5 ms·

Contrary to the impression media and movies have created, lawyers get paid VERY LOW salaries now, at least in NY. We have overproduced so many lawyer graduates

by rorrr 14y ago

Contrary to the impression media and movies have created, lawyers get paid VERY LOW salaries now, at least in NY. We have overproduced so many lawyer graduates who thought they would be making 100K+ at their first job, it's just insane. Just start browsing craigslist or monster listings, it's very revealing.

MayanAstronaut 14y ago
How did this guy get a 160k base then?
- rorrr 14y ago
  My guess would be because he graduated from Stanford Law, which is currently ranked #2.
- rudyfink 14y ago
  Law school graduate salary distributions are really an interesting thing. I suggest a quick gander at this chart of the distribution from 2006-2011: http://www.nalp.org/salarydistrib http://www.nalp.org/salarydistrib .
  - graeme 14y ago
    Those curves have changed very quickly. I'm very interested to see 2012.
- rayiner 14y ago
  Legal salaries are bi-modal. You either work at a big firm paying the market big-firm rate ($160k+ bonus in NYC, Chicago, etc) or you work at a small firm making $45-70k. There are some weird market dynamics in the legal field. Law firms create an artificial shortage of lawyers, and thus a corresponding explosion in associate salaries, because they refuse to hire substantial amounts outside the top 15 schools or so. They'll hire anyone at Stanford and most people at Duke, but only the very top of the class at say U Washington.
  - GFKjunior 14y ago
    Exactly, I know a Columbia law grad who works in NYC. His firm hires nothing but Harvard, Columbia, and Yale grads. He said that it's not because a Berkeley or Texas grad isn't just as good it's because they have a certain culture and in case one of the new hires messes up a case no one wants to be the partner who gave that "public school kid" a chance and lost the firm a lot of money and prestige.
    - rayiner 14y ago
      Law is also a pretty insular and regionalistic field. E.g. at one of the most selective firms in the country (Susman Godfrey in Texas), a UT Austin grad has a much better chance than a Columbia grad. They think UT = Harvard down there. It's all very strange. In most fields such blatant regionalistic favoritism isn't so encouraged.
      - btilly 14y ago
        In most fields the rules do not vary so much by state and to a lesser extent a small collection of states. But in law your state law matters, and even on federal law the precedents can vary according to which circuit you are in.
bfe 14y ago
The top tier firms still pay $160,000 as starting salary, same as since 2007, but they are hiring a lot fewer people. New law grad salaries have been more and more binodal over the last few decades, with the other local maximum at around $55,000, and an increasing share of the new grads getting stuck at the low end.
patio11 14y ago
Just start browsing craigslist or monster listings, it's very revealing. Craigslist and Monster give a very accurate impression of the legal employment market for clients who are so catastrophically incompetent that they would source legal representation from Craigslist or Monster. Similar to programming. I don't really have a dog in the fight of "Production of legal talent adequately meeting market demands for legal talent: yay or nay", but it is an observable fact that a particular type of student has a very achievable career trajectory into being a BigLaw associate at a six figure salary in their first job. You can plot out that career trajectory, to the month, the day you receive an offer of admission to one of several undergraduate institutions.
- xenophanes 14y ago
  People overestimate the opportunities for lawyers. If you go to Yale Law you're OK. Maybe even top 3. If you "only" go top a top 14 law school, you need to beat a lot of your classmates, there are quite large numbers of losers. If you do not go to a top 14 law school, it gets a lot worse, fast. And there's 200 law schools... People assume it works less strictly than that, but the legal job market recently changed so just doing well at a top school isn't enough anymore. In other words, the "particular type" of student is a narrower category than people think.
  - rprasad 14y ago
    People overestimate the opportunities for Yale graduates too. I've received resume from Yale and Harvard grads for legal-related unpaid internships. The problem is not an oversupply of lawyers; there are just about enough lawyers to satisfactorily satisfy the legal needs of the market (taking attrition into account). The problem is that most lawyers are unwilling to do the solo/small-practice gig like doctors and dentists do, and consequently chase the firm and government jobs. The number of new firm and government jobs has dropped by more than half in the last 3 years, leaving a glut of "unemployed" lawyers. But that's the thing about lawyers--they're not supposed to be employed. They're "professionals", so they're supposed to be their own bosses. I wish lawyers would at least try setting up their own shingles. Most of my graduating law school class did (at least, the ones without massive loan debt), and they've all got respectable, self-supporting practices. They won't make filthy money, but they will definitely be comfortable supporting a family within the next few years.
bretthoerner 14y ago
> craigslist or monster Are you reading what you're writing?
- rorrr 14y ago
  You must be new to the internets. These are the sites with jobs listings.
- rprasad 14y ago
  After graduating in the middle of Lawmageddon, craiglist was very useful in finding jobs. I managed to cobble together enough work through Craiglist to start paying off my student loans and gas. If I'd kept at it for an entire year, I could definitely have made enough to at least reach the bottom peak of the bimodal curve (~$50,000) just through craiglist-related work.
  - stfu 14y ago
    Impressive. Jut being curious: How did the Craigslist workload break down, i.e. what kind of work did you get/became the most profitable?
    - rprasad 14y ago
      Second-chairing trials was the most lucrative work. This mostly involved helping the primary attorney on the matter with pretrial hearings, jury selection, presentation of evidence, and cross-examination of expert witnesses. Courtroom appearances was a distant second. For about $100-$200 a day (depending on the court and number of cases), I would appear in court on behalf of other lawyers to file various motions and paperwork.
rudyfink 14y ago
Here is a data set on post-graduation employment (full time legal) rates for different law schools-- http://www.lawschooltransparency.com/clearinghouse/?show=compare&sub=jobs http://www.lawschooltransparency.com/clearinghouse/?show=com... . Here is an explanation of where the data in that table came from-- http://www.lawschooltransparency.com/clearinghouse/ http://www.lawschooltransparency.com/clearinghouse/ .
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
rprasad 14y ago
Indeed, I now may make in legal-related market than I would as a lawyer doing the same work. It's very bizarre... Worse (well, not from my perspective), I work fewer hours than any lawyer I know but make more than all of them except for the ones working for BigLaw (i.e., the "premier") law firms.
mgkimsal 14y ago
Yet because of the licensing and laws and regulation, most law firms are still charging > $150/hour (from what I've seen), because there's still few choices. While there's more lawyers than there have been in a while, it hasn't at all brought the pricing down. I suspect it ends up as simply more profit for the larger firms. Because there's more competition for jobs, they can pay less, but because of the regulations (barriers to entry) the prices can remain high. It seems an odd paradox, but I may be over simplifying.

