Need Help: Law Grad (UK) With Some Decent Intern Experience --> IBD and Finance
Hi,
This is my situation - any help / advice would be great.
Got good A-levels - all A*/A - and all in STEM subjects. I then went on to study law at university in the UK and I recently graduated (class of 2022). Over my uni years, I accumulated some legal internships ('vacation schemes' which are the equivalent of 'summer analyst' in law) at some reputable law firms. For some further context:
- The university I went to - a lot of students got to city law firms. Having been reading WSO recently, I would say for IB it is a semi-target, except I didn't study economics / finance / accounting etc.
- My most recent vacation scheme was at a silver circle law firm, which I think translates to elite boutique in IB.
Towards the end of my last year at university I started thinking: why not IB? Why not finance? I could not give an answer to that question other than that I have put a lot of time and effort into pursuing a legal career, so don't want to waste what I have built, and the barrier to entry into IBD (for me) is difficult (or at least I believe so) - no spring internships, no economics or finance degree etc. Therefore, the only reason I have been hesitant to pursue a career in finance is because I don't know where to start and feel like it is too late for me.
Also, come to think of it, the seats/rotations in a law firm that interest me are the finance heavy ones, so: M&A, PE, Capital Markets (ECM, DCM), Derivatives and Structured Products. Accordingly, I realised I am interested in finance as much as if not more than the law that underpins this finance.
I wanted to ask the following:
-
What can I do in the long-term as a career if I start off as an IB analyst? I am slightly aware of some of the exit opps such as buy-side (PE, HF) but what other options are there? I only really ask this because I don't aspire to become an MD at an IB, and don't want to work 9am - 2am for the rest of my life. With that said, I am not shy of the long hours that analysts do, just don't want to do that forever!
-
How on earth would I go about breaking into IBD? I think:
(a) I can either go into IBD from now, but:
- All summer internships are for penultimate years
- Every analyst / intern analyst advert I see on LinkedIn is asking for previous experience and/or some financial modelling - and I don't have any. Like how tf can I get some experience without having any?
OR
(b) someone please correct me if I am wrong, but some lawyers do go into IBD / finance after being an associate? But what is the point if I decide that the end goal is finance.
With all that said, what further complicates my situation is the current market - it's not exactly great is it.
Welcoming all advice. I am ambitious, hard working and full of energy - assuming I got given an internship, I would have no problem working very hard to learn and develop. But the problem is simply how I would go about breaking into IB or even just gaining some intern experience in it!
No one cares what you study at all. I'd go so far as to argue finance/econ grads are less in demand given how they make up most of the applicant pool and less than half of the incoming grad classes these days.
Not sure how you can move into IB from a law career but treating you as a general uni student you need to apply to internships. Many let you apply as a final year and if that fails, you'll likely need to do a masters so you can apply to internships again.
Tbh not a great spot to be in, banks this year in london have hardly given people with previous top banking internships much respect for recruiting given the state of the market; no idea what they'd make of law firm XP. That being said its relevant and prestigious so if you apply to internships you should have *a* shot. Will say your why IB story needs to be tight.
What internships are you referring to that I should apply for? I am a graduate so do not qualify for any summer internships as it stands. I think the only internships that apply to my situation are off-cycle and any random intern analyst opportunities that are posted through sites, such as LinkedIn.
Is it possible for one to network their way into IBD? I know the UK IBD recruiting scene is much different than in the US, but do people tend to network their way in?
And unfortunately, yes - the current market doesn't help at all!
Have you considered an MSc? You're late for 2023 SA, but you could try and secure a finance gig this summer and leverage that together with your MSc to land an IBD summer. Alternatively, you could aim for an MBA further down the road and use that as a career change. I'm under the impression that your degree is inconsequential in the UK, lots of people get in with non-finance degrees, although aiming for FT is challenging in this environment hence the recommendation to get in through an internship.
