u/EminentDominating

I don’t have Tik Tik or Instagram, but I can’t be the only who has noticed the consistent crowd huddling around Din Soup with buckets of mini dumplings on top of sodas.

What’s happening? Did they go viral online or something? Someone famous posted them? (And are those buckets actually good? I like their food generally, but dumpling and soda seems an odd combination.)

To be clear - I am happy for them that they’re having such success, and it’s great to have so many visitors enjoy the neighborhood

I was recently with a family friend who is a retired big law partner. In general, he felt a sense of camaraderie at his firm that he thinks is now missing in biglaw, and he often comments on how the lateral market is a plague on the industry.

Anyway. We got to talking about work and I mentioned how much rates have gone up. He asked for some numbers, and I started throwing out the (even discounted) rates that clients were paying for juniors, me, counsel, etc. You could watch this family friend doing the math in real time.

He grunted and said, “Man, you guys are getting taken for a ride.”

This has really stuck with me. We get a great paycheck, but our rates and inflation have increased significantly over the last five years. PPP is on a vertical line up, and our wages have not seen commensurate growth.

And, frankly, I increasingly have friends in other random industries that are making more than me or almost as much as me. The first category tends to be fine; finance and tech startup folks work hard. But the second category has been on my mind—friends in compliance, HR, marketing, sales who seem to be making 75% of what I make but who work half as much.

It’s time for a raise