by rorrr 14y ago

MayanAstronaut 14y ago

How did this guy get a 160k base then?

rorrr 14y ago
My guess would be because he graduated from Stanford Law, which is currently ranked #2.
rudyfink 14y ago
Law school graduate salary distributions are really an interesting thing. I suggest a quick gander at this chart of the distribution from 2006-2011: http://www.nalp.org/salarydistrib http://www.nalp.org/salarydistrib .
- graeme 14y ago
  Those curves have changed very quickly. I'm very interested to see 2012.
rayiner 14y ago
Legal salaries are bi-modal. You either work at a big firm paying the market big-firm rate ($160k+ bonus in NYC, Chicago, etc) or you work at a small firm making $45-70k. There are some weird market dynamics in the legal field. Law firms create an artificial shortage of lawyers, and thus a corresponding explosion in associate salaries, because they refuse to hire substantial amounts outside the top 15 schools or so. They'll hire anyone at Stanford and most people at Duke, but only the very top of the class at say U Washington.
- GFKjunior 14y ago
  Exactly, I know a Columbia law grad who works in NYC. His firm hires nothing but Harvard, Columbia, and Yale grads. He said that it's not because a Berkeley or Texas grad isn't just as good it's because they have a certain culture and in case one of the new hires messes up a case no one wants to be the partner who gave that "public school kid" a chance and lost the firm a lot of money and prestige.
  - rayiner 14y ago
    Law is also a pretty insular and regionalistic field. E.g. at one of the most selective firms in the country (Susman Godfrey in Texas), a UT Austin grad has a much better chance than a Columbia grad. They think UT = Harvard down there. It's all very strange. In most fields such blatant regionalistic favoritism isn't so encouraged.
    - btilly 14y ago
      In most fields the rules do not vary so much by state and to a lesser extent a small collection of states. But in law your state law matters, and even on federal law the precedents can vary according to which circuit you are in.

