What is this career path?

In the UK, a career in law involves studying for a degree, completing at least one year of mandatory professional training, and then practising as a barrister or solicitor. Broadly speaking, solicitors are non-trial lawyers who provide expert legal advice, and barristers are trial lawyers who provide specialist advice and advocate in court.⁷

Although there are almost 140,000 solicitors working the UK, as of July 2017,LINK. Although there are over 180,000 solicitors 'on the roll', only around 14,000 are currently practising.</p> " rel="footnote" class="footnote-link no-visited-styling" aria-label="Footnote">⁸ in this review we focus on the fraction of those who practice at highly-ranked corporate firms.⁹ This is because in the increasingly ‘two tiered’LINK. In 1991, the single most common starting salary for lawyers in the US was around $30,000, with progressively fewer newly-recruits earning above $30,000, and no new recruits earning more than $90,000. By 2010, there are clearly two distinct groups of lawyers entering the profession: One cluster earns around $50,000 as a starting salary, and the other around $160,000. As the title of the article suggests, 'average' is over, and two distinct legal markets (the lower-end and the elite) have emerged.</p> " rel="footnote" class="footnote-link no-visited-styling" aria-label="Footnote">¹⁰ legal profession, the earning potential at these elite firms far outstrips the median salary for a solicitor in the UK (which was £54,000 in 2015).LINK. "The median average salary across all private practice grades in 2015 was £54,000 per annum, a 4.8 per cent increase on 2014 median figure [...] Across all in private practice, median earnings were highest in Greater London (£76,000) [...] Median earnings within each private practice grade increased as size of firm increased".</p> " rel="footnote" class="footnote-link no-visited-styling" aria-label="Footnote">¹¹ Additionally, large commercial firms — with a thousand employees and turnover of millions — are so different in nature from typical high street firms that they are barely recognisable as part of the same profession.¹²

Also note that high-end commercial law is not a particularly large field: The top 30 highest-paying firms combined only offer around 1,000 training contracts each year in total, and the top 10 highest-paying firms offer only 200.

That said, our views on the pros and cons of high-end law largely apply to less elite firms as well, keeping in mind that these firms are not as high-earning but generally offer a better work-life balance.

What is commercial law?

Commercial law firms advise companies and governments on business-related issues, and are divided into departments which specialise in particular areas. Most commercial firms have practices in:

• Corporate law, where lawyers ensure that companies comply with their constitution and relevant national and international laws;
• Finance and banking, where lawyers protect their clients against the risks involved in financing a deal; and
• Dispute resolution, where lawyers advise on the law relating to disputes and dispute resolution strategy.

Other common practice areas include employment, EU law, intellectual property, real estate, and tax.

What do we mean by ‘high end’ commercial law?

By ‘high-end’ commercial law, we’re referring to the UK firms with the highest earnings-per-partner and earnings-per lawyer. These firms fall into two broad categories.

The first is known as the ‘Magic Circle’,LINK: "Historically, Slaughter and May, Freshfields and Linklaters were most highly regarded for their corporate work and Allen &amp; Overy, Clifford Chance for finance. This distinction is now largely moot as the corporate and finance practices of all five firms outshine those of all but a few of their competitors. But the corporate vs. finance distinction within the circle does still come through in the Chambers UK rankings [...] Note that Slaughters, Freshfields and Links are all a step ahead of A&amp;O, and Clifford Chance in the corporate rankings, while the latter two win their best plaudits in the banking and finance arenas. Linklaters defies categorisation: this year at least it wins a top-tier ranking in all five of the corporate and finance areas we picked out".</p> " rel="footnote" class="footnote-link no-visited-styling" aria-label="Footnote">¹³ an informal term for what have traditionally been considered the leading UK commercial firms. The Magic Circle is made up of Allen & Overy; Clifford Chance; Freshfields; Linklaters; and Slaughter and May.

