Cooler exits in law?
In finance it seems like your options are to either exit to PE/HF and still work 60-70 hours per week, and have interesting work but not much time to do anything else. If you don't want to work that many hours, you can work in CorpDev/CorpStrat and make less money while doing something that isn't really that interesting, but at least with better WLB.
It seems like Law might have options that hit a better balance where you are making more money than in CorpDev, doing something that is more interesting, obviously not making as much money as PE/HF but you have better hours. You could go in-house, work in politics, work as a lobbyist/activist, etc...
I don't know a ton so I'm curious to hear your thoughts
What? Aligning logos and forecasting hockey stick growth in Excel over and over again is interesting but driving the strategic direction of your company in corp strat/dev isn’t? I get IB for the money, deal reps, experience, etc but there’s nothing interesting about that job until maybe the VP level (but moreso the MD level)
I’m literally 22 years old regularly interfacing with BU heads and our CFO, getting asked for my opinion at exec meetings, etc at a public company. My boss gets to fly around and meet (or Teams call) VC-backed founders to shoot the shit and see if they’d be interested in selling to us.
If you enjoy practicing law, then be a lawyer, but I personally find legal docs terribly boring. Comp to WLB ratio is amazing (our counsel makes ~$300k working 35 hours per week) but it’s hard to get higher than that and you never get to call any shots (except telling other execs that their grand plan is in fact illegal)
General Counsel roles can be underrated. Have seen quite a few exit to cool roles (ie. one who eventually became Chief Strategy Officer and another who was tapped to help lead the PE / VC arm of their company). Would probably make the most sense if you join a company in an industry you're passionate about. These two examples I listed above were at multi-billion dollar healthcare companies.
I do know of someone who does Sports Law at a Big Law firm. Wouldn't be surprised if this person eventually jumps to a league office / sports team as General Counsel. Their whole career has been in sports / entertainment so I'd imagine that would be a sweet exit if given a comparable salary (which may be difficult and may be the reason why Big Law is still their employer).
I’m the guy that replied above. GC gigs can be very lucrative (~$1M) but in my (very limited) experience, they take a lot of time and grinding to get to.
Somebody that grinds in big law (pretty much IB but even more boring) for a couple years and exits to in house counsel isn’t going to make GC. You have to grind, grind, grind in big law for 5+ years minimum (prob more but not sure - lawyers chime in plz) before you’re considered a good enough lawyer to even be a contender to make GC in the future.
Was told by an associate GC who put in a decade at big law that going in house will not make you a good lawyer, and you better be a damn good lawyer to be the GC because the buck stops with you.
Context for all this is tech/software sector. Can’t speak to other industries
EDIT: also want to caveat that I am definitely not a lawyer and like I said above I'm 22 years old so please don't make critical career decisions based off what I have to say. Do your own research (im sure there are law equivalents of WSO out there) but more importantly: network with REAL people. Anyone can get on here and say whatever the hell they want. Abuse the fact that you're a student (hit up your alumni and use your .edu email) and ask as many ridiculous questions as you want; that's the benefit of being a student
I’d hate to tell you. In house law isn’t that interesting, most that go into politics are making very little.
As far as private sector exits are concerned, law loses and it's not close.
Finance is a broader skill set that's more connected to other things. A finance person sees enough other areas that its easy to steer in a new direction as your interests change. Even as a logo-aligning analyst you'll pick up pieces of marketing, strategy, biz dev etc in addition to the bread & butter IB skills of corporate finance & modeling which is pretty core to any business.
Legal work, in the business world, is always narrow. To transition from law to anything else in business usually involves a ton of re-tooling . . enough that the law degree ends up being a net loss for that person. GCs who truly love being the legal person are well paid and happy. But you have to love the law. GCs who think they "also get to wear the business hat" are generally unfulfilled and frankly coping when they say that.
I can't speak as easily to the public sector options you mentioned . . but be careful about selection bias there. i.e. you'll see some policy role that's mostly staffed by ex lawyers, but that might just be because ex lawyers are more inclined to want that role. And even worse, they may be so inclined due to limited options. So don't assume a law background helps achieve XYZ thing just because lawyers choose that route.
do you think the public is psyoped into pursuing law
I think the same crowd that is swindled into thinking a brand-name college is their ticket to a bright future, also gets swindled into law.
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