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Anonymous wrote:NickScarfo wrote:Anonymous wrote:No.
Assume 3-4% growth, not 6-7% to avoid unpleasant surprise (few good investment managers can credibly project 7% going forward)...
If I had $$$ BigLaw is the *last* place I’d want to be for 70-80 hrs a week.
3-4% for an aggressive portfolio? That sounds awful. My plan doesn't include any fixed income and may eventually incorporate direct investment alternatives along with equities.
Even 7% would typically be conservative for long run return on equities.
Not sure where your numbers come from...
PP here ... IMO your approach is wrong. You have way too long an investment horizon to go whipping it out on flyers and hyper aggressive portfolio choices.
If you want to have to go back to work when the next crash hits you, by all means do. But my approach saved me 50% of the losses, or more, that others had with aggressive approaches. It’s much harder to make it back after a big dip than it is to avoid biggest dips.
It’s your money. My approach got me to retirement early and I make more now than when I worked with no crazy risk.... 3-4% is the new 6% (return assumptions) for every prudent analyst I’ve read. Of course in recent years we’ve done much better but if your benchmark assumptions are too high you set up to fail.
As I understand it, longer investment horizon warrants a greater risk tolerance. I'm not living on any investment income and am looking for maximum growth.
I guess 3-4% return would make sense for an equity-based portfolio from which you were drawing down additional 3-4% in income. Otherwise, I don't see where you're coming from.
Anonymous wrote:I think you need to figure out what you’d like to do with your life. You have the luxury of being able to do anything which is pretty cool. I wouldn’t do big law. I mean why work 50-70 hours a week when you don’t need the money. Once that time is gone it’s gone. I worked in big law for 8 years and have worked in the government for 4. I like my job but wish I could just be a mom for 5-10 years. If I inherited 4.5 million (I won’t) I’d buy some a couple of income generating rental properties and invest the rest fairly conservatively. You have the privilege of choosing how you’d spend your days. That’s pretty cool.
Barring debt service. how much $$ were you able to accumulate by grinding in Biglaw, if you don't mind my asking?
I wonder whether the incremental dollars would be worth the labor compared to what compound interest achieves on its own.
Also, do you know what median proft/partner typically is at V100 firms?
All the published figures are average profit/partner, which is statistically misleading!
Anonymous wrote:No.
Assume 3-4% growth, not 6-7% to avoid unpleasant surprise (few good investment managers can credibly project 7% going forward)...
If I had $$$ BigLaw is the *last* place I’d want to be for 70-80 hrs a week.
3-4% for an aggressive portfolio? That sounds awful. My plan doesn't include any fixed income and may eventually incorporate direct investment alternatives along with equities.
Even 7% would typically be conservative for long run return on equities.
Not sure where your numbers come from...
There's nothing "gross" about earning a living in the private sector. I'm not going to make a high risk passion project into a career when it's safer to just let the principal grow while I live on my salary.
As much as I feel more insulated from financial stress, I still want to acquire skills through serious work. I'm not a lazy person and my question only related to law school.
As much as I feel more insulated from financial stress, I still want to acquire skills through serious work. I'm not a lazy person and my question only related to law school.
Anonymous wrote:You're very practical and smart and also cynical, and I think your cynicism could interfere with your ability to discover your work passions or derive the joy that comes from a true partnership with someone. I know you didn't ask for that kind of advice, but as someone much older, I hope you'll invest in your personal life, too. It's great to rise through the ranks and experience financial success and be ambitious, but it's pretty lonely to do it alone.
You sound like my mom! I didn't grow up among happily married couples. Not averse to commitment, but wary of the marriage institution.
Anonymous wrote:NickScarfo wrote:Anonymous wrote:NickScarfo wrote:Anonymous wrote:NickScarfo wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Don’t go to law school. pls dont give law schools a cent for tuition out of this money. And don’t miss out on 3 good earning years at this point.
Just work hard and rise up in some other field.
I would have done that if I were you.
~ Top biglaw after going to top law school, F*ing exhausted
Agree. Do whatever you want, you’re set.
~ Top Biglaw somehow for my entire career after going to top law school, f*ing exhausted d have been forever but now it’s worse, and after a divorce and some weird career decisions just now at the net worth OP has.
I'm surprised that attorneys would even get married to begin with. Seems like a huge liability. Outside of religious meaning, why would anyone invite the government to define their partnership?
Lol is this for real? OMG def don’t go to law school. EQ too low to really make it in biglaw.
In a world where divorce is so common and costly, I don't think questioning marriage is bizarre. Of course, I don't discuss this stuff in any professional setting.
