Hourly wage in IB vs. Biglaw

Was reading the law vs. finance discussions around here, but no one seemed to mention an interesting point.

The starting salary of associates in Biglaw is 225,000. Billing 2350/year (which is the highest ceiling) leads to around $95/hour. Meanwhile for an analyst, even if you throw a 75% bonus, it only gets to $41/hour. 

You may think that as an associate it gets better, but even as an associate, if you were to get a 100% bonus it still falls short with around 10-20% to the biglaw hourly wage. If you were to invest your first at 100%, retroactively, this would have meant maybe a $50-$70 hourly wage, which is still lower than the hourly wage in biglaw.

I also used extremely high billables (2350), but a more standard range tends to be around 2000-2200. The upside in IB,of course, becomes much higher past VP level, but until then I think biglaw wins on this regard

what are your views

2 Comments
 

you know a LOT of work junior lawyers do is not billable? + earliest comparison is Asso 2 Bc of law school

I say both of these but I still agree with you lol 

Big Law is a field that both kept up with inflation (better then banking at least) and also had to raise salaries to attract new hires away from small friendlier firms or firms that dont just protect corporate greed  (my brother went through this whole shtick)

 

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