Discussion

Main Board| Accommodation Wanted| Accommodation Offered
Start a new discussion on this board

Let your next career move come to you.

£180,000 for someone with 6 months experience?

on what fcuking planet does that make sense?

cause you don't pay that for 'smart people' you pay that for reasonably clever people who will work until they have a catastrophic mental episode from not sleeping or taking holiday for the last 6 years

have they at least had the decency to hang a sign that says "meat grinder" on the front door?

when I was in my 20s I more than had the capability to work long periods without holiday/sleep without having a mental episode.  we have taken self-care too far as a nation and all become pussies bleating about looking after ourselves.  linkedin is full of it.  

Ego Brainiac17 May 24 07:57

when I was in my 20s I more than had the capability to work long periods without holiday/sleep without having a mental episode.  we have taken self-care too far as a nation and all become pussies bleating about looking after ourselves.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

if you want to be owned for an average of about £33 an hour, that's your call

but this isn't a value for genius thing, this is a find someone with a 50 shades fantasy thing 

Sumo I was doing that as a junior hospital dr for far less money and arguably far more responsibility. And I didn’t do the old skool hrs either. That said I always got my 5 weeks holiday and did chose to do extra shifts on top so I guess that’s on me. 

why is the amount that private businesses pay their employees the subject of such continues hand wringing?

given the fvcking ferocious beasting they take from sociopathic seniors and clueless clients, junior lawyers remain IMHO underpaid

Sir Woke XR Remainer FBPE MBE17 May 24 08:20

why is the amount that private businesses pay their employees the subject of such continues hand wringing?

_______________________________________________________________________________

  1. anyone can speculate about anything
  2. there are depressingly many businesses who will throw the cash at this operation without thinking 
  3. I am not one of the businesses that will pay (3x180K-560540K(?))540K plus another 100K vat to train someone because that is fcuking retarded

the people who whine about the high salaries are the ones with neither the brains or the work ethic to get them...then they reply with ooooh I wouldn't want them anyway I value my mental health.  fast fwd 30 years they're the ones with mental health problems because they feel they've wasted their life

The real issue is the clients who will pay these sums

I get there is a lot of grunt work in law but clients must know they are getting mugged as Tarquin and Tabitha record 23 hours a day for reviewing docs 

I also see they are paying for the partners expertise experience and the peace of mind etc 

Isn't the weird thing that this is being offered to lawyers?.

Like yes in sports and business, extreme outlier talents will be paid crazy amounts early in their career because they may go on to do amazing things.

Surely for law that doesn't make sense because you can't really be 'an amazing lawyer'. It's about as odd as saying someone was 'an amazing driving instructor'

Or 'an amazing dentist'

They can be a driving instructor or dentist who works insane hours but describing them as 'brilliant' will never really sit right.

the people who whine about the high salaries are the ones with neither the brains or the work ethic to get them...then they reply with ooooh I wouldn't want them anyway I value my mental health.  fast fwd 30 years they're the ones with mental health problems because they feel they've wasted their life

No definitely doesn't sound like someone desperately trying to justify wasting their youth.

I initially fell for the lure of riches but thankfully realised that I was going to end up rich and desperately unhappy and feeling like I'd wasted my life.  Instead I get to do all the things I enjoy, take holiday at short notice because I feel like it and switch off when I finish work for the day and I'm still in top few percent of earners in the country and looking forward to the day in the not so distant future where I can sack work off entirely and not lose the only thing that gives my life a sense of value.

The real issue is the clients who will pay these sums

I get there is a lot of grunt work in law but clients must know they are getting mugged as Tarquin and Tabitha record 23 hours a day for reviewing docs 

I also see they are paying for the partners expertise experience and the peace of mind etc 

 You answer your own question.

The NQ rate doesnt sit in isolation. It is just part of the overall cost of hiring Quinn or Davis Polk or Aggressive & fooktard LLP or whoever. You are paying for the overall experience of that firm and their profit model requires a bunch of juniors charging at those rates. You could lower the junior rate and treble the partner rate if you want but the client pays the same.

 

Why aren't there accountants who get paid that much on qualification? I don't really understand how junior lawyers can be paid like that...it just seems a bit like how they pay cleaners on superyachts £60k a year....because the client can afford it.

But in these cases aren't the 'clients' companies so they should be trying to remove pointless costs?

