Is Corporate Law worth it?

sallyawp
Fri, 14 Oct 2011 11:17:53 +0000

I am a corporate lawyer who specializes primarily in mergers and acquisitions, private equity and securities law. Of course, in order to do these things well you must also have a level of expertise in tax, real estate, employment, labor, intellectual property, and a whole host of other areas of law.

I’m a history major, in my sophomore year of college. I’ve been thinking about becoming a corporate lawyer ever since I was a senior in high school. It sounds like an interesting career. But, is it worth it? I have a few questions:

To answer your questions, in order:


It is impossible to say whether you would succeed in corporate law purely as a matter of your grades on a few college papers. Practicing corporate law does indeed require excellent writing ability, but the type of writing you do is worlds apart from the kind of writing that would earn you a 98% in an english comp class. In addition, you need to be confident, a good speaker and negotiator, someone who can think on their feet, a good researcher, someone who can see the forest through the trees and you should have some math and finance ability (the more, the better).
All corporate law is, by its nature, international. Few companies source their products/raw materials/components domestically or sell products/services exclusively in the U.S. Whether or not you get to travel a lot is a function both of the areas of corporate law in which you specialize, as well as the particular needs of your clients. As someone who has travelled a whole lot for work, I can tell you that, in my opinion, traveling for work is overrated and, frankly, something I avoid when possible. I have travelled across the globe for work, and I have to tell you that the inside of a conference room in Tokyo or South Africa looks an awful lot like the inside of a conference room in Detroit.
History, foreign affairs, nations, governments, etc. . . . that’s all well and good. It is important for a good corporate lawyer to understand the world around him or her and to read newspapers, etc. avidly. I don’t know that your specific knowledge would help you in any particular way.
The pay varied tremendously depending upon where (geographically) and the type of setting in which you practice law. Many seasoned corporate lawyers practicing at the highest levels of the profession make a significant amount of money every year, and others make a lot less. I can tell you that it can be frustrating that your corporate, private equity and other clients often make significantly more money than you will, even though you are working side-by-side for many, many long hours.
Intellectually fun? I wouldn’t necessarily call it fun. One of the things that I love about corporate law is that there is always something new to learn and a lot of thinking required to determine the best course of action for clients who are wading through some very gray areas.
What is a typical day in the life of a corporate lawyer like? Without writing you a book, since every day is completely different from the one before and often quite different from the day I expect when I walk in in the morning, I can tell you that the days are long and often unpredictable. You never know for sure that you won’t be working all night. Remember – it’s a client service industry and, though part of your job as a senior attorney is to manage clients’ expectations, sometimes you must serve your clients no matter how unreasonable their demands. Often corporate transactions are negotiated, priced, finalized, etc. at night and over the weekends so that market-sensitive information is less likely to be leaked.