Reply to YCBK - kids being funneled into IB and consulting

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]When I went to law school nearly 20 years ago, we were pushed pretty aggressively into corporate law jobs. I was focused on family law or trusts and estates, because I wanted to work directly with clients and found it a lot more interesting/relevant than working at a Big Law firm where I never interacted with clients and spent 90% of my time stuck in a room by myself reading documents. I had multiple offers from smaller family and T&E firms but my career counselor told me I'd be crazy to take one of them over the two Big Law offers I got because, "this is your only shot at Big Law."

I lasted two years and moved into the kind of law I actually like. It was a waste of my time. It didn't help that much with loans even because those first couple years in Big Law are overwhelming with insane hours and while the cash was good, I was paying a premium to live close to the office and all my friends were also at big firms and everyone just bleeds money. I moved to a small firm and started doing prenups, postnups and divorces, settled my lifestyle down, built real rapport with clients, and had my loans paid off in 5 years and was in a much more mature and settled place than any of my Big Law friends by the time I was 30 because I had a good lifestyle and actually liked my job and wasn't panicking about being counseled out imminently.

If my kid is ever in the same boat, I'm going to be the voice of reason advising her to really think about whether she *wants* one of these high paying jobs, or is just doing it for peer pressure and prestige. Those aren't good reasons. 90% of my classmates from law school went to big firms after graduation. Only a small handful are still at those firms and everyone else fled for small firms, government, in-house, policy work. The in-house jobs and some of the government positions probably required having the Big Law experience, none of the other jobs did. Also in my two years of Big Law work, I didn't do a single thing that a smart college grad couldn't have done, or even a college intern. My main job was just to bill as many hours as possible, the work was mind numbingly boring.[/quote]

Graduated from law school in the late 1980s, worked for the courts and CA state service (could never have gotten a Big Law job), retired with a good defined benefit pension, retiree  health care and a nice home, while watching my kid play little league games.

Could have been worse.[/quote]

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