So you want to be a NY Corporate Associate? Forum

[BernieTrump]

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[J90]

Reposting again, but am curious about your thoughts on different legal exit options (both what you've had offered, and what you've seen people exit to).

• You'd talked about working nearly the same hours for much less pay - was this in reference to working at a bank, in say, IBD Legal?
• Are there any positions at banks that you'd find more interesting than others? I guess in the sense that you'd be supporting M&A, versus ECM/DCM, versus leveraged finance, etc.
• What exits are there, really, for an associate doing legal finance work (acquisition finance via credit facilities/high-yield debt/etc.)?
• For a firm doing a lot of work with private equity firms, is it ever an interesting move to jump to a portfolio company of one of these (God forbid I ever work at a PE firm itself)?

I appreciate you being candid. Thanks!

[krads153]

Wealthy and working class are worlds apart. Big law associates are in between.

This is not wrong. It's not working class because it's not physical labor, but it's getting worse every year. When I was a first year people all lived near the office (or in a trend neighborhood) and could pay off their loans in 1-2 years. Now people are living in (non-trend spots of) Brooklyn, Queens and Jersey with 50 minute commutes to save money. This was very, very rare when I started. You also hear of people leaving as 3rd and 4th years with a negative net worth, which was also unheard of a decade ago.

Remember that a first year made about the same (bonus+base, though base was lower back then) in 2000 in nominal dollars as a first year made in 2016. Tuition and NYC rent have both more than doubled in that time. In my era, my summer associate salary (which you got first and second summers and lasted 14 weeks) covered almost all of my tuition for 2L and 3L. I rented a big 1 bedroom in a cool neighborhood for $1995. The building I lived in is huge and I just looked it up: same apartment ten floors lower is 4300 now.

Base salary last went up in 2007, a decade ago. As above, base+bonus was the same in 2000, 16 years ago.

lol. More people need to read this post. Landlords, partners and law schools are laughing all the way to the bank. So, why exactly are people still going to law school with large debt?

[asdfdfdfadfas]

Wealthy and working class are worlds apart. Big law associates are in between.

This is not wrong. It's not working class because it's not physical labor, but it's getting worse every year. When I was a first year people all lived near the office (or in a trend neighborhood) and could pay off their loans in 1-2 years. Now people are living in (non-trend spots of) Brooklyn, Queens and Jersey with 50 minute commutes to save money. This was very, very rare when I started. You also hear of people leaving as 3rd and 4th years with a negative net worth, which was also unheard of a decade ago.

Remember that a first year made about the same (bonus+base, though base was lower back then) in 2000 in nominal dollars as a first year made in 2016. Tuition and NYC rent have both more than doubled in that time. In my era, my summer associate salary (which you got first and second summers and lasted 14 weeks) covered almost all of my tuition for 2L and 3L. I rented a big 1 bedroom in a cool neighborhood for $1995. The building I lived in is huge and I just looked it up: same apartment ten floors lower is 4300 now.

Base salary last went up in 2007, a decade ago. As above, base+bonus was the same in 2000, 16 years ago.

lol. More people need to read this post. Landlords, partners and law schools are laughing all the way to the bank. So, why exactly are people still going to law school with large debt?

My thought was if you went and you got biglaw you may have 300k in debt, but at least you'd have a large cash flow. So, you pay as little as possible on your debt and begin transferring that cash flow into either 1) Real money that holds it's value or 2) begin plowing your money in securities. Then, try to restructure your debt at 2 or 3% with private lenders.

Whereas if you don't go to law school you may just end up job hopping from one miserable job to the next where the IT systems suck, the people are miserable and disingenuous, and you are one wrong move away from being fired by your boss, regardless of how great you do at your job. Now you get to play the HR game for 5 to 6 months answering questions about what your favorite color is and why and tell me about a situation where you faced adversity and how did you handle it

This is coming from someone who has tried to do it the no debt way and grind it out for 6 years. I am literally in no better financial situation than when I started and it has been miserable.

[Danger Zone]

Surprise! In big law you also work with shitty people and systems and are one wrong move away from being shown the door. OP is actually an outlier in terms of how "fortunate" he has been to not be thrown out of the firm after all these years.

