Ex-RX Consulting Q&A

Good questions.

1. Honestly, if I had to average all my engagements out, not really that bad (would avg out to around 80 ish). The people who quote 100+ aren't lying, they just haven't captured the entire picture. Focusing in on debtor side deals, if everyone's doing what they're supposed to ( bankers, lawyers and client), then it's not bad at all. Thing is, that's a perfect world, and that sorta situation doesn't often happen. So now you got a scale of how many things can go wrong and how many parties can fuck up. On one end of the scale is the "perfect" scenario, and on the other is a scenario where most, if not all the parties are messing up (not contributing or meeting deadlines, or just shit at following instructions). Those kind of situations are the events that breed 110+ hour weeks, because the consultants now have to sift through all of that mess and tell people what they're supposed to be doing, and deal with inaccurate info (if you've worked through a DIP or a 13 week forecast you'd know how much getting wrong info sucks bc you've got a single cell feeding into like a hundred other sheets / workbooks). In general though, most people would fall into the middle of the aforementioned scale. I wouldn't say there's a causatory factor between firm and hours worked, sometimes the work really is that demanding, regardless of what firm you're at. Given that, I think there's few careers that can beat the comp and other benefits given the hours you'll be working.
2. Corporate has better WLB, but I'll be honest, it can get pretty dull. The firm I'm at is quite acquisitive so it could be worse, but in general, the excitingness in corporate is nowhere near what I had in RX co.

Not OP, but bankruptcies are all public, so you can browse online dockets for large cases. Common docket sites are Epiq, KCC, Kroll. Browse through these and find a big case to research and you can find 13WCFs, BK Plans, first day motions, etc.

Yeah, what you mentioned is pretty good, you can also kinda reverse engineer a case if that makes sense. Basically pick a company and try writing a 1 pager on what went wrong, who’s involved, and what’s the likely outcome? Also learn the tools of the trade, 13wkcf, debt waterfall, working cap mechanics etc. And read a lot, articles, books, etc etc. RX consulting is a field that you learn through experience, after a while in the industry you get a "feel" for things. You're kind of limited as someone who's looking to get into the field.

wild guess but you're doing mass tort work?