Law needs more attention
It seems to me that most targets go tech (AI, entrepreneurship) or finance (IB, consulting, PE). Medicine and law have fallen out of favor at top schools. Even biology girls at HYPSM are now Goldman Sachs TMT. Obviously, if you’re brilliant and also don’t really have a life, tech and finance have the highest ceilings. What if you know you’re smart but honestly not that smart? What if you actually had to try to get into a good school? Or what if you’re not - striking out at IB, going to nontarget? I’d suggest looking at law and medicine.
I have several friends who went to Baylor. All premed, all smart, well rounded, kind individuals. They all want to specialize and open up private practices. Their parents usually come from this background, owning a Practice that generates 5-7 million a year. Yes, in medicine, you’re throwing away your 20s, but it feels like you’re actually doing something in the world, you have a much more pleasant work culture (albeit, still not perfect), and if you’re specialized, your floor is 1 million dollars a year as a surgeon or anesthesiologist. Thats pretty fucking good. Hours are better than IB/PE, and maybe a little better than consulting. People will say medicine is really difficult and it is, but I would argue it is a different difficult. If you study your ass off, you will get into medicine. There is no nepo. In finance, you can grind as hard as you want, and some Deerfield kid will get it over you. The best part about medicine, and also law to some extent, is that your undergrad or med school prestige don’t matter. Medicine seems to understand the ability to cure a patient and save lives doesn’t diminish with less prestigious degree. You can go to Arizona or Penn state or Bama, have a college experience, and have a fulfilled life. Yes, you can be premed and have fun, it does happen.
Next, law. Law is great because your undergrad prestige doesn’t matter. I know a girl from Michigan state who is now at Yale. I have seen a girl from seton hall who is now at Harvard. As long as you follow the lockstep Cravath scale, you will be making 600k around your 8th year. Making partner is the real jump though, where if you went to a solid law school (t10), you can begin making 2M+ a year. By your late 30s, you will be bringing in MILLIONS a year. If you want an early retirement 45-49, you can get that. Again, undergrad prestige doesn’t matter and unlike medicine, law is even easier. You just need a 4.0 and high lsat. You can take easy ass classes to get that 4.0 and prepare for the lsat and you’re golden.
So, I’m curious why these two options have fallen out of favor. I believe it is because target kids believe they have access to really high profile networks that can place them in upper echelon tech and finance. I would humbly ask them to rewire their thinking slightly.
finance allows you to make great money without extra debt / years in school. It also has a higher ceiling than medicine and law
Yes, but for how many people? For most people, the ceilings are the same, most people going into finance (even high target types) will not be making 5M+ a year, so why bother?
for target students that can get into any career path, it's quicker to start making money in finance (no need for grad school), so makes sense why target students go down the finance route.
for non-target students, i agree that going down the law or medicine path is a more probable path to riches than finance if you are able to study hard and grind.
another reason is that people may just not be interested in medicine or law.
Cuz its not just not exciting man. In IB/PE at least you're working on high profile and influential deals, in medicine even in sexy specialties like ortho you're just doing hip replacements on random old people all day
Bump
Not saying medicine and law aren’t great paths. But everything comes with advantages/disadvantages. For medicine, your residency hours still will be brutal - you realistically won’t start getting an actual salary until late 20s as the earliest, and likely into your early 30s. Putting student debt aside, some of my peers (I went to a top 5 university) have only just finished fellowship in their early 30s. Whereas I’ve had over a decade of professional comp now. Plus, you’re not guaranteed to get into high demand / paying specializations. There’s still lots of hurdles to get there, many end up as GPs / pediatricians (not that there’s anything wrong with that at all).
