Most lucrative and prestigious law

[iahurricane]

The real question is why would anyone go into law in order to make money?  People who are able to get into law schools are probably able to get into business shools, so if your main concern is to make money, why not go into the private sector (ie: banking, investing, etc)?  I never really could understand why someone would want to be miserable and be a glorified paralegal at a corporate job when they could be getting paid more than that straight from college at a top banking firm.

but isnt it a lot harder to be an investment banker?

[iahurricane]

So accident attorneys make the most $$$? really?? is there a website that has a breakdown of the legal fields and states the average starting salary?

It depends on how good you are (John Edwards, good ... locals where I live, not so good).

In New York they can make a lot of money (millions).  In the south, they'll make almost no money. 

Accident attorneys are similar to minor league baseball players, sure a few of them will go one to make millions in the pros, but the vast majority either won't make it or will struggle their entire careers.

This is true, but I'm talking more in earnings potential, which for personal injury lawyers can be remarkably high (and higher than the salaries doled out at Wachtell, the highest paying corporate law practice).

Wachtell pays about $145k to first year associates and tags on a 100% bonus so right out of law school you'd make $290k.  I doubt any first year personal injury lawyer makes that much regardless of whether or not his practice had a big win.

Seriously??? how hard is it to get a job at this firm?

[radioface]

better chance of lubing up and squeezing youre entire body down a garden hose

 

[Booyakasha2]

i be just sendin out me julie

[ChiSox07]

The real question is why would anyone go into law in order to make money?  People who are able to get into law schools are probably able to get into business shools, so if your main concern is to make money, why not go into the private sector (ie: banking, investing, etc)?  I never really could understand why someone would want to be miserable and be a glorified paralegal at a corporate job when they could be getting paid more than that straight from college at a top banking firm.

but isnt it a lot harder to be an investment banker?

My friend is an analyst at Citi, and for a straight-out-of-college job, he makes great money.  He also works 7:00am - past midnight on regular occasions.  Leaving at 2-3am is not out of the ordinary.  I-bankers make lawyers look like slackers.

[redacted]

The real question is why would anyone go into law in order to make money?  People who are able to get into law schools are probably able to get into business shools, so if your main concern is to make money, why not go into the private sector (ie: banking, investing, etc)?  I never really could understand why someone would want to be miserable and be a glorified paralegal at a corporate job when they could be getting paid more than that straight from college at a top banking firm.

but isnt it a lot harder to be an investment banker?

My friend is an analyst at Citi, and for a straight-out-of-college job, he makes great money.  He also works 7:00am - past midnight on regular occasions.  Leaving at 2-3am is not out of the ordinary.  I-bankers make lawyers look like slackers.

TITCR

[iahurricane]

The real question is why would anyone go into law in order to make money?  People who are able to get into law schools are probably able to get into business shools, so if your main concern is to make money, why not go into the private sector (ie: banking, investing, etc)?  I never really could understand why someone would want to be miserable and be a glorified paralegal at a corporate job when they could be getting paid more than that straight from college at a top banking firm.

but isnt it a lot harder to be an investment banker?

My friend is an analyst at Citi, and for a straight-out-of-college job, he makes great money.  He also works 7:00am - past midnight on regular occasions.  Leaving at 2-3am is not out of the ordinary.  I-bankers make lawyers look like slackers.

Do you have to go to an undergad ivey league to get an i-banking job? Or do you need an amazing gpa? I always planned on saving my energy for law school so my gpa is only about a 3.5-3.6 but now im thinkin about i-banking instead. 

[keelee]

The real question is why would anyone go into law in order to make money?  People who are able to get into law schools are probably able to get into business shools, so if your main concern is to make money, why not go into the private sector (ie: banking, investing, etc)?  I never really could understand why someone would want to be miserable and be a glorified paralegal at a corporate job when they could be getting paid more than that straight from college at a top banking firm.

but isnt it a lot harder to be an investment banker?

My friend is an analyst at Citi, and for a straight-out-of-college job, he makes great money.  He also works 7:00am - past midnight on regular occasions.  Leaving at 2-3am is not out of the ordinary.  I-bankers make lawyers look like slackers.

TITCR

Ditto. TITCR, and this is from someone who interned at Citi one summer. Never. Again.

My friends who are working at i-banks joke that they work eight days a week. In a way, it is true. I have a good friend working at a small i-bank in NYC and had to go home to Hartford for a funeral one Saturday...she had to borrow her bosses laptop to do work on the trainride. I-Banking is perhaps one of the only jobs that makes being a corporate lawyer look easy. In addition, base salaries are often low, especially for associates ($55-$65k, which is nothing in NYC). The real money comes from bonuses which, while often high, are taxed 40% to 50%.


 

[Jhuen_the_bird]

Hmmmm ... my future husband is a firefighter/Paramedic, so he DRIVES the ambulances ... no need for me to chase them, I guess 

[keelee]

Do you have to go to an undergad ivey league to get an i-banking job? Or do you need an amazing gpa? I always planned on saving my energy for law school so my gpa is only about a 3.5-3.6 but now im thinkin about i-banking instead. 

I got an I-Banking internship, which became a job offer, with a 3.25 GPA. A friend of mine will be at Morgan Stanley with a 3.1 GPA. The GPA needs to be higher for Corporate Finance or Quantatative Analysis, but for Sales & Trading, GPA doesn't matter as much. At the school I go to, I-Banking jobs are handed out like candy. You don't need an Ivey degree, but if it is not Ivey, it better say MIT/Stanford/uChicago/Northwestern or the business schools at Michigan or NYU. It is very, very, very difficult otherwise because the top firms only recuirt at a dozen or less schools. Morgan Stanley's I-Banking division recruits on campus at only six - Penn, Harvard, NYU, Michigan, Colombia, and uChicago.