@"J.Y. Ping" What did you think about biglaw? Why didn't you want to continue practicing?

brigitte

Very curious

TheMikey

would like to know this too, sounds like it would be very interesting to know

akistotle

I don't know what he thinks about biglaw, but I think you may find answers to your second question here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/LSAT/comments/w09s5/ama_jy_ping_founder_of_7sage_im_building_a_social/

tringo335

@akistotle said:
I don't know what he thinks about biglaw, but I think you may find answers to your second question here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/LSAT/comments/w09s5/ama_jy_ping_founder_of_7sage_im_building_a_social/

Interesting!

LSAT Is Coming

Wow. Petition to start a petition to get JY to do another AMA. Five years later, I bet that AMA would blow up.

Sprinkles

@"LSAT Is Coming" said:
Wow. Petition to start a petition to get JY to do another AMA. Five years later, I bet that AMA would blow up.

http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/977/036/934.jpg

Jonathan Wang

I don't want to speak too much for JY, as he's quite capable of speaking up for himself. That said, when we were working on PreProBono together/in the early days of 7Sage, our mutual question on biglaw was always - "why?" I don't think either of us enjoyed our 2L summer associateships much. He knew at the end of his that he didn't want to do it, so after graduating he came to New York to continue working on PreProBono instead. That's how we met and this whole thing got started, and the rest (as they say) is history.

Even back then, we both knew that the attrition rate from biglaw was no accident. For the vast majority of people, the on-call all-hours lifestyle wears on you, the work is largely meaningless on a personal level, and at some point the money doesn't make up for it anymore. There's a reason why so few people make it to even midlevel associate from the humongous gigantic first-year classes these law firms bring in, and it's not because everyone else was too dumb to make the cut.

Today, I have the additional perspective of knowing that almost every single one of my good friends from law school (the smartest, hardest-working people I have the privilege to know) is either already out of biglaw or wants out badly. I have friends doing all kinds of things now - some are lawyers still (SEC, NHL, other in-house, and yes, some still in biglaw), but there's also a fashion blogger, a paleo-diet entrepreneur, an owner of a brazilian jiu-jitsu gym, the director of the First Amendment wing of the Newseum in DC, a T14 law school admissions officer, the head of a well-respected educational pipeline institution...the list goes on (oh, and me - an LSAT tutor). By and large, people have found better, more worthwhile things to do with their time. For most, biglaw is a stepping stone; a really nice one, mind you, but a stepping stone nonetheless. I actually hear from some of my friends these days that I basically just skipped the line and got to the good part faster, and while there's certainly a lot of 'grass is greener' in that, the fact that they say it at all is telling.

Again, I don't want to speak for JY, but given that he and I saw eye-to-eye on this years ago and we probably had similar peer groups from law school, I'm willing to bet that his experience has unfolded similarly as well.

FirstOne

Just curious, if JY were to answer the question, would his answer help us get a 180 on the LSAT or in the 99th percentile? Whatever his reasons, I'm happy for him and me too, because without him doing what he has done, I wouldn't have the shot at this exam that I now have. Just my opinion, that's just me, good luck everyone with your administration!