Law can big a great path but keep in mind you’re focusing on big law at top corporate firms. I’m fairly certain most of the associates there also recruit from top schools. Similarly it’s a grind - the law firms on our deals are working the same hours as we are
BTW - in IB you don’t have to be that smart to make it to the top either. Work hard, be reasonably personable (it’s a client facing business after all, would assume you need the same in big law), develop experience over your career, and you have a pretty decent shot at making MD where you’re also comp’d >$1mm a year at least, and sometimes >$2mm
Thanks for the insight. I agree it does seem like IB is pretty consistent in terms of payout. Only caveat though is you have to go to a target or be able to put up with shit and not crack. As a lawyer and doctor, you are held to high standards, but you are given more slack than in a field where if you make one slipup, you could be done.
For example, showing up to an interview in a black suit, instead of a blue one. A buddy of mine didn’t get an offer because of that
That is a really dumb comparison, the standards of being/becoming a doctor are significantly higher than working in banking, what are you saying? have you ever worked at a bank before? there are asshats everywhere.
It seems your perspective is from someone younger / only in the midst of the initial recruiting process. Yes, from your perspective it seems like there’s more uncertainty in analyst IBD recruiting but keep in mind this is in part because it’s probably a more competitive process than the other paths you mentioned. As a result, sometimes we do have to turn down candidates based on an initial interview process due to something on the more minor side, when they could potentially be great when in the job. Any recruiting process has to work off initial impressions - the more competitive the more small things can throw you off just simply due to limited number of slots. However, while possible a friend of yours didn’t get a job because of the suit, I’d be inclined to think it may have been something else…
But keep in mind more broadly your career is a long game as well, and this goes for law and medicines too. I had a friend who went to the Univesity of Oregon, a decent state school but certaintly not a target. Yet he excelled, ended up first at UBS and then an EB and then exited to a top megafund. Lots of our associates didn’t break into banking initially, worked hard doing something else and went back into a t15 business school and into banking
No, if you slip up and make a big error in medicine, a malpractice lawsuit could destroy you. Even if you retain your license after a legal battle, the damage to your reputation is often massive. I have no idea where you are getting this idea from that medicine gives you slack if you mess up. Patients also don't understand the difference between a medical complication and malpractice, which pours more fire onto the already highly litigable environment that is American healthcare.
Risk adjusted top end comp as a good banker vs good lawyer is way higher in law. PEP at top law firms is 7-9 mil, still 4-5 mil for V50. Starts at 1-2 mil.
Exactly. How many people in finance are pulling 7-9 m a year. Guarantee you not even most Blackstone people
You can't bullshit your way into being a white shoe lawyer or competitive medical doctor. You have to love it, or at least like it a lot. Since this post is mainly about lawyers, I know multiple people that went to top tier law schools and those that went big law do make boat loads but have very uncertain futures. It's not just about making it through school, you need to jockey for extra curriculars like journals to even get in the big leagues and if you don't you are screwed. Partner isn't certain even now as they have a jr partner where you dont get real equity. Depending on the law you practice your exits will also be completely different. why go through all that when you can get on a good career path in consulting or IB with no more exams, school, years of low/no pay, no guarantee in something you don't even really like. X years of med school, 3 years of law school, or 2 years of MBA (if you even need it). seems like an easy choice
"I know multiple people that went to top tier law schools and those that went big law do make boat loads but have very uncertain futures. It's not just about making it through school, you need to jockey for extra curriculars like journals to even get in the big leagues and if you don't you are screwed." Uh, no. Wrong. If you go to truly a top tier law school (T6-10), bascially everyone who wants BigLaw out of uni gets it. Like, Northwestern sent 75% of its grads to BigLaw and 20% of the remaining kids went to more exlclusive opportunities (ie. Federal Clerkships/Academia), of which the FC lead to BigLaw if they so choose. Other 5% left law entirely or flunked. And that's just Northwestern, which is admittedly a target for BigLaw, but not on the same tier as H/Y/S and not even Columbia or U Chicago. If you're at a T14 you will essentially be guaranteed to get BigLaw unless you are in the bottom 25% GPA of your class, as again, the top 10% of students who are 'on law journals' generally are not recruiting for BigLaw, they are recruiting for Federal Clerkships.