The second group is known as ‘US biglaw’, or ‘MoneyLaw’. The term refers to US firms in LondonLINK: "There are roughly 100 US and transatlantic firms with a presence in the UK. Around half offer training contracts – they offer about 650 between them".</p> " rel="footnote" class="footnote-link no-visited-styling" aria-label="Footnote">¹⁴ who offer training contracts to UK-trained lawyers. It includes firms such as Milbank, Cadwalader White & Case, Latham & Watkins, Akin Gump, Cleary Gottlieb, Davis Polk and Kirkland & Ellis.

The US MoneyLaw firms offer more, well… money, as well as a more international practice, but they tend to be smaller, less-established in the UK, and to demand (even) more hours that their Magic Circle counterparts.

What is it like day to day?

What you do day-to-day will vary by seniority and practice area. The general career progression in a commercial firm is as follows:

• For the first two years, you will be a trainee. Expect to spend your time – about 12 hours of it five or six days a week – doing legal research, note taking, proofreading, and drafting documents.
• Trainees that are ‘kept on’ will become junior associates. For the following one to three years, you’ll largely play a supporting role and help senior associates manage their cases. As you gain experience, you’ll begin to advise on regulations and conduct negotiations yourself.
• Years four to seven are the ‘mid-level’ associate years. While the hours will still be long, you’ll now be able to do most of the work involved in running a case.
• In the years before being made a partner, around years eight to ten, you’ll be a ‘senior associate’. The work will involve structuring deals and running teams of lawyers.
• If you ‘make partner’, you’ll work to win new business, keep the firm strategically aligned across its international locations, and generally manage its executive-level decisions.

How much can you earn in commercial law?

Commercial law is one of the highest-paid careers, making it a candidate for “earning to give”. You can read more about why to earn to give in this separate article, which covers common objections, and why we don’t normally recommend it right now.

Just how highly paid is commercial law? In 2017, partners at US-headquartered firms in the UK earned between between £1.5 and £3m (Kirkland & Ellis, the highest-paying US-based firm, awarded each partner over £4m). Magic Circle firms paid each partner around £1.5m.LINK.

" rel="footnote" class="footnote-link no-visited-styling" aria-label="Footnote">¹⁵ While few current trainees will become partners – and, even if they do, it’s not clear what partners will be earning in 15 years or so – it is clear that commercial law can pay very well.

Why? There are a number of reasons. Fundamentally, commercial law firms are in the business of transferring and protecting the wealth of affluent clients, within a legal and regulatory framework that allows them to charge highly for their work.

Commercial lawyers protect client wealth, for example, by defending claims, reviewing contracts to include favourable terms, or ensuring that regulations are complied to avoid fines. They also help clients to obtain wealth by bringing claims against others, advising businesses, and assisting to finance projects.

Because the sums at stake for these clients are so large, and commercial law can be so complex, the cost of engaging highly-specialised and constantly-available lawyers is less than the cost of conducting business without the best legal advice. This means firms can charge high hourly rates, make substantial profits, and pay equity partners the figures mentioned above.

The supply of lawyers is also limited by education and licensing requirements.¹⁶ In the UK, this means at least three years of postgraduate training and approval by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. According to research on ‘occupational licensing’, this system limits the number of people who can provide legal services, and is one factor in keeping lawyer’s fees high (at the expense of their clients).

However, occupational licensing probably doesn’t play a particularly large role in keeping the salaries of elite commercial lawyers so high. Instead, talented employees (and talent that is willing to work 100-hour-weeks at the beck-and-call of impatient bankers and multinational corporations) doesn’t come cheap, and commercial law needs to offer salaries that are competitive with other high-earning industries for the best graduates.

So how much do commercial lawyers actually earn?

In short, a lot. But around the same and consulting and banking. Here is a side-by-side comparison:

There are a couple of things to bear in mind when looking at these numbers.

1. First, they are only rough estimates. The estimates have been gathered from publicly available data and conversations with people in the relevant industries. While it is relatively easy to find out how much commercial law pays at the trainee stage and in the early years of practice, it is harder to find accurate information on pay at later stages (with the exception of pay-per-salaried partner).¹⁷

2. Second, the estimates are of what people are being paid in 2017. If you are reading this post and considering studying for a degree in law, it will be at least six years until you are a newly-qualified solicitor, and over a decade before you are a mid-level associate. Knowing how the industry will change in that time is important for assessing the value this career path. The key drivers of change in that time will be global and national economic business environments; how clients buy legal services; technological innovation; new entrants and competitors; and political agendas around legal regulation.LINK.

