Unhappy Lawyers -- Why are you unhappy? Forum

[Anonymous User]

Someone on TLS recently suggested this talk from Shanin Specter (big-time personal injury lawyer in Philly who teaches at several top schools), and imo it's genuinely exceptional, and very much worthy of an hour of your time. It's on the exact topic you asked about.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdLsatFpBWA

[WilliamFaulkner]

OP: I can really identify with your hyper-rational approach to trying to avoid an unhappy life in the future, and to avoid the pitfalls that seem to make so many people in this profession say they are miserable and filled with regret, but I have become convinced that this approach is itself flawed because of the highly subjective and unpredictable nature of life, meaning, and happiness. People who naturally think in this kind of logical, risk-averse, strategic way are drawn to the law and often excel at it, but it works better in an issue-spotting exam than in trying to plan out a happy and meaningful life.

The reality is that there is a lot in all of our futures that is beyond our knowledge or control. Happiness is itself a very difficult to measure and predict phenomenon (an interesting book if you haven't read it about this topic is Daniel Gilbert's Stumbling On Happiness). Beyond the most basic, obvious advice like "Make time for your family and friends, take care of your health, maintain hobbies and fun things you enjoy," no one here is going to tell you a magic secret to avoiding misfortune in the legal profession and in life. Different people might have ended up happy or unhappy in this or that legal job because of things going on in THEIR lives that by no means will translate to yours. This is actually a great thing about life, because the whole ride would be dull as hell if you could just figure out exactly what the optimal way for your life to be like was, execute it to a T, and have that be that.

I really appreciate your message. This thread was inspired in part by my realization that I had followed the prestigious options without intentionally thinking about my happiness, and it is good to remember what you say -- happiness means different things to different people and one's picture of happiness may be experienced differently in practice. So, thanks for writing thoughtfully. I appreciate it.

[Anonymous User]

Personally, the thing I hate about my job is managing junior attorneys. Everything else is fine: The workload can be a lot, clients can be demanding, etc., and those work out. But managing others in a high pressure environment I find extremely taxing and unpleasant and has made me much less happy at my job than I would otherwise be.

Of course, you can't get away from managing others, even in other careers, though perhaps managing in an environment with weaker time pressures or lower pressure on quality would be less stressful.

[Anonymous User]

Can you people stop arguing in this thread. I am trying to collect anecdata concerning the decisions that make lawyers unhappy. For the love of all things holy, please stop.

I think the petty bickering gives you a better answer than a direct response ever could. Lawyers are unhappy because they are constantly dissatisfied with their lot.

[Sackboy]

Can you people stop arguing in this thread. I am trying to collect anecdata concerning the decisions that make lawyers unhappy. For the love of all things holy, please stop.

I think the petty bickering gives you a better answer than a direct response ever could. Lawyers are unhappy because they are constantly dissatisfied with their lot.

Pretty sure the only bickering happening on this thread is shitting on one of the classic lawyers who really should have gone to b-school. Don't really see any bickering in here that indicates folks here are generally dissatisfied with their lot.

[Anonymous User]

Can you people stop arguing in this thread. I am trying to collect anecdata concerning the decisions that make lawyers unhappy. For the love of all things holy, please stop.

I think the petty bickering gives you a better answer than a direct response ever could. Lawyers are unhappy because they are constantly dissatisfied with their lot.

Pretty sure the only bickering happening on this thread is shitting on one of the classic lawyers who really should have gone to b-school. Don't really see any bickering in here that indicates folks here are generally dissatisfied with their lot.

Do dentists spend their time fighting if they should have gone to engineering school

[Sackboy]

Pretty sure the only bickering happening on this thread is shitting on one of the classic lawyers who really should have gone to b-school. Don't really see any bickering in here that indicates folks here are generally dissatisfied with their lot.

Do dentists spend their time fighting if they should have gone to engineering school

If a dentist pining about how engineers are the superior master race and how dentists are a joke showed up in a Unhappy Dentists thread, that dentist would probably be shit on. Hope that clears things up.

[Anonymous User]

Pretty sure the only bickering happening on this thread is shitting on one of the classic lawyers who really should have gone to b-school. Don't really see any bickering in here that indicates folks here are generally dissatisfied with their lot.

Do dentists spend their time fighting if they should have gone to engineering school

If a dentist pining about how engineers are the superior master race and how dentists are a joke showed up in a Unhappy Dentists thread, that dentist would probably be shit on. Hope that clears things up.

Outside of Alice in Wonderland, it is pretty clear that lawyers have poor job satisfaction and a lot of misery. The attrition rate in biglaw is outlandishly high compared to other industries, and the stories of unhappiness are legion. The only people who report any real measure of job satisfaction are those who decamp in-house, but even they are quick to point out that you then become a cost center and are secondary to the business team that actually grows and develops the company.