I have recently dealt with a large firm on a licence to assign and they produced two drafts having removed the authorised guarantee provisions between drafts and they told me they'd racked up over £6k in time.  Even at my charge out rate as a senior associate I've clocked up less than £1k on the same task.

In the kind of stupid world where stupid clients are willing to pay enough fees so that US firm partners make actual millions, it makes sense that the lower orders get their share too

startling naivety about how big business works

as an example, when I was IH at fortune 500 businesses I would often advise exec and they made a decision based on that advice, but still wanted a NY based retained firm to give the same advice (which I often drafted for them).  This was to keep shareholders, NYSE, big customers etc happy and having a world leading firm say something was OK did that.  Advice could easily be a 50k bill for doing practically nothing.  That's just the way it worked.

 

Sails - the problem there is the client hiring them not the firm. I promise you the firm do not want to be doing that work. They are doing it because the client makes them (because someone else is paying the bill and it's easier for them) and gives them other work. 

Otherwise what Threep said. 

I've worked in a FTSE 100 Ego and I've had the term 'global' in my job title. I know how big business works.

Quite often they'll make back breaking and often counterproductive efforts to reduce costs on certain things (usually on the advice of someone with an MBA) so I am surprised they are regularly dolling out £50k freebies to law firms to 'do nothing'. If you're doing that multiple times a week or per day I am surprised someone in finance isn't asking questions.

It's not really 6 months experience though it it.

It's more like 5 to 6 thousand hours of experience by that point for these poor desk slaves. The money is well earned if  they get ther far imo.

Ego Brainiac17 May 24 09:25

startling naivety about how big business works

.... still wanted a NY based retained firm to give the same advice (which I often drafted for them).  This was to keep shareholders, NYSE, big customers etc happy and having a world leading firm say something was OK did that.  Advice could easily be a 50k bill for doing practically nothing.  That's just the way it worked.

_______________________________________________________________________________________

yes, we know what a legal opinion is, the price really reflects the risk rather than the work in that scenario 

It's not really FTSE 100 (or even Fortune 500) who are really driving the mega profits being seen now. It's private equity/private credit/hedge funds and to some extent SWFs. Thinly resourced and living in a world where USD5 million is a rounding error on an assumption in the model they don't give a fvck if the legal advice is USD50k or USD500k provided it (to the absolute greatest extent possible) gives them the answers they want and is available at very short notice 24/7. It's a bit like taking a taxi rather than the tube across London to get to the airport. Both get you there perfectly well and one is likely to be 10 times the cost of the other but at a certain point of having money you don't care because the expensive option doesn't move the needle on anything and it's far more convenient. 

Quinn are a bit different as it's mainly bet the company litigation for them where again the stakes are high enough that nobody really gives a fvck if the bill is 3 million or 10 million when it's 5 billion plus at stake. 

You've also got the fact that the GPs don't pay the legal costs, and the LPs who do have almost no control or visibility on what they are. That dynamic encourages a lot of profligacy. 

You've got a multi-trillion dollar global industry whose fundamental logic is to raise as much debt as possible, pay as much of it as you're allowed to directly to yourself, and hope that the company your dumping the liability on can sustain itself.

In that scenario, the lawyers who are best at getting you the most debt can demand basically unlimited money. 

Donny that kind of work is bread and butter work for junior property lawyers where you manage large portfolios on behalf of clients and it's generally profitable as you get an undertaking and charge that amount regardless of the time and you get paid as soon as you've issued your bill.  It's a three hour job at most so they are either charging £2k an hour for a junior associate or as I suspect the case may be that they make the kids copy in a load of more senior people so that one e-mail is recorded as half an hour.

My understanding is that litigation boutiques like Quinn Emmanuel takes beasting to a whole new level. Second/third-hand gossip is that junior associates are expected to bill > 3000 hours, which frankly I don't see how it can be possible.

Yes I know Sails, once upon a time I was just such a junior colourer in doing that work at a magic circle firm. 

But even then the firm didn't really want to do it and it was always a loss leader in the hope you get the work when the client sells, refinances or redevelops. I fondly remember the joys of writing chasing emails to crappy west end firms reminding them of their professional obligations to comply with their undertakings when something had fallen over. 

also I don't consider it a "sacrifice" or "wasting youth".... it was brilliant...no kid commitments...life was just work, banging, booze, gym and a bit of sleep.  great times.

