What would happen if biglaw became like consulting? Forum

[Anonymous User]

Get rid of the bar and law school. Hire newly-graduated bachelors. Would wages and billable hours fall? Would the shortage of PI lawyers be filled? In-house opportunities become even more competitive where it might actually be expected to stay with the firm for a longer number of years? Open to any speculation.

[Antetrust]

If you remove barriers to entry then, yes, wages will fall because the supply of labor will raise. There probably would also be downward pressure on billing rates generally due to increased competition. However, elite firms will still command high billing rates because large clients will still be willing to pay ungodly amounts for the "best" legal services available, especially in suits or transactions with millions or billions of dollars on the line. Similarly, the increase in supply of labor will fill the gaps of wherever there is currently a shortage of lawyers - or, at least, contribute to filling those gaps. Most positions will become at least marginally more competitive as more people are competing for the same job. Arguably, the positions that are currently the most competitive won't become much more competitive because most of the people who want those jobs (and are able to do them competently) are already competing for them.

[Anonymous User]

But I ate breakfast yesterday.

[jamestaylorrecordsas]

You'd have Simpson Thacher & McKinsey

[Anonymous User]

Get rid of the bar and law school. Hire newly-graduated bachelors. Would wages and billable hours fall? Would the shortage of PI lawyers be filled? In-house opportunities become even more competitive where it might actually be expected to stay with the firm for a longer number of years? Open to any speculation.

I think salaries would plummet. The group of people who can competently practice law out of undergrad is much larger than those who can competently do banking/consulting, given that the latter require significant mathematical intuition and skills, which few grads have these days. You probably end up with something like the UK NQ regime, but without the upward comp pressure from US competitors. Still gonna have a lot of firms because of conflicts concerns, but there is going to be a lot of talent out there for relatively cheap prices, so you probably end up with lawyers looking more like accountants on the comp end.

[Anonymous User]

Serious answer: biglaw would be mostly unchanged. Because consulting looks a lot like biglaw. The cravath model and the McKinsey model are very similar. Both hire highly credentialed people, train them in, pay them very well, work them hard and weed out the less motivated.

Outside of biglaw, you'd see a lot of smaller firm paying even less than they do now, and a lot of people from other careers just giving it a shot for a while.

[Res Ipsa Loquitter]

Get rid of the bar and law school. Hire newly-graduated bachelors. Would wages and billable hours fall? Would the shortage of PI lawyers be filled? In-house opportunities become even more competitive where it might actually be expected to stay with the firm for a longer number of years? Open to any speculation.

I think salaries would plummet. The group of people who can competently practice law out of undergrad is much larger than those who can competently do banking/consulting, given that the latter require significant mathematical intuition and skills, which few grads have these days. You probably end up with something like the UK NQ regime, but without the upward comp pressure from US competitors. Still gonna have a lot of firms because of conflicts concerns, but there is going to be a lot of talent out there for relatively cheap prices, so you probably end up with lawyers looking more like accountants on the comp end.

You don’t need significant mathematical intuition and skills to do banking or consulting. More like numerical literacy.

[Anonymous User]

Get rid of the bar and law school. Hire newly-graduated bachelors. Would wages and billable hours fall? Would the shortage of PI lawyers be filled? In-house opportunities become even more competitive where it might actually be expected to stay with the firm for a longer number of years? Open to any speculation.

I think salaries would plummet. The group of people who can competently practice law out of undergrad is much larger than those who can competently do banking/consulting, given that the latter require significant mathematical intuition and skills, which few grads have these days. You probably end up with something like the UK NQ regime, but without the upward comp pressure from US competitors. Still gonna have a lot of firms because of conflicts concerns, but there is going to be a lot of talent out there for relatively cheap prices, so you probably end up with lawyers looking more like accountants on the comp end.

You don’t need significant mathematical intuition and skills to do banking or consulting. More like numerical literacy.

Prob a majority of the lawyers I work with can't add together two three digit numbers in their head, so Goldman and McKinsey ain't happening. The difference between interviews where you actually need to demonstrate quantitative competence and law firm interviews is enormous.

[Res Ipsa Loquitter]

Get rid of the bar and law school. Hire newly-graduated bachelors. Would wages and billable hours fall? Would the shortage of PI lawyers be filled? In-house opportunities become even more competitive where it might actually be expected to stay with the firm for a longer number of years? Open to any speculation.

I think salaries would plummet. The group of people who can competently practice law out of undergrad is much larger than those who can competently do banking/consulting, given that the latter require significant mathematical intuition and skills, which few grads have these days. You probably end up with something like the UK NQ regime, but without the upward comp pressure from US competitors. Still gonna have a lot of firms because of conflicts concerns, but there is going to be a lot of talent out there for relatively cheap prices, so you probably end up with lawyers looking more like accountants on the comp end.

