Reply to Big Law: Does anyone turn down a partnership opportunity?

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[quote=Anonymous]OP here. 
To respond to PP re debt and living off salary: DH and I had student loans from law school (me) + masters (DH) + medical school (DH), so we ended with almost $450K in total student loan debt and DH didn't start working until he was 33.  So our student loans a little more significant to pay off than most.  We will be done paying in 2 years after aggressive 10 year pay down strategy.  DH is a doctor in a well paid field but not ridiculously well paid. Less than the big law partner salaries so often discussed in this forum.  We can live in DH's salary alone, but reducing my income (or having no income) would definitely require life style changes. Not immediate changes - we live well below our means (house value is 75% of our annual earnings; pay cash for cars, etc).  But we like living below our means and eliminating my salary would bring our life style closer in line with our means. We would have to reduce our savings schedule and think more about budgeting whereas now we don't really worry about money. So, we are fortunate that DH makes enough for me to have flexibility, we have grown to appreciate the cushion my job provides. I think paying our own way through school and starting with nothing - we had less that $2,000 in a savings account when we got married, while most of our friends and classmates were quite wealthy - greatly affected our spending and saving habits. I know DH would be stressed about money if we lost my salary, even though by all objective measures we are well off, conservative with money, and have lots of savings.

Related point: I've also thought about waiting until I make partner before making the decision to stay or go (assuming I do actually make partner - nothing is guaranteed in this world), but I have two concerns with that approach. First, isn't there substantial financial impact with the buy-in requirements?  That would be difficult to unwind quickly. Second, I would feel some guilt about potentially taking someone else's place in the partnership. Surely the rest of the partner candidates would actually want to have the opportunity. And last, I'm concerned about the emotional pull/golden handcuffs. It's easier to walk away at a senior associate salary level than a higher level. As I said, DH and I live pretty modestly, but we send our kids to private school, save aggressively for retirement and really like the feeling of being overly secure.  I'm just worried it will be harder to walk away if I've already had the salary bump. [/quote]

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