Corporate Law or Corporate Finance?

<p>It's a shame that jobs like trading and quantitative finance aren't even being mentioned here.</p>

<p>I want to eventually go into venture capital.....NOT ibanking :D</p>

<p>trading is mentioned, its would place right after ibanking, and if you mention the word quant, people here really dont care, its when the words i + banking are mentioned and everyone automatically assume it means $$$$$</p>

<p>well, why don't you guys try to change it up and start talking about trading, quantitative finance, etc. Say something interesting and people will ask more...then it will spread to other threads.</p>

<p>Why don't you start making some posts about that then?</p>

<p>i dont know enough to share any information with you guys or i would...I am asking others to enlighten us</p>

<p>corporate lawyers get 145K bast first year? that is insanely more than doctors at the same age level anyways because they will still be in residency...it takes 3 years to get a JD right? plus 4 undergrad? How easy is it to get a coporate lawyer job? Ibanking still seems more hardcore though because pay rises quickly and long hours. Usually, how much does an associate banker get paid w/ bonus vs associate corporate lawyer?</p>

<p>That's the standard market salary for corporate law firms in New York. It does take 3 years to get a JD plus the four years undergrad (which everyone will have to do). Ibankers get a bigger majority of their pay in bonuses. With bonuses an ibanker with an MBA will get paid around $250k-$300k(on the high end) as opposed to a corporate lawyer who will get paid around $145k-$160k. </p>

<p>If you want a corporate lawyer job, go to a college where you can get a 4.0 and also study for the LSAT. If you have around 170 you'll be good, and 175 for more security. Anyways aim for the top 15 or so schools (Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Columbia, NYU, UChicago, UMich, UPenn, UVa, Duke, Northwestern, Cornell, UC Berkeley, Georgetown, UT-Austin...something like that) and try to get in the upper quartile in those schools. Of course someone from Harvard Law will have a better chance at those firms than from UT-Austin.</p>

<p>its called t14 by the way, not 15. You dont need a 4.0 nor a 170 to get into these schools, every school has different preferences for either gpa or lsat, northwestern has a high preference for work experience(something that will soon spread throught the other colleges). Lawyers have more stable jobs, end of year pay for top NYC firms is is between 160-200k, you obviously do not know how to add in bonuses. Your hourly pay is more, biglaw spread deeplys into a greater number of cities. Every profession has its own pluses and minuses, pay should be only a small part of your decision to do one thing or another because people tend to only really go after things they really want.</p>

<p>Oh, sorry<em>sarcasm</em> top 14 vs. top 15....missed by one....stop the presses! Armaggedon!!! The world's coming to an end!!! So I guess people shouldn't consider the number 15 or the number 16 school just because it's not in "top 14?" Geez <em>bleeding with sarcasm</em>.....of course you don't NEED a 4.0 and 170 LSAT but it's going to make things a hell of a lot easier.</p>

<p>
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Lawyers have more stable jobs

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</p>

<p>I never said they didn't have stable jobs. Tell me something I don't know.</p>

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you obviously do not know how to add in bonuses.

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</p>

<p>I'll pretend I didn't see this.</p>

<p>you already acknowledged it, why pretend?</p>

<p>My cousin went to Emory Undergrad/Emory Law and got a Corp Lawyer internship in his 2nd year in law school, which turned into a full-time job after he graduated.</p>

<p>Speaking of quants:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.global-derivatives.com/schools/fin-rankings2003-04.php%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.global-derivatives.com/schools/fin-rankings2003-04.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>These are the quantitative finance program rankings. The programs are about 1.5 years in length (on average). You have to be good at math to go into this line. IMHO, this is far more exciting than idiot banking drone jobs. I'll go one step more and say this is probably the most exciting job on wall-street. </p>

<p>This site has an excellent description of what quants do:</p>

<p><a href="http://www.math.nyu.edu/financial_mathematics/whatisfm.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.math.nyu.edu/financial_mathematics/whatisfm.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Columbia and Princeton are now offering Financial Engineering for undergrads.</p>

<p>wow, that seems interesting but what is the pay difference between quants and ibankers and who is more "respected" on wall street? (as in front vs back office jobs)</p>

<p>quants are the ones who are earning the major money for investment banks, it's the trading divisions that are bringing in most of the money these days. it's definitely a good job to have.</p>

<p>as far as I know, you can either be in a support position or a trading position. if you're in that support position you'll be doing the work to help the traders, developing algorithms, whatever. if you're trading -- you're trading.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.tower-research.com/team.shtml%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.tower-research.com/team.shtml&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>read the backgrounds of these guys to get an idea of the roles. </p>

<p>also note that ibankers and quants & traders will have different exit opportunities. a banker will have more options (corporate dev, VC, PE) and a quant/trader will have fewer options (mainly moving to hedge funds)</p>

<p>Quants are not back office jobs. Back office is doing things like the actual office work it takes to keep business functioning, operations, thats the least respected job.</p>