Can't really network yourself into a lateral role. There's so many other pipelines that provide banks with analysts that have relevant skills: Other banks (people trying to move upstream but have XP in M&A and don't need training for modeling etc which you will) and then ofc big 4 M&A/TAS/accounting. Is it impossible for you? probably not but the cost of trying to shoehorn your way in this way isn't going to be worth the results.
You're going to need to do an MSc. A lot of banks let final-year students apply for their internships. Do some WSO research to find out which.
BUMP
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this isn't really tenable. if you know you want to do IB, either continue with the lawyer journey and aim for an MBA or apply to grad school now and apply for SA positions.
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I am starting to understand more about the routes to IB for me - thank you both.
If I end up going for an MSc and then apply to all SA positions I am eligible for, but end up not getting a single SA position - what would happen then? Like is the MSc just something I can do to make me eligible for applying to SA positions? Other than an extra qualification, do people just do it to have an extra year of applying?
Also, there are quite a bit of courses out there that seem useful to do, such as on financial modelling (e.g. CFI courses) as well as IB virtual internships. They seem like they would be useful for me to gain an insight into IBD and build knowledge, but do recruiters care about these things if put on my CV?
Lastly, did some research and there is a few graduate analyst roles (i.e. directly recruiting into analyst roles, for instance Peel Hunt is doing atm for Sept 23 intake). Are these the roles you were referring to as lateral roles? What does the usual successful applicant for these routes look like?
Please do not insult the Elite Boutiques by comping them against the Silver Circles thank you. EBs are the US firms (think K&E, Skadden etc).
Go for off-cycles -> full time -> buy side. You'd be surprised that there are a few law grads out there that have done that and have secured some decent jobs.
There are others that have qualified as associates -> analyst at an EB for 1 year -> special sits investing
Don't waste your time in law if you want to end up in finance.
You can learn by using online resources. Financial modelling is easy if you know how to use excel and can read financial statements. Using excel is just being able to break down complex questions into simple questions / being able to use google properly if you don't know how to model something.
Also if you find those people on Linkedin, take a chance and add them. They might be willing to speak to you.
Edit: Vac Schemes are not the equivalent to summer analyst stints. I've done both. The first just wines and dines you + you attend lectures / don't do any "real work" (they're only two weeks long so what work can they give you?). The second is a 10-week trial by fire situation where you actually work and contribute to the team.
Thank you for your comment.
I did not mean to insult at all! I was just scaling the firm hierarchy in corporate law (US>MC>SC>large international>rest) to IB (BB>EB>boutique>rest) and comparing positions. I do see where you are coming from - out of curiosity then if the likes of K&E and Skadden are equivalent to EBs then what are BBs equivalent to? K&E is considered the most prestigious law firm in London when it comes to debt finance, PE, private/investment funds.
I 100% agree with the VS to SA comparison, but that is just how the industry in law is unfortunately. Would love for law to have the same internship style as IB/finance.
At the moment, I am leaning towards the following route: qualify as associate --> analyst --> exit opp. This is because I want to finish what I have started with the law route, and the option of A1 will be there after qualification should I choose to go for that. How do associates at law firms end up doing this move? And would one need to train at a certain law firm to make the move into IB?
Since you did both SA and VS, why did you go straight into IB instead of law? Would you mind sharing? I think you rationale and decision making could be a helpful insight for myself.
I was joking about the insult.
There is no comparison - comparing EBs / BBs to US law firms / Magic cirlce doesn't make sense.
Not many associates do end up making this move because a) you're taking a material pay cut from £180k at K&E to £100k at any investment bank (though it's an increaes from your trainee days) b) you're back at the bottom of the totem pole and c) not many associates have the skill to do this (don't understand numbers / not interested in the industry / don't know how to use excel).
From what I've seen for law firms to banking. Skadden to EB, A&O to EB (but this guy did the law and finance course at Oxford before going back to the EB). I think a more transaction firm makes sense (so probably the Americans). I've also seen S&M to Bain (consultancy).