Divorce isn’t really common among lawyers. And it’s the splitting up of a household and kids that’s expensive (eg no longer having pooled retirement savings and a joint housing budget), not really the dissolution of marriage.
I'm not sure how useful it is to consider divorce rates by profession. Too many idiosyncratic factors among couples. How is asset division not expensive?
Depends on who you marry. You’re not very wealthy, really. So good chance you’d marry someone who does better?
Haha I agree that I'm not yet properly rich! But, I can't imagine that I'd settle down with a spouse until I'm in my mid-30s. By my late 30s, I should be worth $10M and would be entering any partnership with considerable assets.
To your point, outside of trust fund kids, there probably aren't too many girls my age [and younger] with 7 figures to their name. So, I'm not sure how easy it would be to find a financial equal this early in life.
Anonymous wrote:OP, I was basically in your situation 20+ years ago, except I didn't inherit until the end of law school. Did Biglaw for a couple of years. I hated it, and didn't have the financial motivation to stay like some people did. Worked at a bunch of low-paying jobs (both law-related and not) because I could afford to. Currently not working because I could also afford to quit when my employer tried to force me back into the office unsafely last fall, and now I have kids to take care of. In your shoes, I would not go to law school. It hasn't paid off for me in the way that it did for people who are more motivated to make money. Do something that makes you happy.
Thank you for sharing! I am most happy doing good work, learning, and advancing through the ranks. Of course, I don't need law for any of this.
Anonymous wrote:
Law school is a terrific education that will change the way you see the world and sharpen your analytical skills in new ways. You can do a lot with a law degree, not just biglaw. Public interest law, nonprofits, in-house at a company, litigation, government prosecutor or public defender, politics, or just strike out with your own practice in whichever area interests you. Without financial needs, you are free to use your legal skills to do something you believe in, help the world, change lives, whatever. Do it if you are motivated by the training and the career possibilities, and are willing to work hard because law school is hard. But don't do it if you just want to live a banal life of leisure riding compound interest on funds that you did nothing to earn.
I absolutely want a career. What's banal or overly leisurely about going into a different industry within the business world? Again, I'm not drawing any income from the inheritance. I'm living on my salary and am reinvesting dividend cash.
I don't even want to buy a primary residence until I know where work will take me more permanently and I have $5M liquid independent of home equity. So, that's like 5-8 years of renting and not using investment income at all.
Anonymous wrote:NickScarfo wrote:Anonymous wrote:NickScarfo wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Don’t go to law school. pls dont give law schools a cent for tuition out of this money. And don’t miss out on 3 good earning years at this point.
Just work hard and rise up in some other field.
I would have done that if I were you.
~ Top biglaw after going to top law school, F*ing exhausted
Agree. Do whatever you want, you’re set.
~ Top Biglaw somehow for my entire career after going to top law school, f*ing exhausted d have been forever but now it’s worse, and after a divorce and some weird career decisions just now at the net worth OP has.
I'm surprised that attorneys would even get married to begin with. Seems like a huge liability. Outside of religious meaning, why would anyone invite the government to define their partnership?
Lol is this for real? OMG def don’t go to law school. EQ too low to really make it in biglaw.
In a world where divorce is so common and costly, I don't think questioning marriage is bizarre. Of course, I don't discuss this stuff in any professional setting.
Divorce isn’t really common among lawyers. And it’s the splitting up of a household and kids that’s expensive (eg no longer having pooled retirement savings and a joint housing budget), not really the dissolution of marriage.
I'm not sure how useful it is to consider divorce rates by profession. Too many idiosyncratic factors among couples. How is asset division not expensive?
Anonymous wrote:NickScarfo wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Don’t go to law school. pls dont give law schools a cent for tuition out of this money. And don’t miss out on 3 good earning years at this point.
Just work hard and rise up in some other field.
I would have done that if I were you.
~ Top biglaw after going to top law school, F*ing exhausted
Agree. Do whatever you want, you’re set.
~ Top Biglaw somehow for my entire career after going to top law school, f*ing exhausted d have been forever but now it’s worse, and after a divorce and some weird career decisions just now at the net worth OP has.
I'm surprised that attorneys would even get married to begin with. Seems like a huge liability. Outside of religious meaning, why would anyone invite the government to define their partnership?
Lol is this for real? OMG def don’t go to law school. EQ too low to really make it in biglaw.
In a world where divorce is so common and costly, I don't think questioning marriage is bizarre. Of course, I don't discuss this stuff in any professional setting.
Anonymous wrote:NickScarfo wrote:Anonymous wrote:NickScarfo wrote:Anonymous wrote:You don’t want to practice law, it seems.
Regardless of your nest egg, I would advise working for a few years anyway, since you are not feeling driven to go to law school.