bfe 14y ago

The top tier firms still pay $160,000 as starting salary, same as since 2007, but they are hiring a lot fewer people. New law grad salaries have been more and more binodal over the last few decades, with the other local maximum at around $55,000, and an increasing share of the new grads getting stuck at the low end.

patio11 14y ago

Just start browsing craigslist or monster listings, it's very revealing. Craigslist and Monster give a very accurate impression of the legal employment market for clients who are so catastrophically incompetent that they would source legal representation from Craigslist or Monster. Similar to programming. I don't really have a dog in the fight of "Production of legal talent adequately meeting market demands for legal talent: yay or nay", but it is an observable fact that a particular type of student has a very achievable career trajectory into being a BigLaw associate at a six figure salary in their first job. You can plot out that career trajectory, to the month, the day you receive an offer of admission to one of several undergraduate institutions.

xenophanes 14y ago
People overestimate the opportunities for lawyers. If you go to Yale Law you're OK. Maybe even top 3. If you "only" go top a top 14 law school, you need to beat a lot of your classmates, there are quite large numbers of losers. If you do not go to a top 14 law school, it gets a lot worse, fast. And there's 200 law schools... People assume it works less strictly than that, but the legal job market recently changed so just doing well at a top school isn't enough anymore. In other words, the "particular type" of student is a narrower category than people think.
- rprasad 14y ago
  People overestimate the opportunities for Yale graduates too. I've received resume from Yale and Harvard grads for legal-related unpaid internships. The problem is not an oversupply of lawyers; there are just about enough lawyers to satisfactorily satisfy the legal needs of the market (taking attrition into account). The problem is that most lawyers are unwilling to do the solo/small-practice gig like doctors and dentists do, and consequently chase the firm and government jobs. The number of new firm and government jobs has dropped by more than half in the last 3 years, leaving a glut of "unemployed" lawyers. But that's the thing about lawyers--they're not supposed to be employed. They're "professionals", so they're supposed to be their own bosses. I wish lawyers would at least try setting up their own shingles. Most of my graduating law school class did (at least, the ones without massive loan debt), and they've all got respectable, self-supporting practices. They won't make filthy money, but they will definitely be comfortable supporting a family within the next few years.

bretthoerner 14y ago

> craigslist or monster Are you reading what you're writing?

rorrr 14y ago
You must be new to the internets. These are the sites with jobs listings.
rprasad 14y ago
After graduating in the middle of Lawmageddon, craiglist was very useful in finding jobs. I managed to cobble together enough work through Craiglist to start paying off my student loans and gas. If I'd kept at it for an entire year, I could definitely have made enough to at least reach the bottom peak of the bimodal curve (~$50,000) just through craiglist-related work.
- stfu 14y ago
  Impressive. Jut being curious: How did the Craigslist workload break down, i.e. what kind of work did you get/became the most profitable?
  - rprasad 14y ago
    Second-chairing trials was the most lucrative work. This mostly involved helping the primary attorney on the matter with pretrial hearings, jury selection, presentation of evidence, and cross-examination of expert witnesses. Courtroom appearances was a distant second. For about $100-$200 a day (depending on the court and number of cases), I would appear in court on behalf of other lawyers to file various motions and paperwork.

rudyfink 14y ago

Here is a data set on post-graduation employment (full time legal) rates for different law schools-- http://www.lawschooltransparency.com/clearinghouse/?show=compare&sub=jobs http://www.lawschooltransparency.com/clearinghouse/?show=com... . Here is an explanation of where the data in that table came from-- http://www.lawschooltransparency.com/clearinghouse/ http://www.lawschooltransparency.com/clearinghouse/ .

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

rprasad 14y ago

Indeed, I now may make in legal-related market than I would as a lawyer doing the same work. It's very bizarre... Worse (well, not from my perspective), I work fewer hours than any lawyer I know but make more than all of them except for the ones working for BigLaw (i.e., the "premier") law firms.

mgkimsal 14y ago

Yet because of the licensing and laws and regulation, most law firms are still charging > $150/hour (from what I've seen), because there's still few choices. While there's more lawyers than there have been in a while, it hasn't at all brought the pricing down. I suspect it ends up as simply more profit for the larger firms. Because there's more competition for jobs, they can pay less, but because of the regulations (barriers to entry) the prices can remain high. It seems an odd paradox, but I may be over simplifying.