   " rel="footnote" class="footnote-link no-visited-styling" aria-label="Footnote">¹⁸ These drivers are likely to lead to a more competitive, more international, and more specialised legal market. While this may mean that successful top-ranked commercial lawyers could be even more-highly paid (especially those that carve out a profitable niche for themselves), it also indicates that only the most exceptional and motivated would-be lawyers should pursue this career path, as reaching equity partnership is set to become even more difficult.LINK: "More law firms are using non-equity partners in every country, and the use of these partnerships is anticipated to increase".</p> " rel="footnote" class="footnote-link no-visited-styling" aria-label="Footnote">¹⁹

3. Third, the estimates of the chances of making partner are especially difficult. Moreover, they only reflect the average rates, when in practice many lawyers don’t aim to make partner. One of the commercial lawyers we’ve spoken with estimated that around half of all candidates ‘gunning’ for partnership have the potential, in terms of skill and competence, to become partners. The rest drop out of running for partnership of their own election. While this does suggest that making partner might be easier than the 3-4% figure suggests, the high dropout rates also belie widespread career dissatisfaction (which we explore further below).

So, what conclusions can we draw from these estimates?

First, on average law has similar earning to consulting, but somewhat lower earnings than investment banking comparing year-for-year, especially if you consider that lawyers start with 1-2 years of extra training. However, there are a number of complications:

1. Consultants often exit into higher-paying management jobs, and investment bankers often exit into higher-paying hedge fund and private equity jobs, and the same seems less true for law, so this is another point against law.

2. The upside if you succeed in investment banking is significantly higher. About twice as many make it to Managing Director (MD), and MDs earn twice as much as base pay. Moreover, while partner bonuses rarely break through £2m, top finance executives and traders can earn significantly more. You can also earn larger bonuses early on in finance.

3. The risk of dropping out early in finance is also higher. So, overall finance offers a greater spread in outcomes. This is reflected in our US data-set, which shows that finance has similar mean earnings to law, but higher 99th percentile earnings (though note that “finance” in this case is broader than investment banking, so the mean should probably be higher too).

Second, all this said, the differences in expected earnings are not huge. This means you should focus more personal fit and career capital. It’s better to be in the top 20% of lawyers than at the median in finance.

What’s the highest-paid option within law?

If you are considering applying to become a commercial solicitor, we’ve listed the number of training contracts available at the highest-paying firms.

US-headquartered firms:

‘Magic Circle’ firms:

While starting salaries are not always indicative of later earning potential (in some parts of the technology and finance industries, higher graduate earnings can actually indicate lower earnings later on), our conversations with recruiters suggest that the above table does give an indication of not just newly-qualified earnings, but later earning potential as well.

In general, Magic Circle firms offer slightly lower salaries, but have many more training contract places, a higher trainee retention rate, and are less ruthless in ‘letting go’ of employees later along the line. US-headquartered firms offer higher pay, but far fewer places.

Reasons not to work in high-end commercial law

Career capital

Our view is that the career capital you can accrue as a commercial lawyer is less flexible than nearby alternatives such as consulting. While law is a respected profession, it does not foster the skills and connections that would be most useful in directly impactful careers, your colleagues and work environment may negatively affect your motivation to help others, and transitioning from (commercial) law to policy may be harder than commonly assumed. The following goes into a little more detail.

In some respects, commercial law isn’t a bad option for accruing career capital. A law degree is a well-recognised and respected credential. Law remains one of the most prestigious professions.LINK.

" rel="footnote" class="footnote-link no-visited-styling" aria-label="Footnote">²⁰ It will allow you to develop valuable, transferable skills in verbal reasoning, written advocacy, and interpersonal communication in a high-pressure environment.