Law is not like finance where non-targets are increasingly breaking in the great to top firms. Yes some do, but a large large majority of law recruiting is done through OCI/Pre-OCI that is highly specific to 20-30 schools. But if you're there, its more or less your offer to lose. Also the main method of recruitment to BigLaw is summer associate positions that, up until COVID, were quite literally almost unanimously 100% return offer rates, with the only real reason to not get a return offer being being incredibly incompetent (ie. not showing up, drinking to much at a company event, hitting on a coworker etc). There is just more stability in law if you can make it to a T20, but realistically, T14 school.
And once you start working after passing the bar, you will make a large majority of your salary in the form of guaranteed base salary for the first 8 years that starts at a total comp of $250k and rises to $550k. Some get equity partnership fast after the 7-9 years of being an associate, but let's say you're unlucky. Counsel for 1-2 years of $600-750k, often with more guaranteed money in the form of base to incentivize you to stay, then 1-2 years of a salaried partner position that sits at $800k-1m (for those doubting, K&E paid 1m GBP x 2 years for non-equity partnership after 6-8 years of associate experience for laterals in London, and that was a few years ago). Then when you do make equity partner, you will almost certainly make $1.5m+ in your first year and likely be at the $3-5m mark within 4-5 years. You ceiling is realistically something like $15-20m, and your realistic floor is something around the $1m mark. Btw all of these numbers are for V40-50 and more-so the V30 and lower, but I assume that's what we're talking about here.
Oh and btw, for those first 8 years as an associate and 2-4 years as a counsel/non-equity partner, you are highly highly unlikely to be fired as long as you hit your billable hour quota. Like barring some inter-firm collapse (extremely rare/unlikely) you will not be fired. Straight up.
I know people rip on law because the work is boring, and thats probably true relative to finance/buyside. And people talk about the 3 years of opportunity cost and large student debt often associated with attending a top law school, which is also a fair criticism when comparing career earning potential with that of IB/Buyside. But, on a purely risk adjusted basis, all you literally need to do is score a high LSAT and have a good GPA and you are essentially guaranteed a risk-free, stable path to 8-12 years of mid to high 6 figure pay mainly in the form of guaranteed compensation, and the upside after that to earn, at minimum, low 7 figures, with a realistic shot at mid 7 figures and unlikely shot at 8 figures. Sure you don't have the exits opps a banker does, but if you don't exit as a junior, the exit opportunities as a career mid-level banker are (imo) not more financially attractive than that of a lawyer. The corp finance/corp dev exit at the VP level for banking that pays mid 6 figures and is 50h/week of work? You can do that in house. At the senior level? GC at a large company pays the same.
Now you are definitely right that to be successful as a lawyer, at least liking it a lot is needed to commit to just such a long path, but it is frankly a very financially rewarding career that has low risk once you hit a T14 school. And its a respectable career path with a lot of the high-finance white collar job benefits we associate with IB.
It's funny to me that Cravath is your base example of things working out. That and Wachtell / Skadden / Sullivan & Cromwell are the equivalent of CVP / Qatalyst / GS / JPM in the law world. Also, your point about nepo is invalid when talking about law; success in every single industry boils down to who you know and how you market yourself, not what you know. Lastly, its bogus to assume your UG doesn't matter. At the end of the day, kids who went to Yale or Harvard or MIT or Stanford will always get the benefit of the doubt because it signals that from the time they were a teen (and likely long before that), they were at the top of their class.