A useful exercise is to take note of the different parties on your transactions and ask who has a good job. The junior associate pulling back-to-back all nighters? Probably not. The partner living life in 6-minute increments and never getting home for dinner? Ha ha. The bankers? Well, their jobs kinda suck too, but at least they have the chance to make bank at a hedge fund or PE after a few years, and are closer to the business side. The in house lawyers? Meh, while they do have the ability to dump the scut work on you, they are still at the beck and call of their bosses, and jump just as high as they are told. The guys who actually hire the lawyers and bankers? Now you are talking, its much better to be the person paying the professional class to execute for you than to be the professional class itself. How many hedge fund managers decide to go reinvest themselves as law firm associates?

The real disconnect starts in school. Engineers, software developers, doctors, etc., get a pretty good idea of what the job will be like in school. Lawyers, on the other hand, spend three years philosophizing, and then wake up one day to be told they will be putting together 100 page diligence memos that few people actually read, and that any typo is the end of the world. It is a pretty jarring disconnect from the rarified law school atmosphere, and the business model is predicated on golden handcuffing to high guaranteed comp in exchange for undertaking a pretty ruthlessly unhappy job.

One need only consult survey after survey of practicing attorneys, showing massive burnout, substance abuse, unhappiness, lack of fulfillment, and a desperate desire to escape to a job where you actually feel the benefits of your work contributions. So look, are there some unicorn positions out there? Sure, but they are tough to find, and the vast majority of people in the field are varying degrees of unhappy, and would be thrilled to find a more fulfilling career. There is a reason "recovering attorney" is such a popular twitter moniker.

Now, on the front end, to the extent that you are stuck in legal, I would definitely suggest making yourself a specialist rather than a generalist. While being a tax/ERISA attorney at a V10 is still going to be pretty horrible, once you lateral down to a V30 or V50 you will start to see a substantial difference in the pain level between specialists and generalists. The flip side is that it is harder to go in house as a specialist, so you do to some extent need to be more comfortable with a long term law firm career, which some folks can handle and some can't.

[nixy]

^This has some elements of truth but is overblown. “The guys [and women] who actually hire the lawyers” is an incredibly heterogeneous group of people including way more than hedge fund managers, and there is no way to generalize that they’re all better off than the lawyers they hire. Nor is law the only profession that isn’t like your school training (I’d bet in fact that most people hiring lawyers are doing work completely unrelated to their educations). You also completely misrepresent the many happy in-house attorneys out there who don’t find that being a “cost center” makes them “secondary” to the business team as opposed to valued colleagues.

(This is all leaving aside that some of the happiest attorneys I know do criminal law. In fact overall it’s an incredibly narrow view of happiness.)

I’d also bet that a ton of dentists spend their time fighting about whether they should have become doctors.

Finally, the CDC’s stats on suicide by occupational group are interesting:

Compared with rates in the total study population, suicide rates were significantly higher in five major industry groups: 1) Mining, Quarrying, and Oil and Gas Extraction (males); 2) Construction (males); 3) Other Services (e.g., automotive repair) (males); 4) Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing, and Hunting (males); and 5) Transportation and Warehousing (males and females). Rates were also significantly higher in six major occupational groups: 1) Construction and Extraction (males and females); 2) Installation, Maintenance, and Repair (males); 3) Arts, Design, Entertainment, Sports, and Media (males); 4) Transportation and Material Moving (males and females); 5) Protective Service (females); and 6) Healthcare Support (females).

[Anonymous User]

Pretty sure the only bickering happening on this thread is shitting on one of the classic lawyers who really should have gone to b-school. Don't really see any bickering in here that indicates folks here are generally dissatisfied with their lot.

Do dentists spend their time fighting if they should have gone to engineering school

If a dentist pining about how engineers are the superior master race and how dentists are a joke showed up in a Unhappy Dentists thread, that dentist would probably be shit on. Hope that clears things up.

Outside of Alice in Wonderland, it is pretty clear that lawyers have poor job satisfaction and a lot of misery. The attrition rate in biglaw is outlandishly high compared to other industries, and the stories of unhappiness are legion. The only people who report any real measure of job satisfaction are those who decamp in-house, but even they are quick to point out that you then become a cost center and are secondary to the business team that actually grows and develops the company.

A useful exercise is to take note of the different parties on your transactions and ask who has a good job. The junior associate pulling back-to-back all nighters? Probably not. The partner living life in 6-minute increments and never getting home for dinner? Ha ha. The bankers? Well, their jobs kinda suck too, but at least they have the chance to make bank at a hedge fund or PE after a few years, and are closer to the business side. The in house lawyers? Meh, while they do have the ability to dump the scut work on you, they are still at the beck and call of their bosses, and jump just as high as they are told. The guys who actually hire the lawyers and bankers? Now you are talking, its much better to be the person paying the professional class to execute for you than to be the professional class itself. How many hedge fund managers decide to go reinvest themselves as law firm associates?