Working at a highly-ranked firm also means you can accomplish impressive achievements such as advising on a $4.2 billion acquisitionLINK.

" rel="footnote" class="footnote-link no-visited-styling" aria-label="Footnote">²¹ or a $2.2 trillion privatisation scheme.LINK.

" rel="footnote" class="footnote-link no-visited-styling" aria-label="Footnote">²² In addition, you’ll able to connect with other high-earning lawyers and clients in business, finance, and government, and – given the earnings – you should be able to save enough to support a future career transition.

However, career capital in commercial law is limited in a number of ways, particularly when compared with the nearby alternative of consulting.

Knowledge and skills

Most of the specific knowledge you’ll acquire as a commercial lawyer will be irrelevant in other fields. While this is true of many career paths, it seems to be particularly the case with commercial law, where the increasing need to specialise very earlyLINK.

" rel="footnote" class="footnote-link no-visited-styling" aria-label="Footnote">²³ has reduced the scope of the average lawyer’s expertise. To a lesser extent, skills that are specific to commercial law such as settlement negotiating, deal structuring, and litigation strategy are unlikely to be immediately applicable in other professions. Importantly, commercial law does not seem to foster the generalist research skills and broad policy knowledge that would be useful in many directly impactful career paths.

Colleagues and connections

Most of your network is likely to be in the legal and financial sector. While this may be useful for fundraising or transitioning to finance, it is less likely to lead to opportunities for direct impact.

In addition, the people you work with and the professional culture you are immersed in may impact on your own values and motivation, and a career in commercial law could negatively affect your motivation to help others.²⁴

Several legal scholars have pointed to the negative effect of legal training and practice on the altruistic aspirations of lawyers,²⁵ and there is evidence to suggest they might be right. Much of the research from the US suggests that legal education has a negative or neutral effect on students’ moral reasoning.²⁶ The research indicated a progressive conversion of attitudes and values towards a conservative view of legal role,²⁷ away from idealism towards instrumentalism²⁸ and against legal aid, public service or government work.²⁹ We might extrapolate and consider the possibility that the culture and stresses of commercial law dampens commitment to helping others more broadly. All this said, at 80,000 Hours, we’ve seen people earn to give in similar fields like finance for many years without any apparent risk of giving up their plans to donate, so it’s possible to avoid.

Exit Opportunities

Successful commercial lawyers looking to change careers should not struggle to find employment. An informal, US-based poll of ex-lawyersLINK.

" rel="footnote" class="footnote-link no-visited-styling" aria-label="Footnote">³⁰ found that many go into consulting (21%), business (27%), and in-house law (18%). However, with the exception of consulting and technology start-ups, we don’t usually recommend these career paths. And if your aim was to go into consulting, it would be better to do it directly.

One exit option worth considering in more detail is the move from law to politics, as there is a widespread conception that becoming a lawyer is a tried-and-tested route to Parliament. ³¹ As we explain below, however, this transition might not be particularly easy if you choose to work at a high-end commercial firm.

There is justification for this view. For instance, 89 lawyers were elected as MPs in 2015. This prompted articles such as ‘Legal Background is Ticket to Seat in New Parliament’,LINK.

" rel="footnote" class="footnote-link no-visited-styling" aria-label="Footnote">³² which reported that 119 of the 650 of MPs in Parliament in 2015, around 18%, had either studied or practised law before standing for election (whereas in 2010, only 85 elected MPs had legal experience).

Indeed, the proportion of lawyers in the House of Commons is much larger that the UK’s working population as a whole. Even if we control for the fact that MPs are largely drawn from the most highly educated part of the workforce, since 2010 there have still been 10 times more lawyers in the House than one would expect if the House were broadly representative solely of the professional and higher managerial segment of the population.³³

However, few of these lawyers have a background in commercial law. In the UK Parliament (since the 8 June 2017 election), a total of 62 out of 650 (9.5%) of MP’s have practised law. 36 (60%) have practised as solicitors, and 25 (40%) as barristers. Note that this 9:4 ratio of solicitors to barristers means that solicitors are vastly underrepresented in Parliament: The ratio of solicitors to barristers in practice is almost 9:1.LINK, and the Solicitors Regulation Authority records 140,000 practising solicitors, <a href=https://80000hours.org/career-reviews/uk-commercial-law-for-earning-to-give/"https://www.sra.org.uk/sra/how-we-work/reports/data/population_solicitors.page">LINK.

