Should I Re-Recruit?

So this is a completely tangential point to my main post I think you're just... wrong about Biglaw compensation. Before I start I'll say that for what it's worth I want to be a lawyer, and the compensation is secondary. But I see this misconception all over WSO so this is a good excuse to type it out and I hope this is useful to someone and prompts some good discussion.

I will graduate at 26 and in Biglaw and my base compensation will be 250k, like you said. This is the floor, but it is also important to stress here that not everyone takes two years. So an unqualified statement like Biglaw "really just matches up with the higher ranking consulting positions" when you can be making 275k guaranteed at 24 doesn't make much sense. Last I checked it takes ~3 years to become an Associate at Mckinsey and that was paying a TC of like 225. Another ~6-8 to become an Associate Partner and you're at 460k, where Biglaw will put you at 575k. Keep in mind I'm comparing McKinsey, The Most Known and Prestigious Consulting Firm, to the median outcome of a T14 law grad. I would seriously encourage you to mentally compare biglaw numbers to the median outcome for MBA grad, or a non-MBB firm, or doing internal Corp Dev work, and see how they stack up. To roughly eyeball this: The median NYU MBA (including those who go to PE, IB, etc) year one total comp is $199k. The 25th percentile of year one base salaries for NYU law grads who work in Biglaw is $215k. Biglaw base alone beats business/dev ops/consulting TC medians right out of the gate, lol.

If you want to compare apples to apples more closely, we can compare MBB to boutique and above-market firms. Susman Godfrey paid first year associates ~330k last year, paid 500k to third year associates, and has been paying above market bonus for a decade. Wachtell flatly doubles the base as bonus for ~$450k first year and 1mil after six, double that of an Associate Partner at McKinsey (assuming you can even make AP in the same timeframe). Kellogg consistently beats market by multiples and paid their oldest associate class a bonus of 450k a couple years ago, on top of the 400k base. There are litigation firms like Dovel that have profit sharing incentives that can lead to similarly high numbers (Dovel once paid a 700k!! bonus to associates, somehow). More and more boutiques are paying above market - just a few months ago I checked ATL and saw a firm I had never heard of raising their 1st year base to 300k and the 5th year base to 450k with a guaranteed partner track (1-2mil) of five years.

If Cravath Scale biglaw vs Consulting is a question, Boutique vs Consulting, it would seem to me, is a no brainer for compensation. You might say that my chances are lower with a boutique than MBB, and that might be true from square zero, but I've already been admitted into a law school with these outcomes. So I'm not sure why I would reassess that, and this is doubly true for someone who doesn't take a two year gap. And again, even without boutiques, a "regular" biglaw firm is MBB competitive, if not a bit better. Boutique firms pretty handily beat any consulting firms and the most sought after MBB exits.

Then we have to talk about partnership. It would seem likely to me that someone who is willing to grind it out at McKinsey for partner would be willing to do the same in a top biglaw firm. So let's compare those numbers. Consultancy is a very easy path to max out at 1-1.5 million a year, even at McKinsey partner level, and there isn't a standard path to make anything beyond that from what I understand, barring you become a truly exceptional rainmaker. 

But the profit per equity partner at a biglaw firm like Kirkland, which has 600 equity partners, is 9 million dollars. There are easily 30+ firms with an average Profit per Equity Partner in excess of 4 million, to say nothing of the amount with 2 million+. I have not heard of any meaningful number of consultants hitting these figures without entrepreneurship or an exceedingly rare competitive finance exit like a top HF or MFPE. 

Even banking, probably, loses here at the partner level. Last I checked there were something like ~600 MDs at Goldman averaging 1.5-2 mil a year. The top ~30 Biglaw firms that are comparable to Goldman in selectiveness, like the boutiques above but even lesser known southern biglaw firms like King and Spalding, have probably 300 partners on average in each and are on average doubling that. Talking to my friends in finance they seriously have no idea that there are thousands of lawyers making multiples of their MDs who came up through a generous partner track an IB intern could only dream of. These are also medians, not rainmakers. Boutiques are even more insane, since the partner track is close to guaranteed... Quinn or Susman are certainly paying out 7mil+ to equity partners; not too long ago one Susman partner became a federal judge and had to disclose his previous year's compensation of 16 million, which was standardized across their entire executive committee. When you think about it this is actually not at all surprising given the limited partner structure of law firms compared to the shareholder-value expectations of a BB. Public banks, to remain competitive in public markers, are incentivized to pay you as little as they can get away with. Biglaw partners are only accountable to themselves.

So yeah, at every level, a biglaw career beats consulting, even against MBB and a fast promotion timeline, if you're willing to see it all the way through and push through with the same grit you'd probably need at McKinsey. This is before we even talk about risk... biglaw is way less likely to get laid off of have delayed promotional timelines in downturns. 

The only time Wachtell ever paid less than 100% bonus was in 2009.