News Flash: Not Every Lawyer Is on the $160K Pay Scale
Okay, so you already knew that. Last year, in a widely read, front-page story for the Wall Street Journal, Amir Efrati reported on the non-Biglaw blues: the challenging job market and not-so-hot financial prospects faced by many law school graduates (many of whom are saddled with heavy debt).
A month later, the Des Moines Register basically rewrote Efrati's story. But Efrati couldn't have been that offended, since his article was thematically similar to this piece by Leigh Jones, which appeared in the National Law Journal a few months earlier.
Preemption is a bitch. In this media-saturated age, it's difficult to be truly original.
Nevertheless, even if these articles all sort of sound alike, they generate buzz and traffic -- which may explain why they keep getting written, over and over again. The latest is a rather lengthy cover story from the Chicago Tribune's Sunday magazine, by Greg Burns.
From one of the many tipsters who emailed us about it: "Nothing earth shattering revealed, but this article discusses the 'haves and have nots' of the legal profession." Another reader noted:
I assume you’ve seen the Chicago Trib article on low lawyer salaries, for those not in BigLaw. Not that this discrepancy is a shocker to you, but your fans seem to enjoy lording their big, uh, paychecks over their less fortunate brethren, while taking perverse pleasure in working 20-hour days for the free dinner and ride home. As such, this seems like a perfect comment clusterf**k topic.
A third quipped: "Not sure if news, but enjoy!" We concur. Even if the piece's thesis is nothing new, at least it's well-reported, chock full of interesting anecdotes and data.
More discussion, after the jump.
From near the start of the piece:
For a 36-year-old single mother barely seven years out of law school, [state prosecutor Jeanne] Wrenn bears a weighty responsibility, and it's exactly what she had in mind when she borrowed $100,000 to attend the Loyola University School of Law. Of all her friends from those law-school days, she enjoys her job the most, she says.Except for the paycheck. At $59,000 a year, the assistant Cook County state's attorney makes $100,000 less than the average first-year associate at big corporate firms, and millions of dollars less than the elite partners at those firms. If she chucked public service and went for the bucks, she probably could make a bit more money. But contrary to what many Americans believe, she'd need to overcome long odds to earn a lot more. Increasingly among the nation's 761,000 working lawyers, admission to the bar no longer guarantees a gold-plated lifestyle, or even financial security.
A single mother/prosecutor is a nice find as a subject. Maybe they can turn her story into a TV drama starring Julianna Margulies?
(Oh wait. That legal drama starring Margulies as a mother/lawyer is tanking.)
But wait, it gets better. Jeanne Wrenn is also.... a bartender!
Wrenn, meantime, has come to terms with her paycheck. Most Fridays, after a long week at the county prosecutor's office, she's behind the bar at Lizzie McNeill's Irish Pub downtown. Clad in a black polo shirt and dark jeans, her hair pulled back in a ponytail, she pours a mean Guinness, handling the pints with the same dexterity she uses to juggle folders and legal pads during her day job.
Hence the title and subtitle of the article: "Two lawyers walk into a bar . . . One orders a round of drinks for the house. The other one puts on an apron and serves it."
Some interesting statistical data:
[T]his pity party invites cynicism, and not just because lawyers are a group that seemingly everyone loves to hate. At $113,600, the average pay for American lawyers far exceeds the $39,190 average for the entire American labor force. Even Wrenn's government paycheck of $59,000 puts her above the typical funeral director, postmaster or insurance agent. She makes more than most teachers, for that matter.Yet the persistent whine about compensation from all levels of the bar underlines an ongoing socioeconomic change: Incomes have diverged in many occupations, from farmers and doctors to real-estate brokers. Those at the very top take a much higher share of the total. And for decades now, this winner-take-more phenomenon has accelerated.
That's true. And it seems to be happening even within Biglaw, where the super-profitable firms seem to be pulling away from an already well-heeled pack.
The article goes on to talk about how, at non-elite law schools, you need to do very well on the grades front to have a shot of a job with a leading law firm. We'll skip over that part because you already know that. It also talks about Kirsten Wolf, who feels her law school education was an expensive waste of time, but you probably already read about her over at the WSJ Law Blog.
Okay, now we get to some interesting history:
For a fortunate few, though, [a law degree is a golden ticket]. And that was true even four decades ago when the Cravath Swaine law firm in Manhattan started paying associates a then-shocking $15,000 a year. That represented a 50 percent boost from the norm, breaking a tacit agreement among law firms. From then on, competition for elite graduates became a bidding war. Influenced by the dot-com, hedge-fund and private-equity booms, the standard salary for starting associates stands at $160,000 today.
Then the piece talks about associate attrition and rising profits per partner. ATL readers know all about that too, so let's skip ahead, to more historical background:
Today's millionaire lawyers can trace their good fortune, at least in part, to Finley Kumble, a Manhattan firm that respectable lawyers loved to hate in the 1980s. Known as a "shark tank," it recruited rival partners with big-money offers, broke down barriers against self-promotion and championed lucrative niche practices such as bankruptcy. It converted billable hours into maximum cash, tradition be damned.Finley Kumble went bust in 1987, but its commercial practices stuck, aided and abetted by the rise of The American Lawyer magazine's "league tables." These once-a-year charts spell out the revenues and profits per partner at the nation's top firms-often to the dismay of legal titans making less than their similarly situated counterparts. Once that genie left the bottle, no one could stuff it back in, notes Loyola Law Dean David Yellen. "When something withheld from the market is exposed to the market, there's no going back."