The real disconnect starts in school. Engineers, software developers, doctors, etc., get a pretty good idea of what the job will be like in school. Lawyers, on the other hand, spend three years philosophizing, and then wake up one day to be told they will be putting together 100 page diligence memos that few people actually read, and that any typo is the end of the world. It is a pretty jarring disconnect from the rarified law school atmosphere, and the business model is predicated on golden handcuffing to high guaranteed comp in exchange for undertaking a pretty ruthlessly unhappy job.

One need only consult survey after survey of practicing attorneys, showing massive burnout, substance abuse, unhappiness, lack of fulfillment, and a desperate desire to escape to a job where you actually feel the benefits of your work contributions. So look, are there some unicorn positions out there? Sure, but they are tough to find, and the vast majority of people in the field are varying degrees of unhappy, and would be thrilled to find a more fulfilling career. There is a reason "recovering attorney" is such a popular twitter moniker.

Now, on the front end, to the extent that you are stuck in legal, I would definitely suggest making yourself a specialist rather than a generalist. While being a tax/ERISA attorney at a V10 is still going to be pretty horrible, once you lateral down to a V30 or V50 you will start to see a substantial difference in the pain level between specialists and generalists. The flip side is that it is harder to go in house as a specialist, so you do to some extent need to be more comfortable with a long term law firm career, which some folks can handle and some can't.

All of this. Plus, as least for biglaw (which is probably the majority here), there's a stark disconnect between the leftist activism on campus and the capitalist work we do for corporations. I'm not judging or trying to start a debate over the merits and all that, but it's the reality and it probably feels weird to a lot of lawyers. You do pro bono to feel good about yourself, you donate to charity or political causes, you push the firm to be more inclusive. And then you go defend a sexual harasser or a polluting corporation, or you just do a viewpoint neutral M&A/Finance deal that you feel doesn't advance society. And then you hear about the efforts to divest the firm from Russia and you think wait we were in Russia until now and what other international locations in places that have horrific human rights abuses.

But you need the money and you're just going to do it for a few more years until the dream WL balance ethical job opens up. Which never happens. Against, I'm not saying this to be judgmental nor am I voicing an opinion if these feelings are warranted. But it's a thing. Probably a thing in a lot of jobs but MBA kids didn't start out all rosy eyed. They didn't write a law review article that is now embarrassing if clients see.

[tlsguy2020]

A lot of these posts reflect the mentality of people that work in New York biglaw corporate practices. New York corporate seems to create a few additional sources of unhappiness when compared to non-NYC, non-corporate practices.

• NY corporate associates seem to have an acute sense as to where they sit in the larger financial pecking order. C-Suite/PE firm first, bankers second, lawyers third, accountants/auditors fourth. As a litigator, there isn’t any similar pecking order. We get hired by in-house lawyers to represent corporate clients. We’re highly-paid skilled service providers. I make $300k and my boss makes $4M. Not many other people in my social scene (outside of the occasional engineer here or there) makes as much as I do. And I’m not often exposed to universes where a lot of people out-earn my boss.

• NY corporate lawyers also seem to have a stronger sense of where they sit in the legal pecking order. A commenter above mentioned something about V10 vs V30. In my market (and practice), most lawyers don’t seem to be cognizant of vault rankings. Lawyers seem to think of other firms in terms of “oh yeah, I know so-and-so person there and they seem like they’ve got interesting work.”

Anyways I’ve never once considered whether Bill Ackman or a Goldman MD or elon musk is happier than me. Different people doing different things.

[Anonymous User]

A lot of these posts reflect the mentality of people that work in New York biglaw corporate practices. New York corporate seems to create a few additional sources of unhappiness when compared to non-NYC, non-corporate practices.

• NY corporate associates seem to have an acute sense as to where they sit in the larger financial pecking order. C-Suite/PE firm first, bankers second, lawyers third, accountants/auditors fourth. As a litigator, there isn’t any similar pecking order. We get hired by in-house lawyers to represent corporate clients. We’re highly-paid skilled service providers. I make $300k and my boss makes $4M. Not many other people in my social scene (outside of the occasional engineer here or there) makes as much as I do. And I’m not often exposed to universes where a lot of people out-earn my boss.

• NY corporate lawyers also seem to have a stronger sense of where they sit in the legal pecking order. A commenter above mentioned something about V10 vs V30. In my market (and practice), most lawyers don’t seem to be cognizant of vault rankings. Lawyers seem to think of other firms in terms of “oh yeah, I know so-and-so person there and they seem like they’ve got interesting work.”

