thank you for all that info!! somehow I was on anonymous before whoops, but I asked about a JD vs something in the UK. I just finished a degree early from Berkeley and intend to go to law school but I haven't settled whether I'd like to long term stay in California or London (since my parents have a flat in Shoreditch I could take advantage of). it's still a year or so out from when I'd make that decision but I really appreciate the information!
Ah okay so since you have ties to both countries:
A JD is actually going to be hard, the education part of the UK path is not. Your first few years actually working in either are going to be exhausting, super long hours doing not the most fascinating stuff. In the UK, you’ll be vaguely underpayed for those 2 years (not too bad though, I’ll still be making more than most of my friends) but then your salary shoots up. In the US, you’ll be paid very well from day 1, but you’ll have about ~250k in debt. In the UK, the whole process is 4 years whereas it’s only 3 in the US – but half of the UK process is actually working. Which, I know sounds weird when you’ve just finished academia and most of your friends probably aren’t working or are complaining about working but it’s actually very odd to still be in school while everyone else is off being real people – so it’s nice that the school bit is a little shorter here in my opinion.
What else…I wouldn’t say that one is particularly better respected than the other. Well that’s not true, a JD is harder but once you actually get to practice, a lawyer trained in the UK coming out of a top firm is equally respected as a lawyer at a top firm in the states.
Location might be a factor for you: in the UK you will be in London, that’s it. In the states the largest law firms are headquartered in Chicago but the most prestigious firms are out in New York. So if you want to spend a lot of time in different countries, that’s probably easier in a London firm (because the Chicago firms might give you a chance to do that, but not so much at the v prestigious New York ones – in London the biggest and most prestigious firms roughly are the same group). Most London training contracts have an optional 6 months abroad included in that 2 year training period so that’s a great way to go live and experience somewhere else if you’ve got a particular desire to do that.
What else…most London firms have a NY office so if you want to go back to the states, it’s fairly easy. However, most don’t have an office in California so if your contacts are out there, NY offices aren’t that helpful. Then again, while there are of course great law firms in Cali, they aren’t widely considered the top of the top so if you’re very intense/competitive, you probably won’t end up in California anyway.
Once you finish training, the hours are largely considered better at UK firms than at US firms but again, depends on the firm, the practice area, the time of year, etc etc. As a whole, the people at top firms are going to be very similar – intense, driven, very much a work hard/play hard vibe at most of the London firms/NY firms.
Oh this might be relevant: I don’t know about the US firms (but my impression isn’t positive) but the UK firms are making a big push to keep women in the workplace through the whole ‘having kids’ period. They’re doing a lot of innovative stuff with job shares (so where two moms with young kids effectively share the same job - so Mom1 works M, T, W morning, Mom2 works W afternoon, Th, F or something along those lines), working from home, programs effectively ‘catching’ moms up when they return to full time, etc so if you’re planning on having a family down the line and staying in major corporate law, the UK firms are trying to really hard to make that a viable option.
But like a mentioned before: while it’s definitely possible to switch jurisdictions, it is a pretty big pain. Unless you’re transferring within the same firm (in which case it’s very simple, but you can never leave your firm in the new country without going through all the requalification stuff), it’s not really viable to be like “I’ll do 2 years in London, then 4 years in NY, then I’ll pop to London” – nope, not really gonna work. So for me, I’m definitely spending the early part of my career in London. If I decide down the line that I want to move back home, I can requalify in the states but that’ll pretty much be a permanent move for me. So location is really important to keep in mind.
I don’t know your background/how much time you’ve spent in the UK vs the US but like I said before, if you’ve never lived abroad before, I would be weary about committing to spending at least a large chunk of your career abroad. It’s a pain in a lot of ways and a choice I’d suggest someone think carefully about if they don’t have at least a few years experience living abroad – the first year or so living abroad is the honeymoon phase, after that it settles into a very different experience. While I love it here, I’m not sure I’d be planning on living abroad long term except (a) I have a really large, strong group of friends here and (b) living abroad is massively important to me (anthropology4life).
Keep in mind that you will of course form strong friendships amongst your cohort if you join a UK firm but, in my opinion at least, it’s really important to have friends outside of your firm – everything can get very dramatic/incestuous when you’re all in class together and spend a lot of time together and know you’re going to be working with these people for years. It’s important to have outside friends and/or family to balance that with and keep the class drama in perspective.
All that being said, I still think living abroad is an amazing and worthwhile experience; it’s just not for everyone so I’d just caution you to have a nice, long think about it. Consider all the ways your life will be inconvenienced (everything from missing a lot of holidays to not being able to buy your favorite snacks) and think hard about whether that balances the positives for you (getting to experience another culture, the convenience of being so close to Europe, the architecture, London as a city, etc).
Let me know if you need clarification or any more info!
