Say you had/were relatively confident you could get an offer at both a BB and a top US law firm in London (think KE, LW, etc.)
What career would people generally recommend? Obvs it would depend on your personal preference, but if you enjoyed both things? I studied PPE at a top UK Uni and would have both options open.
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IB because I'd rather be an investor (PE/HF) than doing legal work on M&A deals.
PE isn't investing; it's financial engineering.
First get both the offers and decide then
Law school is too expensive, whereas I make the same amount as a big law asso at Kirkland/Cravath/Watchell as an analyst at an EB in the states. Honestly both seems similar although if I imagine myself as a lawyer I'd be more confident of my actions. Also, negligible though, being a lawyer seems cool too.
No analyst in the history of investment banking has pulled in more than a wachtell associate
Has happened many times. On top of my head, M.Klein, Dyal, Qatalyst, CVP, or even Ardea pays as much as watchell asso1. Excluding the tuition, watchell asso1 should equal to average EB per say PJT/MOE/LAZ based on 3 years at law school and even the lowest paying EB LAZ 3 year should pay more. Honestly man, many people know that very few kids nowadays plan to go to law school other than kids with good humanity degrees from Ivy-type schools who had no clue about getting jobs. Not that they are inferior but the big law isn't that glamourous.
You realize wachtell first years pull in ~$450K, yes? They are a giant exception to the biglaw pay scale.
Yeah, considering that those people paid 300k for the degree, I'd rather work at Dyal with 300k comp straight out of undergrad. If you want to debate about anomalies, then watchell first year $450K should be compared with asso3 at Qatalyst receiving 700k considering the age/experience.
You compared analyst comp to associates at hugely profitable law firms. That was wrong. Not interested in exploring this any further
Hahahahaha
You already know that this intern is living in ShooterMcGavin’s head rent free
Yup. I was in the middle of intimate time last night and thought "that motherfucking intern just sassed me on the internet again 😡."
I stopped immediately and stormed over to my desktop to defend my honor
Long story short, I'm now single
Lol shootermcgavin proved you wrong and you side-track the conversation into something irrelevant. Nice!
Law school tuition is not relevant in the UK vs a regular degree, which is where OP is based
in UK the cost opportunity of going to law school is not the same as in the US, so what someone said above is irrelevant.
it is way easier to get into law firms in UK vs. IB, and it's also a safer career path with greater job security
also you have marketable skills and passed the bar, so you see what? 30 UK qualified lawyers at best applying for some Associate roles paying 200-300k vs. 200 Europeans applying for a PE role in London
and there are waaaay more prestigious law firms brands than banks, which means that the quality of law done across all of them is almost similar, which may not be the case across IB (huge difference in complexity/client "prestige" between Morgan Stanley vs. Nomura
In my view you’re doing proper gimp work in M&A law whereas in IB you’re doing slightly less gimp work and slightly more interesting work.
in the UK, go into law. in the US, go into IB because Wall Street. Duh
Studied law and ended up going IB route and have been in the buy side for many years now - did several vac schemes at MC and US law firms in my undergrad and just thought the career wasn’t for me because the work wasn’t as interesting + the quality of people you were interacting day to day wasn’t as high (personal observation)
Also have since met many more people who are trying to go from law to IBD/PE/HF as a principal than the other way around who have found it incredibly difficult to do so - so think generally finance has more optionality if you actually hate it and want to change course than if you commit to law and try recruit then (without taking substantial pay and/or title cuts or without an MBA)
TC is generally higher for IB associates vs biglaw associates, but biglaw associate salary is usually higher for first several years at least. At the partner level, biglaw attorneys at the most profitable firms are probably out earning many if not most MDs. In terms of lifestyle, there’s not much difference between MD and biglaw partner. A biglaw partner may have less “control” over their schedule, but really, being an MD means you’re always “on,” so I think that point—which has been raised on this site a number of times—is moot.
If you want to start in law, you can more easily pivot to IB vs the other way around.
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