Literally 50-75 firms pay Cravath dude, another 50+ pay within 10-15%. Also wrong about the UG thing - it literally has no tangible impact on your career in law relative to the tangible impact it can have in fields like IB/Consulting/PE etc., the kid who goes to Clemson or Florida State UG and gets a 177 LSAT who lands at Harvard Law is in the same spot as the kid who went to Dartmouth UG and went to Harvard Law, and the same Clemson/FS kid is objectively in a way better spot than a Dartmouth UG who goes to Duke/NYU/Northwestern law etc. Literally all that matters is what law school you go to and what your grades are assuming you don't have the personality/polish of a door. No one really cares in law recruiting if you had a 3.9 at MIT UG (its obviously cool), they care if you went to a top law school.
I’d simply say we don’t need more lawyers. Why is not everything a standardized template in finance? I get controlling for company-specific dynamics, but all of M&A and VC/PE law should be rinse and repeat.
I chose to go into law for 2 main reasons
-More AI proof. If we get superintelligence, no jobs are safe, so it doesn't matter what I do/study. If we don't get super intelligence, judicial system is going to be one of the last things to be replaced. Also, AI (and doctors) have cartel-like protections where the only people who can practice law are lawyers, and lawyers decide whether or not that changes. So there is a structural barrier to job loss that other fields (consulting, SWE) don't have. Finally, language is more abstracted from formal logic than numbers/coding, thus, machines are less likely to replace language-based work than coding/numerical analysis where machines can trace the logical patterns leading to an output better.
-Disappearing right-tail outcomes in finance. For a long time finance had more extreme right-tail wealth generation opportunities than any other field. However, due to commoditization of PE and more efficient markets (and more alpha getting eaten up by quant shops, which I will never be able to do), these right-tail outcomes both take more effort to get to than biglaw partner, and are decreasing in number. Finally, at many biglaw firms you are actually making more per year than most MDs at big banks, and it is all cash. So, you could be 45 with 10 years of partnership under your belt and have 10-15mm if you save carefully and the market performs well.
You think you can ever be Hampton rich in law
Yeah cuz i got a trust fund but otherwise unless you are one of like 10 biglaw partners you won't be hamptons rich as far as beachfront property. U could easily afford a "normal" 5mil home there though. But that is OK, hamptons attract kind of insufferable people.
I'm in my last year of medical school currently, which surprisingly comes with a reasonable amount of free time because most rotations are behind you - enough so that I made an account on here. I always find it interesting to compare experiences with those that pursued a different career path.
Anyway, I think your assessment of medicine is over-glamourized, but it's easy to do so from the outside. I definitely viewed the profession through a more idealistic lens prior to getting into medical school. The floor for a staff surgeon or anesthesiologist is much lower than 1 million/year. Those that gross over a million a year are either taking extra call/working their ass off, work in an undesirable location that has to pay more to retain physicians, work in a lucrative subspecialty like spine surgery, or have a private practice (e.g. cosmetic plastics). With any sort of private practice, earning 5-7m a year is exceptionally rare unless you have multiple physicians and/or midlevels in that practice also bringing in money.
The pleasant work culture thing is not the case for a large swath of specialties, probably more than half of them. Especially if you are working in an inpatient setting/hospital, you will have a ton of opioid and drug users, frail elderly patients who oftentimes need a substitute decision-maker, or people who are skeptical of evidence-based medicine. Toss in overnight call and it's not exactly pleasant. Again, exceptions exist, especially if you pick the right specialty, but it's not all sunshine and roses.
Also, school prestige does unfortunately matter for residency interviews in the US. Residency programs will use school prestige along with your USMLE Step 2 score, your letters of reference, rotation performance, and research/CV to assess applicants. If you want to work at a big academic or tertiary care center as an attending physician, prestige again matters.
Med school and residency sound terrible. I co-founded a company with an ER doc, who went to top schools/high profile residency. You spend 1/2 your life in Epic (electronic medical record) using 80's tech. 60% of American physicians would quit tomorrow, if they could. They can't. College/med school debt, late start on careers, pains of the actual practice of medicine today (EMRs/billing as the primary culprit), lawsuits (depends on your specialty), desire to look like a big time doctor in your community all play a part...would not recommend it.
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