You can always go to law school when you are older, especially since you won’t have to take out debt.
I inherited seven million dollars recently and am a lawyer. If I knew that was going to be my situation, I probably would have tried to get a job in finance, private wealth management etc after college, gone to law school and taken lots of trust and estate classes, and then gone into estate law.
But I’m a nerd who likes law.
Lots of great jobs out there that don’t require a law degree.
Why do you feel you would need an education in wealth mgmt/T&E to handle a windfall? I had a great lawyer, CPA, and now, an RIA, handle estate matters.
My question only related to law school from a financial POV.
PP did not say that at all. You would not be a very good lawyer.
Ouch! He seemed to imply the knowledge would be useful, but it seems like overkill to me. I don't think I misread the post.
Previous poster here. I’m very ignorant about how to invest money. And I’m paying someone half percent of my net worth every year to invest it for me. It doesn’t seem like rocket science but I’m afraid to do it by myself but the fees are really annoying.
I agree that if you have a really good trust estate lawyer you feel like you can really trust then you don’t really need the education yourself.
Honestly, I don't love the fees either and am halfway tempted to throw everything in a 2-index fund portfolio and call it a day. But, I'm hoping that the returns, net of fees, will be worth it. Otherwise, after a few years of lackluster performance (compared to an index), I'll just use ETFs/index funds. I'm only 25% invested and want to give these folks a fair shot.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Don’t go to law school. pls dont give law schools a cent for tuition out of this money. And don’t miss out on 3 good earning years at this point.
Just work hard and rise up in some other field.
I would have done that if I were you.
~ Top biglaw after going to top law school, F*ing exhausted
Agree. Do whatever you want, you’re set.
~ Top Biglaw somehow for my entire career after going to top law school, f*ing exhausted d have been forever but now it’s worse, and after a divorce and some weird career decisions just now at the net worth OP has.
I'm surprised that attorneys would even get married to begin with. Seems like a huge liability. Outside of religious meaning, why would anyone invite the government to define their partnership?
Anonymous wrote:NickScarfo wrote:Anonymous wrote:Take some money as an investment in you - to figure out where you get energy. Where are your passions.
Throughout this thread - I have not heard ..... what I really Love is .....
what did you right in your college application? I am sure there was some element of changing the world. Go find that person.
Law School can be great - do you want to do immigration law? Work for the Southern Poverty Law Center? Another part of society that is underserved? [There are students in DC who have learning needs who are 5th year 9th graders - but parents never realized that their children were not getting the services that Federal Laws require DC to provide] You are in the financial position to take your father's hard work, pay it forward, and have a great life.
When you are 50 - and you look back - what do you want to have accomplished?
My college apps were done very cynically. I did activities and marketed myself in a way that would appeal to adcoms.
Unfortunately, I don't have strong passions at this point.
I know that I want a financially rewarding career and that I want to maximize my wealth. That's about it.
If I had $4M, age 25, and wanted to maximize wealth, I would head to Silicon Valley and start a tech startup. Or get a job at a pre-IPO company using your business skills, start networking there and start angel investing in other people's startups (hopefully meeting good co-founders along the way). But that's me! You have to do something that aligns with your interests and risk / reward profile. Having $4M at such a young age is already a huge leg up, so IMO you should do something that has a greater risk/reward profile than biglaw, finance or consulting working for others.
I don't think I have the knowledge base to confidently and intelligently direct invest. Frankly, I don't have enough money to matter to the VC crowd [and I don't care to]! I'm better off with plain vanilla holdings that yield solid, but not crazy returns. Thanks, though!
Anonymous wrote:Take some money as an investment in you - to figure out where you get energy. Where are your passions.
Throughout this thread - I have not heard ..... what I really Love is .....
what did you right in your college application? I am sure there was some element of changing the world. Go find that person.
Law School can be great - do you want to do immigration law? Work for the Southern Poverty Law Center? Another part of society that is underserved? [There are students in DC who have learning needs who are 5th year 9th graders - but parents never realized that their children were not getting the services that Federal Laws require DC to provide] You are in the financial position to take your father's hard work, pay it forward, and have a great life.
When you are 50 - and you look back - what do you want to have accomplished?
My college apps were done very cynically. I did activities and marketed myself in a way that would appeal to adcoms.
Unfortunately, I don't have strong passions at this point.
I know that I want a financially rewarding career and that I want to maximize my wealth. That's about it.
I can't believe you're even contemplating buying another vehicle lol. This kid is clearly reckless and needs to learn to take care of himself and property before being gifted one more car. Unless he is willing to buy/insure the car himself, I'd forget about it!