" rel="footnote" class="footnote-link no-visited-styling" aria-label="Footnote">³⁴ In general, lawyers as a whole tended to win more Conservative seats than non-lawyers,³⁵ and solicitors tended to represent the Conservative party slightly more often than their peers at the Bar.³⁶

If we look more closely at the solicitors in Parliament, however, only a quarter of them have any background in commercial law (9 out of 36), and only 4 of those have practised at Magic Circle or equivalent firms. So while almost 10% of the Members of Parliament are lawyers, only around 0.6% have any background in high-end commercial law.

Moreover, if we compare this to the some 10,000 people who work as commercial lawyers, we can see the chance of transitioning from commercial law to Parliament is very slight.

These figures are just a snapshot of the current House of Commons, and we should be cautious about drawing confident conclusions from them, However, when we consider the general trends towards fewer lawyers (and more ‘career politicians’) in Parliament, the snapshot seems to indicate that a career in commercial law is not a ‘ticket to Parliament’.

As the graph below shows, the number of lawyers in the House of Commons has been declining since 1918.

Further, as the numbers of MPs with legal backgrounds has fallen, so the number with a political background has increased. In 2015, 17% of MPs from the three main parties had previously been politicians or political organisers, compared to around 3% up to 1979 and 14% in 2010.LINK.

" rel="footnote" class="footnote-link no-visited-styling" aria-label="Footnote">³⁷

Interestingly, this is a trend that is mirrored in the US, where the percentage of Congressional members with a legal background has been continuously dropping since the 1960’s (it was almost 60% in 1965-66, and reached a low of 36% in 205-16), while those with a background in public services, politics, or congressional aid has jumped from 10% in 1945-6 to 31.4% in 2015-16.LINK.

" rel="footnote" class="footnote-link no-visited-styling" aria-label="Footnote">³⁸

In the UK, some of – but not all – of the downward trend can simply be explained by the rise and fall of the Labour party.³⁹ The other reasons are less clear. On the supply-side, lawyers (and commercial lawyers in particular) may be increasingly less-inclined to stand for parliament given their higher earnings, the reduced status of MPs, and the increasing demands of their job.

Political scientists now tend to downplay demand-side factors in explaining the composition of the House of Commons, and it is likely that a candidate’s professional background is far less important to the electorate than their party membership. However, factors such as a decline in respect for ‘the professions’ generally, and law specifically, may also play a role. A recent YouGov poll,LINK.

" rel="footnote" class="footnote-link no-visited-styling" aria-label="Footnote">⁴⁰ for example, found that British voters want fewer lawyers and more doctors, scientists, and factory workers in Parliament: 46% said they want fewer lawyers, while only 24% said they wanted more lawyers.

While the causes of the decline of lawyers in politics remain unclear, the trend seems fairly robust and should mitigate any uncritical enthusiasm for commercial law as a route into politics. When we speak to people in party politics about how best to enter, by far the most common answer is to enter directly as a career politician, rather than working in law first.

Direct Impact

It is extremely difficult to estimate the direct impact of any profession in the modern economy. However, our view is that becoming a commercial lawyer is unlikely to have a positive impact at the margin compared to your donations or the direct impact paths we focus on elsewhere.

Organised legal professions are central to a well-functioning society.⁴¹ Those countries adhering most strongly to the rule of law, and with the highest quality legal rules,⁴² have had notoriously powerful legal professions,⁴³ while in many developing countries with weaker institutional infrastructure, the organised legal professions have been virtually irrelevant.⁴⁴

However, by practising law in the UK, your effect (at best) is to become just one more lawyer among 140,000 practising solicitors.LINK.

