Dealbreaker, Compensation Watch ’23: Go To Law School, Young Man:
[According to the Wall Street Journal,] the best way into the most lucrative line of work on Wall Street [is to] … shred those Wharton and HBS applications and cancel your GMAT registration. But you’re probably gonna want to sign up for the LSAT just as soon as you’re done.
Wall Street Journal, On Wall Street, Lawyers Make More Than Bankers Now:
Superstar attorneys can rake in more than $15 million a year, while banker pay has hardly budged.
Over the past few years, as the Manhattan real-estate broker Lisa Lippman took her well-heeled clients through $7 million-plus apartments with Central Park views and amenities including squash courts and lap pools, she noticed a change: It was no longer bankers making a lot of the offers. It was lawyers.
“It used to be you’d say someone is an investment banker, and that was a big deal. Now it’s, like, meh,” Lippman, a former lawyer, said. “If I had to pick my favorite buyers, it would be big-time lawyers.”
While bankers used to make multiples of what lawyers did, the lawyers have been zooming ahead, thanks to stagnant banker pay for all but the very top performers and changing dynamics at law firms. …
The Wall Street Journal spoke to more than 30 compensation experts, bankers and lawyers and reviewed pay data over more than 15 years.
Managing directors who aren’t in high-ranking leadership roles at banks make an average of between $1 million and $2 million most years, including bonuses often paid largely in stock, more or less unchanged from where it was two decades ago.
Equity partners at top law firms, meanwhile, can make around $3 million or more a year—more than triple what they were pulling in two decades ago. An elite group of partners who bring in exceptional amounts of business are earning north of $15 million at a handful of firms including Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz; Kirkland & Ellis; and Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. …
Top lawyers currently charge more than $2,000 an hour for their time. Some high performers at top firms earn more than $15 million, and an elite few get well over $20 million. … While standout law firm partners might bring in around $20 million in annual revenue, superstars can bring in $100 million or more, said [Mark] Rosen, [a] legal recruiter.
The riches can come at a price. Advising companies at their most critical moments means the work is 24/7. Rosen said it isn’t uncommon for his clients to work 18-hour days, on weekends. One lawyer recalled being on a client call while posing for family photos at his son’s bar mitzvah.
