Reply to If you have been a biglaw partner for 10+ years, how much wealth have you accumulated?

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Reply to "If you have been a biglaw partner for 10+ years, how much wealth have you accumulated?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I think a lot of people have a misconception about how much money you can realistically have as an attorney in Biglaw.

Last year was my first year as a nonequity partner at a v25 firm.   My total take home was around $400k.   By any objective measure, that's a lot of money.  But where did it all go --

45% to taxes (it is higher when you are paying both sides of the self employment tax and don't have that many legit business deductions)
20% to savings (max out 401k, Roth, and HSA; remainder in investment account)
11% to student loans (finally paid off)

So right off the top you are down to only 24% or roughly $97k.   Lobb off another 22k for housing (you can run the numbers but we aren't talking about an insane mortgage), another 10k in things like cell phone (I am sitting here's using an iPhone 5 btw) , cable, car insurance and health care premiums and all of a sudden you are down to the mid 60s in terms of actually living off of money.

That all being said, nobody should feel bad for me or anyone else in this situation.   I am pretty frugal and being that way in my daily life allows me to extend that 65k pretty far.   Moreover, if I keep saving the same amount every year, even with no income increase, I will have a nest egg somewhere around 5-10 million by retirement age.    That is plenty to live off of then.   But unless you are making much more than I am or living some Mr Money Mustache existence (which few biglaw people are)  banking 10 million in 10 years is simply not feasible for most people in biglaw.

As others have said, biglaw is a very safe and comfortable job if you like the work (I do). You won't hit it out of the ballpark, but you can still afford a lot of the luxuries of life and have money leftover for retirement (if you budget correctly).  [/quote]

Sorry, you may be mixing some terminology...$400k is pre-tax.  Often take home refers to after tax take home.  How many years typically to equity partner and what does the bump look like?  Is PPP in the $2m range?[/quote]

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