Doing landlord and tenant management work - like licenses to assign / alter is not lawyering. It could be done automatically if the property world embraced the 20th century- let alone the 21st.  It’s a lifestyle choice - dull as you like and the variety is only between the different levels of shithousery of other people you’re opposite 

These US firms are sharing the wealth.  Big deals cost big bucks and it’s better that they pay their lawyers well at all levels rather than take more profit - as they’re already making sweet profit.  

The concern is really around whether the expected performance is fair / imbalanced when considering the mental health / stress that people will be under to do what is required.  People can say ‘they signed up for it’ but there ought  to be a wider discussion as this culture means more dead lawyers - and more misery.  Law firms introducing support for mental health issues rather than preventing them by creating a better working environment demonstrates the industry prefers sympathy when someone is dead rather than addressing why the job killed them 

 

 

They aren't 'sharing the wealth' really. They are trying to get people hooked on a lifestyle so they keep swigging from that coolaid bottle and keep putting the hours in/accept no changes to the model of extremely long hours spent mainly at a desk in an office and no real room for a social life. That model is getting increasingly hard to sell to young lawyers and that has the effect of limiting the supply of those lawyers to these firms which in turn is driving up the price of them. 

At least in the UK it's after two years of training. Imagine in the US, where on the first day that some of these people have ever worked, they get paid $225K pa.

I do have to disagree with the people who say it is a low figure on a per-hour basis if you take into account the crazy hours, the figures are simply not true. If you bill 2,300 hours on an annual basis (this is 10 hours a day per working day), let's assume this translates to 12 hours a day spent on working - that is 2,760 hours per year; on a per-hour basis that is £65 before tax. What other job pays that at 25? 

I've had the term 'global' in my job title  

turbo heh

Ego it's hard for me to talk on a detailed level about what I do and I assume, because you are a solicitor, that you gave up on technical subjects around age 16, when you dropped maths and sciences in favour of politics, general studies and law etc.

Fortunately in a previous role I have been an educational ambassador for my company, within local schools giving them talks on careers in software and engineering. They are generally around age 16.

I treat solicitors with the same assumptions regarding their technical competence and pitch my language accordingly. I am a very patient communicator. I thought the term 'global' would be familiar to you?

Market forces - they want to tempt in the best undergraduates who are choosing where to train (those with choices who are sought after anyway....) and the headline NQ pay tempts them in.

 

Also £180k is about 8930 a month. Student loan (9%) is about £1178 off that leaves £7752. Take off £2500 a month rent  is £5252 s0 still not a king's ransom given you are 7 or 8 years out of school to get to that NQ point. If you have 2 babies at nursery or other full time childcare that might cost you £60k a year and let us say it is halved as sharing with a spouse/partner so £2500 a month your share. So that leaves £2752 to cover food, travel costs to work, work clothes, pension contribution if you can afford one etc etc.....

 

We have the highest tax burden in 70 years and both the Tories and Labour seem committed to a massive state and very high taxes.

Agree , Donny they aren't sharing the wealth anywhere close to other firms.

A partner with PEP of £5m per year paying an NQ 180k is much tighter than one with PEP of <£2m paying NQs £130k.

Not many people have two kids by NQ stage Lydia... But they will certainly find ways to feel like they are not that well off very quickly which of course is exactly what the law firm needs. 

They will have about 7.5k a month in their pocket after tax, student loans and pension. 1 bed flat close(ish) to the office, travel and bills will take up getting on for 3 grand of that.  Which leaves them just over a grand a week. It's a lot but you won't live like a king on it in London especially not when you are constantly paying out for cabs, shirt services, delivered food, cleaners etc to help keep the show on the road when you are working that hard. If you are reasonably careful you might save 2kish a month/25k a year.  You'll need 3 years of that to afford the stamp duty and deposit to buy that 1 bedroom flat. I mean it's all good but it's not exactly Wall Street crossed with The Big Short. 

Any NQ having a baby in one of these US firms will find themselves being [redacted] pronto

Unless it’s the senior partner’s child of course in which case there will be a ticker tape parade

a) not any more than the salaries gimps griped about in 2000 with inflation, ignoring the fact housing inflation has far outstripped that. 

b) external whining about it is restricted to bitter in-housers wishing it was them who have carried their three bags full attitude to their new work and don't have the balls to say to the business "that's what it costs", so get fisted by the CFO whenever they come up with the legal budget. If you look at a closing spreadsheet with IB fees on it, you would see legal is chicken feed. 

c) partners whining about it are greedy aunts that are taking megabucks compared to historical norms for shitter quality work mostly "valued" for speed rather than any legal brilliance. Just be grateful for the people working far harder than you ever did at that stage to cover your second mortgage and your F&B paint bill. 

