fuggedaboudit

Yep - top tier firms pay roughly the same as tech companies do as far as I can tell (with the added bonus that you don't need 250k in grad school loans to work for Google at an entry level - and a much higher ceiling for the truly, amazingly talent).

Another key difference is that in most top tier law firms, literally 2-3% of every starting class can expect to have a full career there. I've heard tech has a similar concept called stack ranking, but it seems much milder in terms of the forced attrition. Not to mention you don't need a full career at Google - you can always take that resume line and go to another big tech company, a startup or something midmarket. Law is much more segmented. The M&A lawyer laid off during a recession isn't going to find a job at a small firm because those generally do not do M&A.

I don't really hear of top tier software engineers struggling to find work - happens to out of work top tier lawyers all the time.

Oh, and for the record 15% of law school grads get that sweet 180k starting salary (a trajectory most won't stay on).

There are many, many lawyers making 40-60k a year working horrendous hours with no real hope of advancement.

Let me be clear: I have zero doubt in my mind, even with my very limited knowledge of the software engineering market, that I have no doubt the median software engineer is far better off than the median lawyer, likely in terms of pay, hours, and prospects all at the same time.

My question related solely to the top tier because that's where it's even remotely competitive.

I guess the grass is always greener. I'm a lawyer who lurks here occasionally. Most legal jobs involve 60+ hours of work, being on call 24/7, and there is pretty much no legal equivalent of a 10Xer because almost all work is billed by the hour. There is no way to make a contract that's 10x as valuable as your competitor's, and certainly no legal equivalent of scaling to the degree of Google or Facebook.

Law is incredibly challenging work - I know more than one lawyer who complains that they should have went into programming to work 9-5 at Google between free massages and endless burritos or whatever other perks you guys have. It's certainly not work you can casually do while watching youtube - especially considered there's such a thing as legal malpractice a.k.a. get something less than perfect and you could personally be on the hook for your license. Also, it seems like career longevity in software engineering is a lot higher than in law - most lawyers for the top firms (the Google/Facebook equivalents in pay) wash out by the 4th year and practically all do by the 8th.

I always wondered if I made a mistake picking law over software engineering. I don't have any strong passions and I was good at reading/writing so I went into law, but have been kicking myself for missing out on stock options and equivalent pay for a laid back lifestyle. Glad to see there are programmers who think lawyers have it easy.

I have an issue with that: law school and medical school certainly do not teach you how to practice law or medicine. Computer science sounds akin to both: you get theoretical underpinnings (many of which are outdated or will be unneeded for your specialty) but all your actual learning is on the job.