Anyways I’ve never once considered whether Bill Ackman or a Goldman MD or elon musk is happier than me. Different people doing different things.

I really don't think this is a corporate thing or a NY thing. Point is if you are grinding to make partner at CSM/DPW/PW or whatever, 1st year partner comp is going to be $2 million plus, and as long as you survive you are basically guaranteed to hit $4 million eventually these days. The structure is going to be radically different at Goodwin/Proskauer/v30 whatever, where you will likely be a non-equity partner making under $1 million, and then need to grind your way upwards with no guarantee of ever making equity or big bucks, and a lot more turning on whether you can build your own book (which is less of a necessity at the really top firms given their client relationships).

Given that you are signing up to be miserable as a partner, the marginal pain difference between v10 (and I mean the white-shoe high PPP firms, not necessarily the actual v10) and v30 is pretty small, but the financial difference is enormous.

And this may be a NY thing, but there is a huge lifestyle difference between $1 million a year and $4 million a year. $1 million a year with kids in Manhattan is a nothing special thing, but $4 million gets you a really fantastic apartment, a second home in the Hamptons, and a lot more dry powder to play around with. CSM/DPW partners live a quite different life than random middle of the pack Dechert partners.

[Anonymous User]

A lot of these posts reflect the mentality of people that work in New York biglaw corporate practices. New York corporate seems to create a few additional sources of unhappiness when compared to non-NYC, non-corporate practices.

• NY corporate associates seem to have an acute sense as to where they sit in the larger financial pecking order. C-Suite/PE firm first, bankers second, lawyers third, accountants/auditors fourth. As a litigator, there isn’t any similar pecking order. We get hired by in-house lawyers to represent corporate clients. We’re highly-paid skilled service providers. I make $300k and my boss makes $4M. Not many other people in my social scene (outside of the occasional engineer here or there) makes as much as I do. And I’m not often exposed to universes where a lot of people out-earn my boss.

• NY corporate lawyers also seem to have a stronger sense of where they sit in the legal pecking order. A commenter above mentioned something about V10 vs V30. In my market (and practice), most lawyers don’t seem to be cognizant of vault rankings. Lawyers seem to think of other firms in terms of “oh yeah, I know so-and-so person there and they seem like they’ve got interesting work.”

Anyways I’ve never once considered whether Bill Ackman or a Goldman MD or elon musk is happier than me. Different people doing different things.

This seems on-the-money. It's also annoying because lawyers are typically significantly smarter (or at least better educated) than bankers. For example, the kids who went to top BBs/EBs at my ug were either a) on on of our connected sports teams, b) kids of bankers, or c) aggressive networkers, but I don't think many of them would have been able to get into a T6.

Inferiority/Superiority complexes both breed resentment and unhappiness.

[Anonymous User]

A lot of these posts reflect the mentality of people that work in New York biglaw corporate practices. New York corporate seems to create a few additional sources of unhappiness when compared to non-NYC, non-corporate practices.

• NY corporate associates seem to have an acute sense as to where they sit in the larger financial pecking order. C-Suite/PE firm first, bankers second, lawyers third, accountants/auditors fourth. As a litigator, there isn’t any similar pecking order. We get hired by in-house lawyers to represent corporate clients. We’re highly-paid skilled service providers. I make $300k and my boss makes $4M. Not many other people in my social scene (outside of the occasional engineer here or there) makes as much as I do. And I’m not often exposed to universes where a lot of people out-earn my boss.

• NY corporate lawyers also seem to have a stronger sense of where they sit in the legal pecking order. A commenter above mentioned something about V10 vs V30. In my market (and practice), most lawyers don’t seem to be cognizant of vault rankings. Lawyers seem to think of other firms in terms of “oh yeah, I know so-and-so person there and they seem like they’ve got interesting work.”

Anyways I’ve never once considered whether Bill Ackman or a Goldman MD or elon musk is happier than me. Different people doing different things.

I really don't think this is a corporate thing or a NY thing. Point is if you are grinding to make partner at CSM/DPW/PW or whatever, 1st year partner comp is going to be $2 million plus, and as long as you survive you are basically guaranteed to hit $4 million eventually these days. The structure is going to be radically different at Goodwin/Proskauer/v30 whatever, where you will likely be a non-equity partner making under $1 million, and then need to grind your way upwards with no guarantee of ever making equity or big bucks, and a lot more turning on whether you can build your own book (which is less of a necessity at the really top firms given their client relationships).

Given that you are signing up to be miserable as a partner, the marginal pain difference between v10 (and I mean the white-shoe high PPP firms, not necessarily the actual v10) and v30 is pretty small, but the financial difference is enormous.