[asdfdfdfadfas]

Surprise! In big law you also work with shitty people and systems and are one wrong move away from being shown the door. OP is actually an outlier in terms of how "fortunate" he has been to not be thrown out of the firm after all these years.

I don't doubt it, but at least while you are stuck in the hell hole you are being compensated relatively well for it.

[sundance95]

I don't do hand markups either - don't get people who do.

They probably want to be able to bill on the train? Also more billables: hand mark ups need to be inputted.

[BernieTrump]

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[BernieTrump]

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[asdfdfdfadfas]

Wealthy and working class are worlds apart. Big law associates are in between.

This is not wrong. It's not working class because it's not physical labor, but it's getting worse every year. When I was a first year people all lived near the office (or in a trend neighborhood) and could pay off their loans in 1-2 years. Now people are living in (non-trend spots of) Brooklyn, Queens and Jersey with 50 minute commutes to save money. This was very, very rare when I started. You also hear of people leaving as 3rd and 4th years with a negative net worth, which was also unheard of a decade ago.

Remember that a first year made about the same (bonus+base, though base was lower back then) in 2000 in nominal dollars as a first year made in 2016. Tuition and NYC rent have both more than doubled in that time. In my era, my summer associate salary (which you got first and second summers and lasted 14 weeks) covered almost all of my tuition for 2L and 3L. I rented a big 1 bedroom in a cool neighborhood for $1995. The building I lived in is huge and I just looked it up: same apartment ten floors lower is 4300 now.

Base salary last went up in 2007, a decade ago. As above, base+bonus was the same in 2000, 16 years ago.

lol. More people need to read this post. Landlords, partners and law schools are laughing all the way to the bank. So, why exactly are people still going to law school with large debt?

My thought was if you went and you got biglaw you may have 300k in debt, but at least you'd have a large cash flow. So, you pay as little as possible on your debt and begin transferring that cash flow into either 1) Real money that holds it's value or 2) begin plowing your money in securities. Then, try to restructure your debt at 2 or 3% with private lenders.

Whereas if you don't go to law school you may just end up job hopping from one miserable job to the next where the IT systems suck, the people are miserable and disingenuous, and you are one wrong move away from being fired by your boss, regardless of how great you do at your job. Now you get to play the HR game for 5 to 6 months answering questions about what your favorite color is and why and tell me about a situation where you faced adversity and how did you handle it

This is coming from someone who has tried to do it the no debt way and grind it out for 6 years. I am literally in no better financial situation than when I started and it has been miserable.

I suggest you get out excel. Even if you can save 50k/yr (very hard now), and even if you can make 5-6% compounded in returns without taking huge risks (in which case you should market your talents to hedge funds), take a look at how long it takes for your 150K in financial assets to overcome your 300K in debt, even if you can refinance. Now do the same calculation factoring the opportunity cost of not earning anything during law school.

Right, but the question is always- compared to WHAT? Save 50k a year!?!? The very possibility of that to me is sublime. I don't think you interpreted my post as I meant it- I am not trying to overcome the 300k in debt. I am trying to write it off after 10 years or whatever payee is.

The whole point was that that "Opportunity cost" is no more guaranteed than your job in biglaw.

[whysoseriousbiglaw]

Wealthy and working class are worlds apart. Big law associates are in between.

This is not wrong. It's not working class because it's not physical labor, but it's getting worse every year. When I was a first year people all lived near the office (or in a trend neighborhood) and could pay off their loans in 1-2 years. Now people are living in (non-trend spots of) Brooklyn, Queens and Jersey with 50 minute commutes to save money. This was very, very rare when I started. You also hear of people leaving as 3rd and 4th years with a negative net worth, which was also unheard of a decade ago.

Remember that a first year made about the same (bonus+base, though base was lower back then) in 2000 in nominal dollars as a first year made in 2016. Tuition and NYC rent have both more than doubled in that time. In my era, my summer associate salary (which you got first and second summers and lasted 14 weeks) covered almost all of my tuition for 2L and 3L. I rented a big 1 bedroom in a cool neighborhood for $1995. The building I lived in is huge and I just looked it up: same apartment ten floors lower is 4300 now.

