If you are thinking about going to law school, please don't.
Some of you might have read the WSJ article which claimed that biglaw partners are earning more than investment bankers in 2023.
The reality is that law firms operate like MLM companies and have extremely high turnover because the work is mind-numbingly boring and stressful. While litigation is stressful and soul-sucking.
Why does the legal industry suck?
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The people. Law school tends to attract psychopaths and egomaniacs. The mean girls in high school.
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Public interest roles (ADA/public defender/NGOs) that pay well are extremely rare.
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Once again, biglaw (transactional) work is BORING. Like watching paint dry. Imagine putting yourself through the excruciating pain of law school just to read hundreds of pages of merger agreement/loan document and to redline them. For litigation, it is slightly more intellectually-stimulating but mainly involves arguing over minute details that no one else cares about. Clients hate paying for litigation expenses so you are probably in for a fun ride.
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Biglaw partners treat juniors way worse than IB MDs. If you think investment banking is toxic, try working as a paralegal at your local law firm before thinking about LS. Lawyers (more than half of them) are scumbags and have poor managerial skills. You will likely spend the first 2 years in the office without meeting any client (I know this sub loves front office roles ---- Biglaw feels exactly like back office as a junior).
The industry is never gonna change. On top of that, you have the issue of industry oversaturation and etc. Please take my advice. Stay in finance and don't even think about law school.
Sincerely.
my only advice is to consider law school only if you missed the finance train (target, GPA, relevant internships, etc.). Law school is like a 2nd chance to reach a comfortable job (and boring; but what corporate roles aren't boring?).
Taking on that much debt makes no sense unless you are actually passionate in Law. Would much rather find a way into Finance in a few years vs wasting 3 years in Law School for a career I don't want.
law < IB makes sense when you take into account the 3 years of opportunity cost of law school, but if you may need 2-4 years to get into IB, then law school may even be a better choice because assuming you're not retarded you have a higher chance to land in biglaw compared to working 2 - 4 years and not even having the surety of landing a high-paying finance role
much better idea to get an MBA:
Your 2nd point is the big one IMHO. more for development purposes than diversification purposes. Whatever the world looks like in 20 years, I’d much rather have business experience than legal experience.
Senior transactional lawyers will say that after a 5-8 years of mastering the legal side, they started to develop into more well-rounded and versatile advisors who understand their clients business beyond the legal side.
That’s true to some small degree, but it’s been shocking to see how mostly untrue it is. I know several 20-year partners at V10 firms, none of them could be a CEO or founder or strategy person. They’ve been scanning the WSJ sporadically for two decades, which will never compare to someone who has been working in business full time for even just 5 years. The path diverges too much.
I’ve seen law careers work out for exactly one type of person: a person who actually loves law. That’s it. It doesn’t work as a “versatile degree”. You’ll hear stories of former lawyers who went on to other things (Blankfein etc) but they all left law pretty early.
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