And this may be a NY thing, but there is a huge lifestyle difference between $1 million a year and $4 million a year. $1 million a year with kids in Manhattan is a nothing special thing, but $4 million gets you a really fantastic apartment, a second home in the Hamptons, and a lot more dry powder to play around with. CSM/DPW partners live a quite different life than random middle of the pack Dechert partners.

The idea that you might not be satisfied with $1m a year strikes me as a reflection of such seriously warped standards and values that you’re only likely to find it in the hive of sin that is upper-class New York

I also think that it’s probably unique to corporate, in that the vast majority of BL litigators expect to hit their lifetime maximum annual income as a BL associate

[nixy]

A lot of these posts reflect the mentality of people that work in New York biglaw corporate practices. New York corporate seems to create a few additional sources of unhappiness when compared to non-NYC, non-corporate practices.

• NY corporate associates seem to have an acute sense as to where they sit in the larger financial pecking order. C-Suite/PE firm first, bankers second, lawyers third, accountants/auditors fourth. As a litigator, there isn’t any similar pecking order. We get hired by in-house lawyers to represent corporate clients. We’re highly-paid skilled service providers. I make $300k and my boss makes $4M. Not many other people in my social scene (outside of the occasional engineer here or there) makes as much as I do. And I’m not often exposed to universes where a lot of people out-earn my boss.

• NY corporate lawyers also seem to have a stronger sense of where they sit in the legal pecking order. A commenter above mentioned something about V10 vs V30. In my market (and practice), most lawyers don’t seem to be cognizant of vault rankings. Lawyers seem to think of other firms in terms of “oh yeah, I know so-and-so person there and they seem like they’ve got interesting work.”

Anyways I’ve never once considered whether Bill Ackman or a Goldman MD or elon musk is happier than me. Different people doing different things.

I really don't think this is a corporate thing or a NY thing. Point is if you are grinding to make partner at CSM/DPW/PW or whatever, 1st year partner comp is going to be $2 million plus, and as long as you survive you are basically guaranteed to hit $4 million eventually these days. The structure is going to be radically different at Goodwin/Proskauer/v30 whatever, where you will likely be a non-equity partner making under $1 million, and then need to grind your way upwards with no guarantee of ever making equity or big bucks, and a lot more turning on whether you can build your own book (which is less of a necessity at the really top firms given their client relationships).

Given that you are signing up to be miserable as a partner, the marginal pain difference between v10 (and I mean the white-shoe high PPP firms, not necessarily the actual v10) and v30 is pretty small, but the financial difference is enormous.

And this may be a NY thing, but there is a huge lifestyle difference between $1 million a year and $4 million a year. $1 million a year with kids in Manhattan is a nothing special thing, but $4 million gets you a really fantastic apartment, a second home in the Hamptons, and a lot more dry powder to play around with. CSM/DPW partners live a quite different life than random middle of the pack Dechert partners.

I feel like this post is pretty much proving the one it quotes right.

[tlsguy2020]

Given that you are signing up to be miserable as a partner, the marginal pain difference between v10 (and I mean the white-shoe high PPP firms, not necessarily the actual v10) and v30 is pretty small, but the financial difference is enormous.

And this may be a NY thing, but there is a huge lifestyle difference between $1 million a year and $4 million a year. $1 million a year with kids in Manhattan is a nothing special thing, but $4 million gets you a really fantastic apartment, a second home in the Hamptons, and a lot more dry powder to play around with. CSM/DPW partners live a quite different life than random middle of the pack Dechert partners.

I think this is somewhat of a fair point, but again seems to be far more acute for New Yorkers.

Growing up, I never knew anyone that earned over a million dollars. And in my social circle (doctors, people with random corporate jobs, and an assortment of artists and dirtbags), very few will likely ever make a million dollars. Likewise, very few in-house lawyers at our clients earn a million dollars.

I imagine if my social circle was more New York-centric, I’d have more friends in finance or with family money. Or I’d have more exposure to the PE/HF aristocracy. But since I (and most of my non-NY peers) don’t, there’s less of a pressure to keep up with the Joneses. The closest equivalent to the PE/HF multimillionaire scene in my market is big tech, but there just isn’t as big of a compensation difference between lawyers and most tech workers.

Given that context, the million-dollar Dechert partner is killing it.

ETA: another wrinkle is that I think most litigators (especially juniors and mid levels) don’t aspire to be either the million-dollar non equity partner or the four million dollar equity rainmaker. Instead biglaw is a good way to collect big paychecks before going on to less lucrative litigation gigs

[Anonymous User]

A lot of these posts reflect the mentality of people that work in New York biglaw corporate practices. New York corporate seems to create a few additional sources of unhappiness when compared to non-NYC, non-corporate practices.