Base salary last went up in 2007, a decade ago. As above, base+bonus was the same in 2000, 16 years ago.

lol. More people need to read this post. Landlords, partners and law schools are laughing all the way to the bank. So, why exactly are people still going to law school with large debt?

My thought was if you went and you got biglaw you may have 300k in debt, but at least you'd have a large cash flow. So, you pay as little as possible on your debt and begin transferring that cash flow into either 1) Real money that holds it's value or 2) begin plowing your money in securities. Then, try to restructure your debt at 2 or 3% with private lenders.

Whereas if you don't go to law school you may just end up job hopping from one miserable job to the next where the IT systems suck, the people are miserable and disingenuous, and you are one wrong move away from being fired by your boss, regardless of how great you do at your job. Now you get to play the HR game for 5 to 6 months answering questions about what your favorite color is and why and tell me about a situation where you faced adversity and how did you handle it

This is coming from someone who has tried to do it the no debt way and grind it out for 6 years. I am literally in no better financial situation than when I started and it has been miserable.

I suggest you get out excel. Even if you can save 50k/yr (very hard now), and even if you can make 5-6% compounded in returns without taking huge risks (in which case you should market your talents to hedge funds), take a look at how long it takes for your 150K in financial assets to overcome your 300K in debt, even if you can refinance. Now do the same calculation factoring the opportunity cost of not earning anything during law school.

Right, but the question is always- compared to WHAT? Save 50k a year!?!? The very possibility of that to me is sublime. I don't think you interpreted my post as I meant it- I am not trying to overcome the 300k in debt. I am trying to write it off after 10 years or whatever payee is.

The whole point was that that "Opportunity cost" is no more guaranteed than your job in biglaw.

You dont get your "debt written off" in PAYE...there's a huge tax bomb - you are taxed on the amount forgiven as if it's income. So if you have 300k forgiven, that will be treated as income and you will be taxed like 40% on it or whatever IN ADDITION to making payments for 20 years or whatever it is each month. And with the stock market the way it is now (and on average) you are not going to beat your debt in the market.

So most of that cash you saved up in biglaw might just be used on making minimum PAYE payments and on the tax bomb.

[asdfdfdfadfas]

Wealthy and working class are worlds apart. Big law associates are in between.

This is not wrong. It's not working class because it's not physical labor, but it's getting worse every year. When I was a first year people all lived near the office (or in a trend neighborhood) and could pay off their loans in 1-2 years. Now people are living in (non-trend spots of) Brooklyn, Queens and Jersey with 50 minute commutes to save money. This was very, very rare when I started. You also hear of people leaving as 3rd and 4th years with a negative net worth, which was also unheard of a decade ago.

Remember that a first year made about the same (bonus+base, though base was lower back then) in 2000 in nominal dollars as a first year made in 2016. Tuition and NYC rent have both more than doubled in that time. In my era, my summer associate salary (which you got first and second summers and lasted 14 weeks) covered almost all of my tuition for 2L and 3L. I rented a big 1 bedroom in a cool neighborhood for $1995. The building I lived in is huge and I just looked it up: same apartment ten floors lower is 4300 now.

Base salary last went up in 2007, a decade ago. As above, base+bonus was the same in 2000, 16 years ago.

lol. More people need to read this post. Landlords, partners and law schools are laughing all the way to the bank. So, why exactly are people still going to law school with large debt?

My thought was if you went and you got biglaw you may have 300k in debt, but at least you'd have a large cash flow. So, you pay as little as possible on your debt and begin transferring that cash flow into either 1) Real money that holds it's value or 2) begin plowing your money in securities. Then, try to restructure your debt at 2 or 3% with private lenders.

Whereas if you don't go to law school you may just end up job hopping from one miserable job to the next where the IT systems suck, the people are miserable and disingenuous, and you are one wrong move away from being fired by your boss, regardless of how great you do at your job. Now you get to play the HR game for 5 to 6 months answering questions about what your favorite color is and why and tell me about a situation where you faced adversity and how did you handle it

This is coming from someone who has tried to do it the no debt way and grind it out for 6 years. I am literally in no better financial situation than when I started and it has been miserable.

