Quote:
Originally Posted by M3takesNYC
So yes, please tell me any other close legitimate alternative to match a 200k/ year job starting at about age 30 with the perks I mentioned. Even lawyers are hard-pressed to find jobs out of school and if they do they are making nothing these days starting and taking a long, hard road to being a partner and breaking the 150k mark with again less flexibility or stability.
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1st year lawyers start 160k, albeit only at the "big" firms (and those jobs are becoming increasingly more difficult to get). The road to partnership at these firms is typically ~7-9 years - during the latter phase of this period, senior associate will be close to 300k if not over. If they make partner, the salary increases significantly after that. Some of the "heavy hitters" at the mega firms will make professional athlete type money.
The problem, of course, is that no one is making partner anymore and layoffs are becoming the norm. Big law goes as corporate American goes.
My dad is both a practicing physican and a professor of medicine, and yet he did everything within his power to talk me out of the profession. I really enjoy the practice of law (the critical thinking, the writing, etc.), but career stability is a huge concern for me. Tomorrow, some law firm administrator could wake up in a city far, far away and decide that my salary is no longer justifiable and poof, just like that, my career is over. My dad, however, has his patients - and no one can ever take them away from him. His patient base is also a great bargaining chip when it comes to dealing with the hospital managers. I think that the stability aspect of medicine is something that he tends to take for granted as he has had it for the duration of his career. Where he has never felt the fear of potentially losing his job, why would he recognize this element? I think that this tends to be overlooked by most MDs, especially during these uncertain times.