• NY corporate associates seem to have an acute sense as to where they sit in the larger financial pecking order. C-Suite/PE firm first, bankers second, lawyers third, accountants/auditors fourth. As a litigator, there isn’t any similar pecking order. We get hired by in-house lawyers to represent corporate clients. We’re highly-paid skilled service providers. I make $300k and my boss makes $4M. Not many other people in my social scene (outside of the occasional engineer here or there) makes as much as I do. And I’m not often exposed to universes where a lot of people out-earn my boss.

• NY corporate lawyers also seem to have a stronger sense of where they sit in the legal pecking order. A commenter above mentioned something about V10 vs V30. In my market (and practice), most lawyers don’t seem to be cognizant of vault rankings. Lawyers seem to think of other firms in terms of “oh yeah, I know so-and-so person there and they seem like they’ve got interesting work.”

Anyways I’ve never once considered whether Bill Ackman or a Goldman MD or elon musk is happier than me. Different people doing different things.

I really don't think this is a corporate thing or a NY thing. Point is if you are grinding to make partner at CSM/DPW/PW or whatever, 1st year partner comp is going to be $2 million plus, and as long as you survive you are basically guaranteed to hit $4 million eventually these days. The structure is going to be radically different at Goodwin/Proskauer/v30 whatever, where you will likely be a non-equity partner making under $1 million, and then need to grind your way upwards with no guarantee of ever making equity or big bucks, and a lot more turning on whether you can build your own book (which is less of a necessity at the really top firms given their client relationships).

Given that you are signing up to be miserable as a partner, the marginal pain difference between v10 (and I mean the white-shoe high PPP firms, not necessarily the actual v10) and v30 is pretty small, but the financial difference is enormous.

And this may be a NY thing, but there is a huge lifestyle difference between $1 million a year and $4 million a year. $1 million a year with kids in Manhattan is a nothing special thing, but $4 million gets you a really fantastic apartment, a second home in the Hamptons, and a lot more dry powder to play around with. CSM/DPW partners live a quite different life than random middle of the pack Dechert partners.

While of course earning $4 million a year is better, the $1 million a year earning partner must still be living sufficiently luxurious life. After all that partner must have worked in biglaw for at least 8 years before getting there and must have saved up and invested a lot of money. If $1 million a year can only get you an average working class life, that speaks to your lack of ability to manage your personal finances barring exceptional circumstances.

[Anonymous User]

Oh the woes of the junior/non-equity mini-milliion dollar a year comp.

Jesus fucking Christ I can't believe the shit I read here, and of course it's in this thread.

Personally, I'm happy because I don't hang out with lawyers.

[Anonymous User]

A lot of these posts reflect the mentality of people that work in New York biglaw corporate practices. New York corporate seems to create a few additional sources of unhappiness when compared to non-NYC, non-corporate practices.

• NY corporate associates seem to have an acute sense as to where they sit in the larger financial pecking order. C-Suite/PE firm first, bankers second, lawyers third, accountants/auditors fourth. As a litigator, there isn’t any similar pecking order. We get hired by in-house lawyers to represent corporate clients. We’re highly-paid skilled service providers. I make $300k and my boss makes $4M. Not many other people in my social scene (outside of the occasional engineer here or there) makes as much as I do. And I’m not often exposed to universes where a lot of people out-earn my boss.

• NY corporate lawyers also seem to have a stronger sense of where they sit in the legal pecking order. A commenter above mentioned something about V10 vs V30. In my market (and practice), most lawyers don’t seem to be cognizant of vault rankings. Lawyers seem to think of other firms in terms of “oh yeah, I know so-and-so person there and they seem like they’ve got interesting work.”

Anyways I’ve never once considered whether Bill Ackman or a Goldman MD or elon musk is happier than me. Different people doing different things.

I really don't think this is a corporate thing or a NY thing. Point is if you are grinding to make partner at CSM/DPW/PW or whatever, 1st year partner comp is going to be $2 million plus, and as long as you survive you are basically guaranteed to hit $4 million eventually these days. The structure is going to be radically different at Goodwin/Proskauer/v30 whatever, where you will likely be a non-equity partner making under $1 million, and then need to grind your way upwards with no guarantee of ever making equity or big bucks, and a lot more turning on whether you can build your own book (which is less of a necessity at the really top firms given their client relationships).

Given that you are signing up to be miserable as a partner, the marginal pain difference between v10 (and I mean the white-shoe high PPP firms, not necessarily the actual v10) and v30 is pretty small, but the financial difference is enormous.