I suggest you get out excel. Even if you can save 50k/yr (very hard now), and even if you can make 5-6% compounded in returns without taking huge risks (in which case you should market your talents to hedge funds), take a look at how long it takes for your 150K in financial assets to overcome your 300K in debt, even if you can refinance. Now do the same calculation factoring the opportunity cost of not earning anything during law school.

Right, but the question is always- compared to WHAT? Save 50k a year!?!? The very possibility of that to me is sublime. I don't think you interpreted my post as I meant it- I am not trying to overcome the 300k in debt. I am trying to write it off after 10 years or whatever payee is.

The whole point was that that "Opportunity cost" is no more guaranteed than your job in biglaw.

You dont get your "debt written off" in PAYE...there's a huge tax bomb - you are taxed on the amount forgiven as if it's income. So if you have 300k forgiven, that will be treated as income and you will be taxed like 40% on it or whatever IN ADDITION to making payments for 20 years or whatever it is each month. And with the stock market the way it is now (and on average) you are not going to beat your debt in the market.

So most of that cash you saved up in biglaw might just be used on making minimum PAYE payments and on the tax bomb.

Understood and that sounds miserable. Perhaps I should have done a little more research on the topic before talking about it. I genuinely don't know what the right answer is here- I just have simply done the opposite of everyone else and abstained from borrowing any money, lived in a place with low COL, and got lucky for awhile with good work experience until I ran across ethical issues ( violation of SOX) and quit.

[Tls2016]

^^^^
Just to clarify, the payments under PAYE or rePAYE are for 20 years. Under ICR, the program in place for people prior to PAYE, payments are 25 years. As mentioned, there is tax due on that loan forgiveness.

It is only under LRAP plans or PSLF that your debt is forgiven. That debt requires 10 years or 120 on time payments from qualifying employment with government or non profits, etc. For most all LRAP law school plans, you have to be employed as a lawyer. No school has a plan to assist a student who doesn't have any job.
For the government PSLF plans you only have to be in a qualifying job. Like schools, you have to have a job, there may be other government programs dealing with unemployment, but PSLF won't help if you don't have a job at all.

[Danger Zone]

^^^^
Just to clarify, the payments under PAYE or rePAYE are for 20 years. Under ICR, the program in place for people prior to PAYE, payments are 25 years. As mentioned, there is tax due on that loan forgiveness.

It is only under LRAP plans or PSLF that your debt is forgiven. That debt requires 10 years or 120 on time payments from qualifying employment with government or non profits, etc. For most all LRAP law school plans, you have to be employed as a lawyer. No school has a plan to assist a student who doesn't have any job.
For the government PSLF plans you only have to be in a qualifying job. Like schools, you have to have a job, there may be other government programs dealing with unemployment, but PSLF won't help if you don't have a job at all.

REPAYE is 25 years for graduate loans.

[Tls2016]

^^^^
Just to clarify, the payments under PAYE or rePAYE are for 20 years. [edit: for graduate loans rePAYE is 25 years.]Under ICR, the program in place for people prior to PAYE, payments are 25 years. As mentioned, there is tax due on that loan forgiveness.

It is only under LRAP plans or PSLF that your debt is forgiven. That debt requires 10 years or 120 on time payments from qualifying employment with government or non profits, etc. For most all LRAP law school plans, you have to be employed as a lawyer. No school has a plan to assist a student who doesn't have any job.
For the government PSLF plans you only have to be in a qualifying job. Like schools, you have to have a job, there may be other government programs dealing with unemployment, but PSLF won't help if you don't have a job at all.

REPAYE is 25 years for graduate loans.

Thanks.

[J90]

Avoid private M&A work. It's the worst of a very bad profession.

Thanks for the whole post, man. The insight's very helpful.

[HYPSM]

This thread has been helpful, thank you!

[tigersunite]

To the OP—thank you for this thread, your insights have been invaluable to me. I do have a question for you. You have gone over, in great detail, the lack of exit options available to you. You are an 8th year associate and, from my understanding, will either make partner or be pushed out in the next year or two. Do you agree that this is what the future has in store for you? If you get pushed out (and I certainly hope you don't), then what do you think you'll do? Or is there a third option that will allow you to remain at your firm indefinitely without making partner?