Was £100k a realistic associate salary in 2000? It is a smaller number than I would have guessed tbf. 

Think that's about right; may even be a bit high? If I remember, in the early 00s, a first-year associate in New York was making something in the range of US$135-160K. And the pound was very strong then.

They were w**king on about £90k too high for some US firms (maybe Gibson Dunn). Remember at the time London firms were still trying to get away with paying law soc minimum NQ salaries. 

A target back then was prob 1500 or less. Now they want 20% more than that. I have seen stats of associates averaging 120 hours a week measured over a six week period. fook these bastards coining it off their sweat and these unreasonable aunts demanding 300 page documents are turned overnight. I would rather they said "thank you", and went on their way, especially as it's only in their UKIP style delusional minds eye that they worked as hard when they were younger. 

How many hours a week would you be working for this? 

I'm not really up to date but when I started as a Dr in 2009 I was contracted for 40 (probably dead nearer 45/50) and was on something like £34k. But that was in Liverpool so it wasn't too bad. 

They will be doing 2000 to get in good standing, so little under 9 hours chargeable a day. However, they will obviously have to do non-chargeable stuff around that, so min 11 per weekday. 1-2 hours extra chargeable per day not unheard of. Then there will be dicking around waiting for documents, plus the fact that you may work with the US a fair amount. You are in any event akin to a permanently on call doctor, so the reality is 9-8 as a minimum, lots more in peak times and working 1 weekend day at least every fortnight of not more and losing a significant chunk of your holiday wouldn't be unheard of.

Also bear in mind you need to use the cash to buy your pension, with some US firms even only paying the statutory minimum up to the ceiling instead of on your full salary like most places. Also worth bearing in mind that every doctor is getting that pay, whereas this is a comparatively small minority of even City solicitors, and the partners are making out like bandits off their backs. 

there ought  to be a wider discussion as this culture means more dead lawyers - and more misery.  

no one is putting a gun to their heads and making them sign up at Latham

The no-one is putting their gun to a head argument is a deflection of responsibility- see also workplaces with ‘manage your stress’ programmes.  

How about you manage my stress by not calling me at 7am on a Sunday with something urgent that can’t wait. 

Find me anyone with this sort of job these days who isn’t the product of BOMAD. You’d have to have been reared like a factory farmed animal to want this sort of thing. And in that position would have most to benefit. Nil sympathy, sorry not sorry. 

The comment on my figures above is right - about £4k left a month (I did have a baby as a trainee and had three by the age of 26 so childcare was certainly a massive cost when I was at that stage but I appreciate most people leave it to later so we can leave it out of the calculations. I don't think £4k spare a month after paying for rent etc is a huge sum given someone will not have earned for 4 or 5 years of university/post grad and then not been on massive sums for 2 years as a trainee.  Anyone living at home with parents with no rent to pay I suppose has even m ore but that is just how things go sometimes. £4k spare a month for working like a dog all year   could be about £48k a year saved so a reasonable deposit on  a first property in a year or two although these days people also have to have even higher sums for stamp duty than in my day and I have still not recovered from the huge stamp duty we had to pay for this house in 1997 (it had doubled from the 1996 rate).

 

I did work out today my 1985 NQ pay of £13,500 is in today's money about £40k today after inflation so NQ pay of say £125k (at the place where I was back then being their rate today) is 3 times as much. Some of that will simply be because during the 1980s we had big bang, big changes. I started not long after partnerships had only just stopped being limited to 20 partners and no more and people just were not as well off. The we had an 80s boom etc. and here we are today with some lawyers on 3x in real terms the pay I had in 1985. May be rents are 3x as high and  there will be student loan repayments at 9% too and all kinds of awful big state high tax changes like no single person tax allowance for people on those sums. It is not surprising pay had to go up.

This is nice. I feel like the malformed rambling crap that Lydia just produced shows the germ of the idea that her generation are beginning to understand that a lot of things are different now.

Not just she doesn't write on a typewriter

It’ll be twintun this time next year and rightly so. Pards at the crème of the p’fssn are making hay so why fault trickle-down capitalism. Mind you there are 27 - 28+ year olds at Goldman quietly pullin half a lion in a fallow year. 

Join the discussion

Login Register