And this may be a NY thing, but there is a huge lifestyle difference between $1 million a year and $4 million a year. $1 million a year with kids in Manhattan is a nothing special thing, but $4 million gets you a really fantastic apartment, a second home in the Hamptons, and a lot more dry powder to play around with. CSM/DPW partners live a quite different life than random middle of the pack Dechert partners.

While of course earning $4 million a year is better, the $1 million a year earning partner must still be living sufficiently luxurious life. After all that partner must have worked in biglaw for at least 8 years before getting there and must have saved up and invested a lot of money. If $1 million a year can only get you an average working class life, that speaks to your lack of ability to manage your personal finances barring exceptional circumstances.

Given NY tax rates and private school tuition, $1 million in Manhattan isn't going to make you rich. Remember that you are making this while working a brutal and agonizing job that is, for most people, absolutely torching your health and killing your personal life, so "winning" is being able to call it a career at 45. Not so easy to do that on a $1 million a year with significant financial commitments. Much easier to do that after having made a lot at a v10 and saved up a bundle. Having "F you" money is a huge psychological relief when your job is horrible.

Idea that your average random v50 partner or whatever is living it up is laughable, this really isn't a life to aspire to and job satisfaction is brutally low. Not at all comparable to corporate executive or whatever that might spend the same 60 hours engaged in work activities, but is managing people and running meetings rather than finalizing 100 page documents under immense stress at 3am and getting reamed out for typos.

[tlsguy2020]

Given NY tax rates and private school tuition, $1 million in Manhattan isn't going to make you rich. Remember that you are making this while working a brutal and agonizing job that is, for most people, absolutely torching your health and killing your personal life, so "winning" is being able to call it a career at 45. Not so easy to do that on a $1 million a year with significant financial commitments. Much easier to do that after having made a lot at a v10 and saved up a bundle. Having "F you" money is a huge psychological relief when your job is horrible.

Idea that your average random v50 partner or whatever is living it up is laughable, this really isn't a life to aspire to and job satisfaction is brutally low. Not at all comparable to corporate executive or whatever that might spend the same 60 hours engaged in work activities, but is managing people and running meetings rather than finalizing 100 page documents under immense stress at 3am and getting reamed out for typos.

This really sucks for v50 partners and I’m sorry for them. I personally haven’t reached the point where the job has become as hellacious as you describe. Sometimes it sucks, but on balance, I enjoy what I do. I like to read, write, and get in the weeds on issues. I went to trial recently for the first time. Incredibly grueling experience and not something I could do consistently. But it was rewarding to compress years of work into a few weeks and watch it pay off. I also work on pro Bono asylum cases in which I’ve helped needy people avoid deportation. It feels good to know I have skills powerful enough to help people out in this way.

What do I get in exchange for above? Somewhere between $300 and $400k. That’s a lot. I treat myself to good food and a personal trainer. I go on fantastic vacations. I also save and invest a decent chunk of my compensation. All this while living not in NYC, but another VHCOL city.

If the job eventually burns me out, I can just get a different job doing something similar that pays less. Work at a smaller firm, work for the government, try for an in-house litigation counsel job. Fucking move to Idaho idk. But I’ll manage fine.

I think the cognitive dissonance here is that making a million bucks (or four million if you’re not a v50 TTT I guess) just isn’t really the goal for a lot of us. If we do end up in the position to do so, awesome. But if we don’t, that’s ok.

[Anonymous User]

Normally not a fan of "this couple makes 500k a year each and spends it all on bagels, leaving them nothing to save for retirement". But in this case I get it. It's not that you can't live off a million bucks. You can. But you spend the bulk of your adult life working crazy hours, you kinda expect the light at the end of the tunnel to be something more than just more pie. And you've been sold the story that just wait until you make partner, that's where the real money is. But you get there and it's not worth it.

[Sackboy]

Someone on TLS recently suggested this talk from Shanin Specter (big-time personal injury lawyer in Philly who teaches at several top schools), and imo it's genuinely exceptional, and very much worthy of an hour of your time. It's on the exact topic you asked about.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdLsatFpBWA

I actually watched this, and it was pretty solid. Stop chasing the money folks. Seems to be the easy answer here.

[nixy]

A lot of these posts reflect the mentality of people that work in New York biglaw corporate practices. New York corporate seems to create a few additional sources of unhappiness when compared to non-NYC, non-corporate practices.

• NY corporate associates seem to have an acute sense as to where they sit in the larger financial pecking order. C-Suite/PE firm first, bankers second, lawyers third, accountants/auditors fourth. As a litigator, there isn’t any similar pecking order. We get hired by in-house lawyers to represent corporate clients. We’re highly-paid skilled service providers. I make $300k and my boss makes $4M. Not many other people in my social scene (outside of the occasional engineer here or there) makes as much as I do. And I’m not often exposed to universes where a lot of people out-earn my boss.

