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At no school is a majority starting at 180k. I doubt even 1/4 but certainly not a majority.
180k is only the starting salary at a few of the very very top firms in NY.
The NYC cost of living skews the numbers too. 180k in NYC is equal to 75k in Kansas City. So if you spend the big bucks to go to a top school, have the good luck of landing a job with a large firm in a major city, you will earn the equivalent of a middle class income. Nobody is living large in NYC or DC on 180k a year while repaying 6 figures worth of student loans.
What I find shocking is how little difference there is in cost between school ranked 200 and some and Yale.
Can someone tell me how Thomas Cooley can charge $51,000 per year in tuition, and be only $10,000 less than Yale?
Or Arizona Summit who just lost accreditation and spent years on probation with a 20% bar pass rate charging 47k.
They pray on people who should, but for some reason don’t, know any better. Summit plays the race card because they have a diverse class, but to what benefit? No job and 250k in non dischargeable debt from a school no firm would give you a second look at?
Last time I checked, this country is run by lawyers. A law degree is a minimum requirement to join the club. Forget the money. Think about the powers a lawyer in the right position wields.
I could be wrong, but the list of lawyer-politician is long. Politicians come and go, but judges stay around for a while and they do have powers. That, to me, is worth more than money.
No they don't, not even at Harvard. (Columbia actually has better first year pay rates - and they do not get close to $180K either).
Top ten law school grads might start around $105,000 - $130,000. Not all of them and not likely even a majority. However the students at Harvard and Colulmbia are typically the kids of senators, ex presidents, American royalty families and the like, so yes people are going to start them high. Frequently these kids do not end up actually practicing law, not law in the trenches anyway.
If we are going to talk about reality here - an above average student from a top 25 law school with limited or no connections, family name recognition, or book of business, is likely to start in the $70,000 - 120,000 range. As you move down the law school rankings more will start at the lower end of that range than at the top. As you drop down to the next 25 law schools fewer will have meaningful jobs at all (the schools report higher employment than they really get because people working for Kelly Services as lawyers (making $25 an hour), or volunteering at a government legal office to get some experience and connections, or even working as paralegals or legal secretaries, are counted as employed in the law.
If you are talking averages, sure. But first year associates at the elite big firms get that kind of money, and it's based on being that year's class of associates.
As a matter of fact, it apparently is up to 190K now.
Quote:
Cravath Swaine & Moore, which broke the nine-year stalemate on associate salaries two years ago, is now part of the latest effort to push starting salaries upward.
The firm, in a memo, said it would add up to $10,000 to the associates salary scale that, at some major firms anyway, now starts at $190,000 for lawyers newly graduated from law school. Milbank,Tweed, Hadley & McCloy unexpectedly started the ball rolling last week when it hiked salaries from $180,000 where they had been since 2016.
Cravath’s action makes it more likely that other firms will follow suit and make firms who pay lesser amounts look like outliers among the elite BigLaw world. The jockeying among top-line firms makes it likely that a starting salary of $200,000 is not far off.
Now, of course this is a small portion of the top students from the top schools, the small handful to grab the brass ring on the merry-go-round. But this is public information and all this year's recruits get this money, not a subset of the subset. When you are bright enough to graduate at the top of your class from Harvard or Yale or the other elite law schools, you know better than to sell yourself short by taking less money than your fellow starting associates!
What I find shocking is how little difference there is in cost between school ranked 200 and some and Yale.
Can someone tell me how Thomas Cooley can charge $51,000 per year in tuition, and be only $10,000 less than Yale?
Absolutely. The bottom law schools often charge *more* than the top law schools. I guess they find the gullible. Then the graduates wait tables while saddled with $300K in debt.
Absolutely. The bottom law schools often charge *more* than the top law schools. I guess they find the gullible. Then the graduates wait tables while saddled with $300K in debt.
Some people are so desperate they will pay anything to get into law school.
Last time I checked, this country is run by lawyers. A law degree is a minimum requirement to join the club. Forget the money. Think about the powers a lawyer in the right position wields.
:roll eyes:
Hahahahahahaha.
People in the "right positions" might happen to be lawyers, but they were going to be in high positions in some manner even if they weren't lawyers.
It makes sense that a lot of people in government are lawyers -- they often have an interest in law, lawmaking, public policy, etc. And law school teaches you about all of those things. But it's not like a law degree in and of itself is some kind of magic ticket to power.
Quote:
Originally Posted by JONOV
Its like a lot of things...If you have a plan that's a lot more detailed than "Be a Lawyer, They make good money", great, if not, its a monumental waste of money assuming you don't have a scholarship.
I know too many college classmates that went into law school because they didn't like what they saw in the job market or, in a generic sort of way, wanted to make more money, or wanted to avoid living in the "real world" (though Law School isn't a cake walk) a little longer.
If you want to work in work in criminal law, if you want to work in Politics, if you want to practice one kind of law or another, it makes sense. I know one guy that went into law school because he wanted to work in a regional/small city law firm doing estates and wills. But he knew that's what he wanted since he had worked summers at the law firm to one degree or another since high school.
Too many people go into it because they think "lawyers make lotsa money" and that's not always the case.
Yes -- this is exactly the only type of situation where it would make sense to go to a law school that isn't a top ranked school, especially if you can keep working while being in law school, perhaps even going via a part time program. I've known of situations where someone worked in a small firm as, say, a paralegal, and the lawyers said they should go get a degree so they could work there as a lawyer. And the person knew exactly what the legal work entailed, knew they'd have a job during the year, during the summers, and after graduation, and didn't have to entirely forego 3 years of working (and didn't move somewhere to attend school). And, most importantly, had no delusions of grandeur. In that kind of scenario, it could make some sense to go. (Although not in 100% of cases -- there are instances where paralegals make more than attorneys, so it would definitely require a cost benefit analysis.)
It's only a good investment if you love being a lawyer. I finished the first year of law school and decided I didn't want to spend my life as a lawyer no matter how much it paid. Even 40 years ago lawyers often couldn't get a job or had to spend long years in apprenticeship positions before they started making good money. It also depends on the type of law you want to practice. Corporate lawyers average about $140K per year. Public defenders average about $50K per year and an ADA makes about $57K. For a public defender or a prosecutor the money is in going on to a criminal law practice. The thing that made me not want to continue into the profession is that the law is not about guilt or innocence, right or wrong. It's about the skill of the attorney in arguing their case. As an attorney or prosecutor you can defend the guilty and prosecute the innocent. You can back the side that is right or wrong. Regardless of the income possibilities I didn't want to spend my life in those situations where I made my living having to be on the wrong side as often as not.
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