Most of the cases I've seen are law firm associates moving to EBs and not BBs. I think it's because BBs have so many applications anyways so it doesn't make sense to review a left field application.
In terms of my own decision making. None of them gave me a training contract so I was "forced" to move on. I guess they could tell I wasn't really committed. I liked the numbers / learning about companies and industries rather than reading a 600 page intercreditor agreement. I also wanted to whip the lawyers and unfortunately, as a lawyer you can't whip yourself but as a banker you can.
Honestly, being a lawyer (or an accountant for what its worth) really sucks and unless you want to become partner there is 0 point pursuing this path. Big Law today is very different from Big Law 20 years ago.
From what you have said, seems like there is not much benefit in obtaining a TC, completing it, qualifying into a transactional seat and then breaking into finance. In other words, one should make the move to the industry which they would like to end up at / be at longer-term. But then why do these associates make the move to IB at associate level? Did they come to realise at qualification/during their legal training that they are more interested in finance?
"I liked the numbers / learning about companies and industries rather than reading a 600 page intercreditor agreement" - This is what I have been slightly thinking about lately. I want to learn the numbers, financial modelling and all that stuff to work in business and finance long-term. A part of me craves that. Even if it is just the life-style.
"Honestly, being a lawyer (or an accountant for what its worth) really sucks" - why do you say so? I guess you are biased to finance since you are working in the industry now, but I'd appreciate your unbiased opinion here.
"unless you want to become partner there is 0 point pursuing this path" - I came across this piece of advice the other day and I somewhat agree. In today's Big Law, however, there are a lot more exit opps for lawyers, but partner for some (that is equity partner, not salaried!) remains the jackpot. But ultimately this is one of the reasons that got me thinking of IB. I want to do IB for the exit opps. Can you please let me know what these would be for an analyst or associate exiting FO IB. I have read around this but would like to hear about exit opps from someone working in finance like yourself. Also, if you don't mind sharing, did you work in FO IB before PE?
"Big Law today is very different from Big Law 20 years ago" - what do you mean (different in what way to the point you made)?
1) Because they realise they can make more money doing fewer hours and more interesting work. I guess unless you've done both you don't really know. I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to do long-term internships in both law and finance. I don't know these associates personally so I don't know whether this desire to move into finance started prior to / during the TC so you should find them and ask them yourself.
2) Being a lawyer sucks because the higher you go, the more hours you work + your upside is limited by how many hours you can sell (unless you do litigiation funding which is PE like as you have to decide which case to invest into but that's very niche). The question you should ask yourself is as a partner, do you really want to be working on a deal until 5am? That's what I saw a law firm partner do when I was on the sell side.
3) In terms of exit opps, please use the search function in WSO. There's a lot of helpful material online which one can find by searching properly. But to give you a head start, PE, HF, Corp Dev, Start ups etc. And yes I did M&A - DCM and ECM won't take you into PE for a variety of reasons which you can find on the site.
4) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_law_firms_by_profits_per_… <- on average this is how much a partner makes. Obviously as a 1st year partner (which i guess is 10 -12 years PQE) you won't be close to that. As a 3rd year VP at a PE fund (9 - 10 years after you start finance) your carry allocation is at £7.5mm (obviously distributes at the end of a fund life cycle which may take 5 more years) but the beauty of carry / finance is compounding - your £7.5mm grows annually and you got MORE carry allocation throughout the years. Time for you practice your own excel skills and model out how much carry you can get assuming £3bn fund, 2x MOIC, 2 / 20 carry structure split between 10 - 15 people (you being the most junior of course, assume there are 100 points to split between your team).
5) Big law is very different because 20 years ago, as an associate in New York, you were much more of a generalist which is why a lot of these lawyers could become bankers / investment professionals.
6) As a banker, the lawyers work for you... they're at your beck and call... Just as if you're a banker, you're at the beck and call of the PE professionals...
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