Distribution of First-Year Associate Salaries

To supplement my last post, I include this link and graph for your perusal. This just confirms the falling entry level salary of first-year associates.

Distribution 2011:

Distribution 2009:

Thanks to J-Koo for the link source.

Don't Expect Bank When You Graduate

Lawyering is lucrative, right?

Well, new statistics from NALP--The Association for Legal Professionals indicates that the average starting salary for associates is $78,653, while the median comes in at a round $60,000. Apparently, this is a 35% decrease in starting associates' salaries. Thirty-Five Percent.

Now, maybe you are optimistic and are hoping that NALP skewed the statistics and included all of the broke, homeless law grads in its assessment.

Wrong. Those figures were yoinked from grads working full-time for at least a year.

We all know how much I love comparisons, so let me put this travesty in perspective for you:

The following jobs start at or pay out $80,000 a year or more (depending on location) and don't require seven years of schooling:

-Construction Managers
-Police Officers
-Fire Fighters
-Nurses
-Actuaries
-Economists
-Stock Brokers
-Marketing Managers
-Engineers
-Pharmacists
-Physician Assistants
-Chiropractors
-Entertainment Agents
-HS Physics Teachers
-Pilots
-Financial Analysts
-Computer Software Engineers
-Physical Therapists
-Health Service Managers

Yes, these careers all require particularized training and we all know that finding a job is never a guarantee. But what are we doing here, busting our booties at school and at work in the hopes of landing a job that will barely cover our student loan payments? Why don't we pick something equally stimulating, quicker to fruition, and just as lucrative?

I'm not trying to discourage anyone from entering or remaining in the field. Without a doubt, I'm going to keep going because this is an area that I really and truly love. I find it fascinating and I think we all have the potential to do really good work for society once we graduate. But, with the ABA and other lawyerly organizations putting out articles like this, it's a bit difficult not to feel disheartened!

The money-centric coverage of the law profession seems a bit overkill. Are they just trying to discourage people that are seeking bank post-graduation from applying to law school? Or is the field really, truly hurting right now? Has the coverage of the lawyer 'crisis' become as Type A as lawyers themselves?

My 1L class was brainwashed into believing that we would be lucky to secure any summer position, let alone receive a stipend for our efforts. Many of my peers naively accepted the first offer they received out of fear that they wouldn't get anything else. Many of those same individuals received far better offers shortly thereafter. Moreover, there were many more positions available than we were led to believe. Most everyone should have been able to secure some sort of summer employment (paid or unpaid) without bar.

Despite the frenzy of the profession, we just need to put ourselves out there. Opportunities may not present themselves, but they are still out there for our plucking. We will find jobs. As one of my friends Ameetball says, 'All we can do is keep calm and carry on.'

Number Crunching: Debt and Salaries in the Modern Age of Lawyering

I get most of my lawyer information from ABA publications. The articles are written for lawyers, which means that they're concise and well-written because time is money.

(I've taken to computing my study time into dollar signs where I fantasize about paying myself per hour and figuring out how much I would make in a year just from studying. There's a hierarcy of per hour wages dependent on the quality of the studying.)

This morning I opened up my e-mail to find an article entitled "Average Debt of Private Law School Grads is $125K; It's Highest at These Five Schools."

Of course I followed that up with US News and World Report confirmation. USNWR might as well be the word of God in terms of rankings. Everyone says the rankings don't matter but when it comes down to it, EVERYONE looks at USNWR to get a good overview of program caliber. Even the administration of the school. The day that the rankings came out, the Dean of our school sent out an e-mail apologizing that our school dropped another two slots on the rankings but suggesting that the rankings were arbitrary and didn't take into account our strategic planning efforts. #DamageControl


So, for the curious, the most indebted of private law school graduates:

Law school (name) (state)	Annual tuition and fees*	Average indebtedness	U.S. Newsrank
California Western School of Law	$42,600	$153,145	RNP
Thomas Jefferson School of Law (CA)	$41,000	$153,006	RNP
American University (Washington) (DC)	$45,096	$151,318	49
New York Law School	$47,800	$146,230	135
Phoenix School of Law	$37,764	$145,357	RNP
Southwestern Law School (CA)	$42,200	$142,606	129
Catholic University of America (Columbus) (DC)	$41,830	$142,222	82
Northwestern University (IL)	$51,920	$139,101	12
Pace University (NY)	$40,730	$139,007	142
Whittier College (CA)	$39,090	$138,961	RNP

*Annual tuition and fees are for full-time, in-state programs.

Of course, now we wonder about public school debt. According to US News and World Report, UC 'School of Public Interest Law':

Percentage of Grads with Debt: 88%

Average Indebtedness: $102, 030

Using an online loan calculator (the credibility of which is debatable because I just used a Google search), payment over 10 years at 6.8% means monthly payments of $1,174.16. 

For the record, our school was at the very bottom of the fourth page. There are 99 schools ahead of us in average loan debt.

US News and World Report suggests that if you'd like to pay down this debt faster and find a good job in a specialized field, go into Health Law or Intellectual Property. These fields are complicated and require a certain degree of specialization. 

According to PatBar, the average salary of an IP associate is $125,000 in the first year.  That's fantastic!

Wait, rewind. According to US News and World Report, many law schools report that their first year post-grads are making an average of $160,000 in the private sector. How does that work? If IP pays the most at $125,000 and it's a highly specialized field where very few grads find jobs because of experience requirements, then how can most Tier 1 schools report that the average salary of their first year grads is $160,000? It seems as though there's some number fudging going on. 

I turned to The Association of Legal Career Professionals to remedy this confusion. Unfortunately, they had the numbers from 2010, when the legal market was stronger than it is now:

2010 Associate Salary Survey (Private)

Overall median first-year salary was $115,000:

$72,000 in firms of 2-25 lawyers, 

$117,500 in firms of 501-700 lawyers, 

$125,000 in firms of 251-500 lawyers, and 

$160,000 in firms of more than 700 lawyers.

$160,000 in Chicago, LA, NY, D.C. 

$130,000 to $145,000 in Boston, SF 

2010 Public Sector and Public Interest Attorney Salary Report

The median entry-level salary varies: 

civil legal services organization -- $42,000, 

public defenders -- $45,700,

local prosecuting attorneys --  $50,000, 

public interest organizations with issue-driven missions -- $45,000. 

tl;dr Law schools report whatever they want to. But we knew that already, didn't we.