[J90]

To follow up, are there any legal exits that you'd find particularly attractive - if we're limited to attorney roles, what's as good as it gets for a NY corporate associate leaving a firm?

• Is it in-house at a company, rather than a bank? I get the feeling that doing capital markets work for a large public company could be extremely boring and tedious, but honestly don't know (as a 3L).
• For someone doing public M&A work at one of the firms you mentioned, where are some of the better places you've seen someone leave to?
• Again for an associate doing public M&A, do any continue to do focused M&A work for a company, rather than a bank? I get the feeling that only an extremely small number of companies have specialized M&A counsel or something similar, and I'd guess it'd be serial acquirors in the pharmaceutical or technology industries. Curious about your input.

Thanks again.

[mvp99]

so where do all these PE M&A associates go after 2 3 years??

[krads153]

To follow up, are there any legal exits that you'd find particularly attractive - if we're limited to attorney roles, what's as good as it gets for a NY corporate associate leaving a firm?

[*]Is it in-house at a company, rather than a bank? I get the feeling that doing capital markets work for a large public company could be extremely boring and tedious, but honestly don't know (as a 3L).[/b]

Bolded is correct. Banks, funds, etc. tend to have very tedious/boring work IMO....it's basically the same shit you deal with at firms, except (maybe) better hours. I personally think capital markets is as dry as it can get though....I'd much rather be an accountant than a capital markets person. My friend went to a tech company (he's an IP guy) and loves his job. Basically stay away from finance-oriented in house positions if you want more interesting roles. At those places, it's probably a lot more interesting to be the finance person than the lawyer.

[champloo]

so where do all these PE M&A associates go after 2 3 years??

interested in this as well

[BizBro]

So lev fin work seems to be a terrible idea?

[skri65]

Going into IP lit. Could most of the things said about being a NY Corporate Associate be equally attributable to non-NYC major market lit associates?

[SlyFrog]

Ok, so I'm going to do a "too long, did not read," admittedly, because I want thoughts on my particular situation.

Let's say you've played the game, you've made partner at a small-mid-law regional firm. Around 15 years of experience. I know this is not BigLaw, and not NY, but let's say a Denver, Atlanta, Dallas, whatever type of regional firm with 100+ attorneys. While you are not nearly as sophisticated as your capital markets loving NY brethren, you can legitimately say you have routinely worked on nine figure deals, and a few billion+ dollar deals (if in an ancillary role, and not as the relationship/first chair).

You've saved a decent amount of money and paid off all of your debts, but do not have enough saved to just retire. You feel like a frog in boiling water (no pun intended), because you've always been on the fringe of being a viable partner (some pretty good years, but no super-solid client base, and plenty of years where you're frankly struggling to make hours).

More importantly, you're burnt out. You hate what you do, and you always have. You do it, and did it, for the money. And that shows, because when you do it for the money and not some passion for the work, you don't network like you should, you don't work like you should, you don't learn like you should. Because you're a fairly bright person, you've done enough to get by, make partner, and keep going, but you: (a) are burnt out and hate your daily existence; and (b) even if you wanted to keep going, you're worried that in a few years someone is going to come into your office and say, "It's time we talked about you transitioning in the next three months."

You do not really want to keep practicing law, or at least transactional law as you have been doing it. (Which has been described very well in this thread - countless hours of slogging through incredibly boring documents, looking for nits, fighting over shit no one else in the world remotely cares about, and which if you are honest with yourself, you are really not even sure is that important or how it would really come out if it was litigated, along with extremely capricious workloads, alternating between way too much, and way too little.)

What is your exit? What do you possibly do once you've gotten "established" and it is a little more difficult to just say, "Fuck it," and start over?

A ton of people have given me general, "Oh, there's jobs out there for a smart person like you." When I say, "Yeah, like what, who will hire someone with my background and experience, in a non-legal area, and pay anything above $50k?," they then tend to clam up and have nothing specific to offer.