" rel="footnote" class="footnote-link no-visited-styling" aria-label="Footnote">⁴⁵ Your effect is not to ensure that there is a functioning legal system at all. Far from it. The English legal system is perhaps the most established in the world, with centuries-long history and international repute. It scarcely needs another lawyer to prop it up.

In particular, it scarcely needs another commercial lawyer. Commercial lawyers rarely tend to work on cases of constitutional importance that protect the rule of law: As Law Professor William P Quigley writes:

Justice work is not the essence of the legal profession. Our professional essence is money, and the overwhelming majority of legal work consists of facilitating the transfer of money or resources from one group to another […] justice work, if done at all, is done in the margins or after the real legal work is done.LINK.

" rel="footnote" class="footnote-link no-visited-styling" aria-label="Footnote">⁴⁶

Further, even if you do practice commercial law, it is not clear that you will have the impact of ‘one more’ lawyer at all. At best, you increase the supply of lawyers, which might lead to (in expectation) half an extra person eventually being employed. Moreover, if the supply of lawyers is artificially restricted by occupational licensing, as some claim, then the impact could be near zero.

There are also reasons to believe that practising commercial law could be positively harmful. First, there are cases where commercial lawyers seem to do work that has a clear negative impact on society. An obvious example is working for large tobacco firms to challenge public health initiatives.

Of course, most commercial cases are not evil-tobacco-company versus the State. The overwhelming majority of commercial work is not even litigious at all.⁴⁷ However, some researchers have suggested that even run-of-the-mill commercial law could have a negative impact on society, as the inefficient legal system can allow law firms to profit by ‘rent seeking’ (increasing their share of existing wealth without creating new wealth).

Here’s a highly simplified example: If one large company sues another for £1m, both companies will have to ‘lawyer up’. If they can’t settle the dispute, they might be tempted to spend a large amount on legal fees in order to win the case. If one firm spends £600,000 on fees and then wins the total amount in dispute, they would still net a profit of around £400,000 (less any of the other side’s costs they may be ordered to pay). However, if both firms think they are going to win and spend £600,000 on fees, this means that in total £1.2m will have been spent on a case that can at most transfer £1m between two groups. This is a wasteful process that economists call ‘rent dissipation’.

For a real-life example, we can look at litigation related to asbestos injuries, the longest-running mass tort in U.S. history.LINK.

" rel="footnote" class="footnote-link no-visited-styling" aria-label="Footnote">⁴⁸ Defendants and insurers spent a total of $70 billion on asbestos litigation up to 2002, more than half of which was consumed by legal expenses.⁴⁹ These fees were running at about three times the level of compensation paid to claimants before 1985, and by 1992 asbestos firms’ payments reached an estimated $12 billion, with $9 billion going to legal fees.⁵⁰ In one settlement in 1991, two lawyers netted $125 million, or $1 million a day for the time they spent on the case.⁵¹

So why is some proportion of this $1 million a day ‘rent’, rather than simply wealth created by the lawyers for themselves? ‘Rent’ in this context is an earning that is unrelated to productivity, and that results from exploiting the inefficient legal environment or taking advantage of a dominant position in the market. It is the difference between the amount that lawyers actually charge clients, and the amount they could charge in a fully competitive environment.

Essentially, it is unearned financial gain: Those lawyers making a million-a-day to represent, say, 200 claimants did not do $5,000 worth of ‘work’ every day for each claimant (after the first claimant, the amount of extra ‘work’ per additional claimant will have been minimal). Instead, they were simply members of a regulated system that allowed them to collect a percentage of every claimant’s pay-out. The $1 million a day they received was a largely a very expensive transfer fee for the reallocation of existing wealth between the wrongdoers (the asbestos producers/employers) and the claimants.⁵²

Researchers have also claimed that having ‘too many’ lawyers stifles innovation and economic growth. Dr Stephen Magee, Professor of Economics and Finance at the University of Texas, estimated that the US has over 40% ‘too many’ lawyers. Magee plotted the relationship between economic growth rates and lawyer populations in several countries. The resulting ‘Magee curve’ indicated that lawyers bring economic benefits to a country up to a certain point – by helping to delineate and define property rights and the maintain the rule of law – but after that point, more lawyers correlates with slower economic growth. By Magee’s revised model (2013),⁵³ the ‘optimal’ number of lawyers per 1,000 people is about 2.5. In the US, there are around 3.65 lawyers per 1,000 people, and in the UK around 2.6.

