good luck getting hired by the reservation if you’ve never been to South Dakota or worked with natives. And it’s not like public interest experience is fungible; the environmental science degree might help with Earth Justice but I hope you have something else for the reservation. It doesn’t make any sense to act like a generic median grad, with a BA in polisci and one year as a paralegal, was a realistic candidate but for the corruption of her soul.

Sure, lots of law students are seduced by the money. But I think many students actually would happily take $80k non-profit work if non-profits hired on BigLaw scale. I bet many more would happily pivot after a few unpleasant months in BigLaw. The suggestion that non-profit work is like the military, perma-hiring and limited only by recruitment, is a mischaracterization.

[Saami]

It looks like over half the new professors have PhDs.

It's about 40% on the list I shared. But again, the notion that you need a PhD to become a law professor is also somewhat of a myth. What you really need is time to write and publish a few legal academic pieces, which PhD students have plenty of whereas practicing attorneys have little (hence the disproportionate amount of PhDs in legal academia).