• NY corporate lawyers also seem to have a stronger sense of where they sit in the legal pecking order. A commenter above mentioned something about V10 vs V30. In my market (and practice), most lawyers don’t seem to be cognizant of vault rankings. Lawyers seem to think of other firms in terms of “oh yeah, I know so-and-so person there and they seem like they’ve got interesting work.”

Anyways I’ve never once considered whether Bill Ackman or a Goldman MD or elon musk is happier than me. Different people doing different things.

I really don't think this is a corporate thing or a NY thing. Point is if you are grinding to make partner at CSM/DPW/PW or whatever, 1st year partner comp is going to be $2 million plus, and as long as you survive you are basically guaranteed to hit $4 million eventually these days. The structure is going to be radically different at Goodwin/Proskauer/v30 whatever, where you will likely be a non-equity partner making under $1 million, and then need to grind your way upwards with no guarantee of ever making equity or big bucks, and a lot more turning on whether you can build your own book (which is less of a necessity at the really top firms given their client relationships).

Given that you are signing up to be miserable as a partner, the marginal pain difference between v10 (and I mean the white-shoe high PPP firms, not necessarily the actual v10) and v30 is pretty small, but the financial difference is enormous.

And this may be a NY thing, but there is a huge lifestyle difference between $1 million a year and $4 million a year. $1 million a year with kids in Manhattan is a nothing special thing, but $4 million gets you a really fantastic apartment, a second home in the Hamptons, and a lot more dry powder to play around with. CSM/DPW partners live a quite different life than random middle of the pack Dechert partners.

While of course earning $4 million a year is better, the $1 million a year earning partner must still be living sufficiently luxurious life. After all that partner must have worked in biglaw for at least 8 years before getting there and must have saved up and invested a lot of money. If $1 million a year can only get you an average working class life, that speaks to your lack of ability to manage your personal finances barring exceptional circumstances.

Given NY tax rates and private school tuition, $1 million in Manhattan isn't going to make you rich. Remember that you are making this while working a brutal and agonizing job that is, for most people, absolutely torching your health and killing your personal life, so "winning" is being able to call it a career at 45. Not so easy to do that on a $1 million a year with significant financial commitments. Much easier to do that after having made a lot at a v10 and saved up a bundle. Having "F you" money is a huge psychological relief when your job is horrible.

Idea that your average random v50 partner or whatever is living it up is laughable, this really isn't a life to aspire to and job satisfaction is brutally low. Not at all comparable to corporate executive or whatever that might spend the same 60 hours engaged in work activities, but is managing people and running meetings rather than finalizing 100 page documents under immense stress at 3am and getting reamed out for typos.

This is dumb. $1 million a year is, objectively, a lot of money. If your point is that the job is so very terrible that only colossal sums of money make it worth it, then go do something else that doesn’t make you so unhappy where you won’t need to make as much money in consolation. The idea that a generic hypothetical “corporate executive job,” whatever that is, is somehow objectively better than law firm partner is one that has already been debunked in this thread (it also seems you haven’t actually done either of those jobs?). If you, personally, would enjoy being “a corporate executive” more than being a lawyer, fair, I guess, and maybe a reasonable explanation for *your* unhappiness. But that’s about you, not a natural law of lawyering (and you’re probably still young enough to make a career change if you’re so unhappy).

[Anonymous User]

Have not been following this thread but chiming in anyway because some of the more recent posts are objectively ridiculous. Maybe V10 NYC corporate partners are different, but I don't know a single partner who is doing this for the money, much less FU money. All of them love the work (or love to hate the work), and the money is just a cherry on top. ~$1m will get you a decent condo, private school and an au pair for the kids, savings for retirement, a couple big vacations a year (prolly not a vacation home, though), and an above-entry level BMW/Merc. $1m means you don't have to worry about anything (even if you might want more), which is really all a partner needs in order focus all of their waking hours worrying about the job. That's not to say, as others have pointed out, that FU money isn't nice. It's just not what motivates the partners that I know.

Hence why those of us who hate the job but want the money hate the system even more - we think partnership would make us happy because of the $$$ but in reality, the only way to be happy at a firm long term is to actually like what you do, and have enough money so you can keep doing it without care for your personal life. The $$$ (whether $1m or $4m) makes it easier to get the job done.

One MAJOR caveat is this is about the partners only. Their families may be much happier (and more likely to stick around?) with some extra FU money to sweeten the pot.

[Anonymous User]

Just a word of warning, choosing a firm in 2022 based of the equity v. non-equity structure as a junior seems a bit silly given that basically all the firms with pure equity/lockstep models are moving away from that model because it makes it harder to retain rainmakers.