'The Future of Banking'

This morning, Vault held a timely and thought-provoking panel discussion at 7 World Trade Center in Downtown Manhattan entitled “The Future of Banking: Salaries, Sectors and Uncle Sam,” moderated by CNBC’s senior analyst Ron Insana. 

Panelist Roben Farzad, senior writer for BusinessWeek, described the current catastrophic conditions as potentially ‘empowering’ in that they allow graduates to go ‘off-label’ without the baggage that might have previously characterized straying from an established path.    

Another panelist, Jonathan Knee of Evercore Partners, made a related point.  Knee noted that earlier generations of business school students—particularly at the top schools—were essentially ‘passive consumers’ in their job searches.  Until recently, students’ choices were dictated to ‘who shows up on campus’ and ‘whatever is hot’ that year.  Well, that was then.  Students now must make their one way.

Knee also noted that the one undeniably hot sector—restructuring—will inevitably cool down (“after the pig passes through the python”) and those students who chose to enter the field simply because it is currently so busy, may live to regret it.

Although the discussion was specifically intended for would-be bankers and other MBA-types, all of the above advice and observations apply, mutatis mutandis, to young lawyers and law students.

                                                                              -posted by brian