Other researchers built on this work by differentiating between “productive” and “unproductive” entrepreneurs,⁵⁴ i.e. those who start or improve firms that innovate and foster growth, versus those who make “innovations in rent-seeking procedures, for example, discovery of a previously unused legal gambit that is effective in diverting rents”.⁵⁵

Empirical studies support the idea that lawyers can be classified as “unproductive” entrepreneurs, and that unproductive entrepreneurship is associated with slower economic growth. Researchers studied this question using data from 55 countries; as a proxy for productive entrepreneurism, they used the proportion of college students majoring in engineering, and as a proxy for unproductive entrepreneurism, they used the proportion of students concentrating in law. The authors found that a 10 percentage point increase in the share of students concentrating in law was associated with 0.78 percent slower annual growth in per capita GDP.⁵⁶

These estimates have been debated, of course. Several researchers have criticised the ‘too many lawyers’ model for not adequately taking into the account contributions that lawyers make to non-market output,⁵⁷ such as civil rights and social justice. Others have criticized Magee’s methodology and his numbers.⁵⁸

However, nuances in this debate are likely to be eclipsed by the direct impact you could have through your donations. As a commercial lawyer, you could donate £50,000 per year within a few years of qualifying. This would be enough to employ two public interest lawyers, or buy 50,000 malaria nets in the developing world. More generally, if you could donate to a charity that creates social benefits worth £100 per £1 of donations, then that would create £5 million of social value per year, which we expect is far greater than the harms of an additional lawyer. Read more.

Career satisfaction

The hours can be mentally and physically draining. They are so hard to predict. Last week I left every day at 5 or 5.30, but a few months ago I was leaving at 3am or 5am every day. You can never tell, sometimes it can be fine, but when it gets bad it’s just really awful. Just awful. I didn’t realise what the mental strain would be – as well as being physically tired you are emotionally drained, there is so much pressure to perform perfectly and be really positive. I planned to stay longer, but I can’t see myself doing it for more than a few years. It feels like it’s not really worth it. For two months I had no evenings and weekends at all.

This is from an interview with Laura,⁵⁹ a trainee at a Magic Circle law firm. She studied law at a prestigious UK-university, and intended to work in commercial law for a few years to “get qualified”. While it’s not all bad – the experience has taught her “the basics” of commercial practice, such as attention to detail, and most of her colleagues are friendly – there is very little law involved, and a lot of “grunt work”, for a lot of hours.

Laura isn’t alone. The internet is full of associates berating the “mindless, repetitious, stunningly dull”LINK.

" rel="footnote" class="footnote-link no-visited-styling" aria-label="Footnote">⁶⁰ or “soul crushing”LINK.

" rel="footnote" class="footnote-link no-visited-styling" aria-label="Footnote">⁶¹ work. As one law professor puts it: “Biglaw today is simply a mega-business and it will use you as it sees fit to get what it needs, with no genuine concern for your development, your life balance, your practice interests and goals, your sanity, or anything else.”LINK.

" rel="footnote" class="footnote-link no-visited-styling" aria-label="Footnote">⁶²

These kind of articles don’t reflect the experience of every lawyer, but our impression is that job satisfaction may indeed be lower for this career than others.

Competition

Commercial law is fiercely competitive, and entry standards are high. On average, law firms receive around 42 applications⁶³ for every training contract vacancy they advertise, a 2.3% acceptance rate. Highly-ranked firms may be even more competitive: In 2014, US firm Skadden received 1,000 applications for just ten positions.⁶⁴ This suggests elite firms may be about as competitive as consulting, where the acceptance rate of top firms is around 1-3%.⁶⁵

At the top end of the London legal market, around 30% of new trainees graduated from Oxford or Cambridge.LINK.