You don’t need significant mathematical intuition and skills to do banking or consulting. More like numerical literacy.

Prob a majority of the lawyers I work with can't add together two three digit numbers in their head, so Goldman and McKinsey ain't happening. The difference between interviews where you actually need to demonstrate quantitative competence and law firm interviews is enormous.

I agree many lawyers lack basic numerical literacy and quantitative reasoning skills. Where I disagreed is “significant mathematical intuition and skills.” That’s not required for the jobs you mentioned. Getting hired as a management consultant =/= getting hired as a trader at Jane Street

[Anonymous User]

Arguably, the positions that are currently the most competitive won't become much more competitive because most of the people who want those jobs (and are able to do them competently) are already competing for them.

So you don't think getting rid of the bar exam and law school would turn college grads to the legal profession who otherwise would have joined consulting firms and other relately high-compentency white collar roles?

[Antetrust]

Arguably, the positions that are currently the most competitive won't become much more competitive because most of the people who want those jobs (and are able to do them competently) are already competing for them.

So you don't think getting rid of the bar exam and law school would turn college grads to the legal profession who otherwise would have joined consulting firms and other relately high-compentency white collar roles?

I do believe that, yes! The sentence you quoted was me trying to portray the other side of the argument fairly, i.e., playing a bit of the devil's advocate. I can imagine, for example, many high-competency jobs that I would have no desire to compete for even if entry barriers were suddenly abolished.

[Anonymous User]

Arguably, the positions that are currently the most competitive won't become much more competitive because most of the people who want those jobs (and are able to do them competently) are already competing for them.

So you don't think getting rid of the bar exam and law school would turn college grads to the legal profession who otherwise would have joined consulting firms and other relately high-compentency white collar roles?

It would not, imo. Because consulting and IB are already higher status / better careers (hence all the jealous threads like this one). Maybe a handful on the margins but not enough to make a noticeable difference. The main difference would be a huge influx in lawyers but as has been pointed out the pool of law grads is already far larger than biglaw has room for, and it hasn't watered it down.

[Anonymous User]

Arguably, the positions that are currently the most competitive won't become much more competitive because most of the people who want those jobs (and are able to do them competently) are already competing for them.

So you don't think getting rid of the bar exam and law school would turn college grads to the legal profession who otherwise would have joined consulting firms and other relately high-compentency white collar roles?

It would not, imo. Because consulting and IB are already higher status / better careers (hence all the jealous threads like this one). Maybe a handful on the margins but not enough to make a noticeable difference. The main difference would be a huge influx in lawyers but as has been pointed out the pool of law grads is already far larger than biglaw has room for, and it hasn't watered it down.

I'm neither a lawyer nor a consultant (though I spend a significant amount of time around both) and I definitely don't view consulting as higher-status (can't say whether it's a better job). My limited understanding is that consultants have zero expertise in anything and do nothing other than produce useless powerpoints (their value-add is in sharing trade secrets and enabling collusion).

People generally think that lawyers at least have some domain-specific knowledge that is in some way impressive. In the same way that a lot of people view medicine as a terrible job but still something impressive as a learned skill.

[Anonymous User]

Get rid of the bar and law school. Hire newly-graduated bachelors. Would wages and billable hours fall? Would the shortage of PI lawyers be filled? In-house opportunities become even more competitive where it might actually be expected to stay with the firm for a longer number of years? Open to any speculation.

What’s the reason for asking this? It seems incredibly unlikely ever to happen. In practice, if it did happen, I think it would create a two-tiered profession in which “properly trained” lawyer could command a premium over the UG-only variety, at least until all the JDs retired.

I don’t know how much of a barrier law school is to entry to people who would be competitive for consulting/IB. I don’t know a lot of people for whom consulting/IB is a realistic career path who think “I’d do law instead of this if I didn’t have to go to law school first;” most people who can enter consulting/IB have great law school opportunities as well. People who would benefit from not having to go to law school probably aren’t in a position to take fancy consulting/IB jobs to begin with.

[Anonymous User]

Arguably, the positions that are currently the most competitive won't become much more competitive because most of the people who want those jobs (and are able to do them competently) are already competing for them.

So you don't think getting rid of the bar exam and law school would turn college grads to the legal profession who otherwise would have joined consulting firms and other relately high-compentency white collar roles?

It would not, imo. Because consulting and IB are already higher status / better careers (hence all the jealous threads like this one). Maybe a handful on the margins but not enough to make a noticeable difference. The main difference would be a huge influx in lawyers but as has been pointed out the pool of law grads is already far larger than biglaw has room for, and it hasn't watered it down.

Dude, I've worked in consulting. What the fuck are you people talking about? "High-competency"? "Higher status"? What do you think your typical associate at MBB or T2 do?

[Anonymous User]

Arguably, the positions that are currently the most competitive won't become much more competitive because most of the people who want those jobs (and are able to do them competently) are already competing for them.

