<p>Im debating whether to do law(jd) or finance(mba)...Just looking for others opinions..Which would you choose and why? Which makes more money? How does I-banking compare against a corporate lawyer</p>
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Which would you choose and why?
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<p>Corporate Finance . Investment banking and corporate law are essentially the same, except an investment banker makes more money. </p>
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Which makes more money?
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<p>Investment Banker, definitely. You're also paid better if you're at one of those really selective boutique ibanks like Blackstone or Lazard. But bulge bracket pay is really good as well.</p>
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How does I-banking compare against a corporate lawyer
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<p>Ibanking hours: 80-90hrs/week
Corp Lawyer hours: 65-75hrs/week</p>
<p>Ibanking Pay: $85-110k base, $100-150k bonus
Corp Lawyer pay: $145k plus small bonus</p>
<p>Corporate lawyers WORK with ibankers on various transactions. Ibankers do the quantitative part of a deal (ie decide whether or not the deal is worth pursuing) and present the deal to investors and buyside (private equity/hedge funds) to get money out of them, and the corporate lawyer does the legal part.</p>
<p>The general consensus is that ppl in corporate law work more (longer hours?) than their finance counterparts and still get less paid. At least initially. </p>
<p>I would personally choose the finance track anyday and jump on an MBA rather than a JD. </p>
<p>And in conclusion I would like to point out that ibankers surely do make more money than most corporate law players. Also note how I managed to casually mention the somewhat overused profession that is; investment banking. BB for life.</p>
<p>I don't know...I haven't heard of corporate lawyers working weekends and going home at 2AM on a daily basis for weeks on end.....</p>
<p>Here's the typical day of a corporate lawyer and the typical day of an ibanker from Vault.</p>
<p>Ibanker: <a href="http://www.vault.com/nr/main_article_detail.jsp?article_id=9865422&cat_id=0&ht_type=1%5B/url%5D">http://www.vault.com/nr/main_article_detail.jsp?article_id=9865422&cat_id=0&ht_type=1</a>
Corporate lawyer: <a href="http://www.vault.com/nr/main_article_detail.jsp?article_id=18550252&cat_id=0&ht_type=1%5B/url%5D">http://www.vault.com/nr/main_article_detail.jsp?article_id=18550252&cat_id=0&ht_type=1</a></p>
<p>Note that the ibanking associate goes home at 11PM while the corporate law associate goes home at 8PM, and they go to work around the same time.</p>
<p>But then ibanking has this facetime culture where you're required to be there and veg out if you don't have any work to do. Corporate law has no such facetime culture. You come to work, you do your thing, then go home.</p>
<p>There is veg out time during those long ibanker hours?</p>
<p>Oops wrong wording. I mean like ibankers need to be on-call and ready to get to the office at a moment's notice while corporate lawyers do not.</p>
<p>Which has better or more flexible hours an Investment Banking PMD or a corporate lawyer Partner.</p>
<p>I forgot to mention that once you move up the ranks in investment banking (around VP) your hours decline to about 60-70. Then when you get to managing director your hours go down to 50-60. I don't know how much corporate law partners work...</p>
<p>I don't know which one has more flexible hours at the end...but in the beginning, definitely corporate law due to the lack of facetime culture.</p>
<p>if you wanna be working on excel and with numbers all day be a banker.</p>
<p>if you want to still work on business type transactions but in a more qualatative manner be a corporate lawyer.</p>
<p>You should try to read Bruce Wasserstein's Big Deal, he goes into the whole history of M&A, he started out as a lawyer for Cravath and then switched to a high level role within banking and is now head of Lazard. He offers a pretty interesting perspective on M&A as a whole and you learn a lot. It was Martin Lipton from Wachtell who actually invented the 'poison pill' defense mechanism for firms to use when faced with a hostile bid, so I mean -- bankers aren't the only guys who are working on these huge transactions and the only ones with opinions that matter. </p>
<p>Also the lifestyle is a bit nicer, sure there's less pay but most likely less hours. If you read Running of The Bulls, there's a girl who interned with Goldman Sachs and went on to accept a full time offer but only with the plans to quit and pursue law school. So obviously the pay isn't everything if you've got kids from wharton who have actually worked for GS and still decide to switch from banking to law.</p>
<p>hours range from 55-70 hours for law, usually the higher hours in at firms in NYC. Market right now for a first year in New York at a top vault firm is 145k with bonuses ranging from 10-50k, depending where you are, and some firms paying nearly 100% bonus depending on year. Such as Suzman in TX which paid 125k market last year (i think or 110k) and paid 100% bonus which made the total first year lawyer comp at 250k. However, bonuses such as these are rare.</p>
<p>My cousin who is in Corp Law in ATL had a few weeks when he was closing deals where he had to work ~100hours, but usually worked around 50-60hrs.</p>
<p>one thing to remember is you can switch from corporatelaw to ibanking (i dont think its all that hard if you are good and at a top 20 nyc firm) but you cant really switch from ibanking to law (unless of corse you go back to law school)</p>
<p>from what i have learned corp law is easier to get into (assuming you can get into a good law school) and pays a little more at first compared to analyst comp (145K base plus 30-50 bonus) vs 60 base 60 bonus then 75 base 75 bonus</p>
<p>but once you hit assoicate the differnce becomes exponentially bigger (which is why there are so many unhappy 5-7th year assoicates. but then you make parter and are basically assured 1M plus a year vs in ibanking you have the potential to make more but the average md at a bb firm makes about 1-2M so its preaty similar. As partner corp law guys still have to work long hours (actually doing work) but dont travel that much as opposed to mds who are always on the road.</p>
<p>actually it is not that easy to transition from corporate law into ibanking, neither is it that easy to transfer in consulting. Those that do have considerable experience, usually have prior exposure to the field and are just plain lucky, or the can get picked up for a banks legal department, hedge funds legal dep etc</p>
<p>yea but it can be done. look on the sites of cravath, davis polk and some other top firms and it says that there lawyer have gone on to become mds at bb banks. bruce wasserstein being the most prominent example. but there are others</p>
<p>You have quite a few lawyers going into riskarb departments.</p>
<p>You could always work for a couple of years out of undergraduate in i-banking, see if you like it, and then get a JD/MBA for maximum flexibility.</p>
<p>wow, that must be really competitive, which schools offer that...will the company support that if they have 100% tuition reimbursement</p>
<p>I think corporate law looks far more interesting. Money is great in either profession so this shouldn't be an issue. I just think corp. law is a more animated and lively career.</p>
<p>Why does corporate finance=investment banking? If fact, why does finance=investment banking on this board.... I can't stop laughing at the nievete. It's like you're a bunch of autistics who only know how to relate one concept at a time, and all similar concepts definately result in the same conclusion.... banker/Ibanking, finance/oh, that's ibanking, business sales/ibanking, getting an MBA/oh, ibanking</p>
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Why does corporate finance=investment banking? If fact, why does finance=investment banking on this board.... I can't stop laughing at the nievete. It's like you're a bunch of autistics who only know how to relate one concept at a time, and all similar concepts definately result in the same conclusion.... banker/Ibanking, finance/oh, that's ibanking, business sales/ibanking, getting an MBA/oh, ibanking
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<p>Well, it's just like why do most kids on CC target ivy league schools? I think most people on here think about careers in that same 'elitist' mindset so it's actually natural for them to target those top jobs.</p>
<p>Anyway, i'm not dissing being a financial analyst at an f500, working for a non-profit, doing big4 accounting, I know people who have done all of those things and went on to top top (wharton-level) MBA programs.</p>