" rel="footnote" class="footnote-link no-visited-styling" aria-label="Footnote">⁶⁶ Another 60% graduated from the rest of the Russell Group universities.

This level of competition is unsurprising, given that there are more LPC graduates than training contracts on offer. In 2014, for example, around 5,500 new trainee solicitors were registered with the Solicitors Regulation Authority, while around 6,200 students had successfully completed the LPC.

Who is most likely to succeed in this career?

The following background seems to predict success in this career path:

1. Strong academic performance. The literature on university law grades has long-acknowledged the importance of grades to law students and employers.⁶⁷ One recent analysis reported that “performance in law school—as measured by law school grades—is the most important predictor of career success”.⁶⁸ Another concluded that grades in legal writing in particular, as opposed to advocacy, are the grades that matter most.⁶⁹
2. Graduating from a highly-ranked, prestigious university.⁷⁰

In addition, certain personality traits are useful in predicting job performance,⁷¹ and different jobs call for different personality profiles and strengths.⁷² So which traits are are most useful for lawyers? Marjorie M. Shultz and Sheldon Zedeck conducted a multi-year empirical study⁷³ involving over 3,000 law graduates to help answer this question. They identified 26 factors⁷⁴ that are important to ‘lawyering effectiveness'”, and found that the best lawyers tend to:

1. Have a track-record of academic and/or professional success. This correlated with 24 of the 26 ‘lawyering-effectiveness’ factors. The only factors it did not correlate with were integrity and stress management.
2. Remain steady in the face of pressure. This quality correlated with 22 of the 26 factors, and most strongly with the ability to advise clients and manage stress. It was also the main advice of the Magic Circle trainee we spoke with. She said, “you need to be really resilient. You just need to keep going, keep ploughing on. Don’t let things bother you too much”.
3. Be conscientious, disciplined, and thorough. This correlated with 18 of the 26 factors, and most strongly with managing yourself and others, developing relationships, and diligence.
4. Be leader-like and achievement oriented. This correlated with 14 of the 26 factors, and most strongly with networking and being passionate about one’s work.
5. Be socially sensitive, tactful, and perceptive. This quality correlated with 12 of the 26 factors, and most strongly with developing productive relationships.
6. Be optimistic. This correlated with 10 of the 26 factors, and most strongly with advocacy ability, networking, and stress management.

Interestingly, some personality facets that you might expect to predict lawyer effectiveness showed no especially significant correlations. For example, it may not matter too much how inquisitive you are (in the sense of being imaginative, adventurous, and analytical), how much you enjoy academic activities and value education, or how much you enjoy social interaction.

Should you become a commercial solicitor?

1. Do you have a realistic shot at entering the profession? Do you have, or could you realistically get, a good degree from a Russell group (or US-equivalent) University?

2. Could you find working in commercial law satisfying? Would you enjoy drafting legal documents and dealing with demanding clients? Could you manage the long hours and tight deadlines?

3. Are you comfortable with the idea of earning to give being the main way that you will have an impact with your career? Would you be better suited to any of the direct impact options we recommend? Would you be likely to follow through and donate some of your earnings to effective social interventions?

4. Relative to your other options, is this a good option for earning to give? Given the relatively inflexible career capital, higher training costs, and lower job satisfaction in commercial law, we would generally recommend another path such as consulting.

Next steps

If you decide commercial law might be right for you, test out your fit by reading moreLINK.

" rel="footnote" class="footnote-link no-visited-styling" aria-label="Footnote">⁷⁵ about your options, speaking to current associates, and applying for summer vacation schemes.LINK. 31 January is the most popular deadline used by law firms for summer scheme applications: See Target Jobs, Why and when to apply for vacation schemes in law firms, 2017, <a href=https://80000hours.org/career-reviews/uk-commercial-law-for-earning-to-give/"https://web.archive.org/save/https://targetjobs.co.uk/career-sectors/law-solicitors/advice/340002-why-and-when-to-apply-for-vacation-schemes-in-law-firms">LINK.

" rel="footnote" class="footnote-link no-visited-styling" aria-label="Footnote">⁷⁶