So you don't think getting rid of the bar exam and law school would turn college grads to the legal profession who otherwise would have joined consulting firms and other relately high-compentency white collar roles?

It would not, imo. Because consulting and IB are already higher status / better careers (hence all the jealous threads like this one). Maybe a handful on the margins but not enough to make a noticeable difference. The main difference would be a huge influx in lawyers but as has been pointed out the pool of law grads is already far larger than biglaw has room for, and it hasn't watered it down.

Dude, I've worked in consulting. What the fuck are you people talking about? "High-competency"? "Higher status"? What do you think your typical associate at MBB or T2 do?

What do we "do" for that matter? It doesn't matter how hard the job is. Those are high paying jobs that are really hard to get. They recruit almost exclusively from top business schools. The exit options are really strong. You can dismiss them as useless powerpoint monkeys are you want but objectively that doesn't change the status. My point is not glorify consulting or anything, just to point out that this dynamic exists already, and without the gatekeeping of law school and the bar. It would continue to exists in law as well.

[Res Ipsa Loquitter]

Arguably, the positions that are currently the most competitive won't become much more competitive because most of the people who want those jobs (and are able to do them competently) are already competing for them.

So you don't think getting rid of the bar exam and law school would turn college grads to the legal profession who otherwise would have joined consulting firms and other relately high-compentency white collar roles?

It would not, imo. Because consulting and IB are already higher status / better careers (hence all the jealous threads like this one). Maybe a handful on the margins but not enough to make a noticeable difference. The main difference would be a huge influx in lawyers but as has been pointed out the pool of law grads is already far larger than biglaw has room for, and it hasn't watered it down.

Dude, I've worked in consulting. What the fuck are you people talking about? "High-competency"? "Higher status"? What do you think your typical associate at MBB or T2 do?

What do we "do" for that matter? It doesn't matter how hard the job is. Those are high paying jobs that are really hard to get. They recruit almost exclusively from top business schools. The exit options are really strong. You can dismiss them as useless powerpoint monkeys are you want but objectively that doesn't change the status. My point is not glorify consulting or anything, just to point out that this dynamic exists already, and without the gatekeeping of law school and the bar. It would continue to exists in law as well.

They’re more selective because they face a giant pool (all undergrads) for a small number of jobs. Whereas biglaw is focused on the smaller universe of law students.

IB past the analyst level has higher compensation than biglaw, while IB analyst roles have better exit opportunities. Consulting pays less than biglaw, and outside of MBB doesn’t necessarily have better exits, either.

I have read countless “banking and consulting are superior to biglaw” posts here, but I’ve never read a high quality one.

[Anonymous User]

Arguably, the positions that are currently the most competitive won't become much more competitive because most of the people who want those jobs (and are able to do them competently) are already competing for them.

So you don't think getting rid of the bar exam and law school would turn college grads to the legal profession who otherwise would have joined consulting firms and other relately high-compentency white collar roles?

It would not, imo. Because consulting and IB are already higher status / better careers (hence all the jealous threads like this one). Maybe a handful on the margins but not enough to make a noticeable difference. The main difference would be a huge influx in lawyers but as has been pointed out the pool of law grads is already far larger than biglaw has room for, and it hasn't watered it down.

Dude, I've worked in consulting. What the fuck are you people talking about? "High-competency"? "Higher status"? What do you think your typical associate at MBB or T2 do?

What do we "do" for that matter? It doesn't matter how hard the job is. Those are high paying jobs that are really hard to get. They recruit almost exclusively from top business schools. The exit options are really strong. You can dismiss them as useless powerpoint monkeys are you want but objectively that doesn't change the status. My point is not glorify consulting or anything, just to point out that this dynamic exists already, and without the gatekeeping of law school and the bar. It would continue to exists in law as well.

(1) They're "really strong" for a select number of consulting firms.
(2) They're "really strong" only from the perspective of a young analyst or associate in comparison to their age cohort.

Also, as mentioned above the pool of applicants for consulting jobs is massive. It's not just business undergrads or MBAs. There are a plethora of people with masters and doctorates applying as well. Plus, thousands upon thousands of international applicants. A significant portion of the people I worked with in my former consulting job were internationals. It's more selective on paper because there isn't an actual barrier to consulting except having an undergraduate degree.

[Anonymous User]

Shhhhh OP!

Our profession is protected by a cartel that ensures that 25 year olds can regularly start out at $200k+ in salary, backed by hundreds of years of history, for no actual reason.

If they find out, we're fucked!

[glitched]

Honestly, for litigation, we'd probably have more raw talent, but the training would be a massive pain the ass. We don't need three years of it (probably one year would do), but law school does teach you how the law works.

Hard to predict how salaries would work. If I had to guess, probably similar to IB model - lower base but bigger bonus.