And the same is true of associate salaries and bonuses. That's what ATL is here for.
Here's some insight into why legal bills are so high:
Big-firm lawyers also owe their success to the weakness of general counsels, the gatekeepers for corporate legal services. Some of these in-house attorneys make big bucks themselves, and they've gotten smarter about shopping around for legal help. But their turnover at major companies has averaged 30 percent over the past three years. Distracted by investigations and disclosure requirements, desperate for top talent to fight high-stakes legal battles, befuddled by a maze of international regulations, the typical general counsel has precious little leverage in negotiating fees.
Of course, some Big Law partners claim that clients are pushing back more on fees -- with some success, especially given the weakening economy. But when it comes to the high-end, bet-the-company type of work that drives the top top law firms, price resistance is probably still low.
What does the future hold? The article closes with these provocative thoughts:
Academic researchers believe change is coming to the profession. John Coates of Harvard Law School, for one, has a clear vision of how economics will reshape long-standing practices. He foresees the American Bar Association and state bar examiners coming under pressure to reduce the cost of law school by relaxing rules. That could mean accrediting online programs or allowing two-year degrees instead of the standard three.Restrictions on practicing law without a license also will relax, Coates predicts, so paralegals can handle house closings, leases, simple contracts and wills. More legal work will be carried out at a discount offshore, as well. In the wealthy corporate sector, Coates foresees publicly held firms from England and Australia using their superior capital to challenge U.S. rivals.
That, in turn, will encourage a change in rules that limit the ownership of American law firms to lawyers.
Eventually, Coates says, the great divide in lawyer incomes will divide again, this time into three categories: The super-highly-paid, a middle tier of the highly paid and, by far the biggest group, everybody else.
None of these changes will come easily, he says, but inevitably the economics of the legal profession will trump its outmoded traditions. "The one thing I can guarantee: There will be a lot of fighting."
Mmm, sounds fun! We look forward to covering it in the years ahead.
As you can tell, we've given you just excerpts from Greg Burns's article. If you have the time -- and maybe some of you do, given how slow many law firms seem to be these days -- read the full piece over here.
Two lawyers walk into a bar [Chicago Tribune]
(79) Comments
First, pigs!
Second
Lat, how about a poll measuring the percentage of ATL readers that hate the new design?
This is merely a shameless and desperate attempt to distract from the horrendous new site design. I refused to post any comments on this page in protest.
I HATE THIS NEW FORMAT. Am not coming back.
Great! Online programs and 2-year degrees. Just what we need, more law schools and more lawyers. The ABA should stop giving some of these horrible schools accreditation and cut out the 5th (or whatever is the lowest) tier.
Lat, you've reduced yourself to two commenters: black suit guy, and the fonz.
Also, shouldn't " general counsels" be "generals counsel"?
In conclusion, your redesign is horrible. I realize you had to expect some push-back, but seriously, this is very bad. For example, it is terrible.
it's not that bad. but. could be way better. come on lat. spice it up somehow!
yeah the new format sucks.
This new design suck--the only way I could figure out how to post a comment was to log in as guest and use the password guest--Is that what everyine else is doing?
2:45: the "General" in "general counsels" is an adjective, only nouns need by conjugated in the plural.
I was going to leave a comment about this article, but the comments page took so long to load I have since forgotten what I wanted to say.
This new design sucks--the only way I could figure out how to post a comment was to log in as guest and use the password guest--Is that what everyine else is doing?---at least it gave me time to correct my post--eventhough it will be posted twice.
"That could mean accrediting online programs or allowing two-year degrees instead of the standard three."
Exactly what the profession needs. But in all seriousness, why can't we protect our industry like dentists?
You would think Lat might have a better eye for things aesthetic, if you know what I mean...
This new design sucks--the only way I could figure out how to post a comment was to log in as guest and use the password guest--Is that what everyine else is doing?---at least it gave me time to correct my post--eventhough it will be posted twice.
Law school cost should sky rocket these days and bar rules should tighten. There are already too many lawyers. When you let lawyers in charge of who is admitted to the profession, there will not be a loosening of the standards. We aren't stupid people, people. We wouldn't give away a portion of our business. If anything the rules will tighten by eliminating the off-shore contracting of research to India that has begun to emerge.
I was going to leave a comment about this article, but the comments page took so long to load I have since forgotten what I wanted to say.
I'm disappointed the author didn't work in "complex cross-border transactions and bet the company litigation" - he had a great opportunity in this article.
David, please change the red "link" font to blue. It would be more pleasing to the eye. Also, the new format sucks.
The prosecutor from Loyola Chicago assumes that she could get a a corporate law job. She can't, even with her trial experience. Law firms don't like prosecutors because they know they rarely write. They may be good at oral arguments and trial but they lack analytical and writing ability. So she really shouldn't be wondering how things would be like doing litigation at a corporate firm because that's not an option.
And as for grades it sucks, but it applies to even top 14's. I have average grades from a top 14 and I can't lateral even tough I have a couple years experience at a respectable BIGLAW firm. Whatever. It sucks, but that's what happens when you have 200 accredited law schools. I have friends who graduated from my top 14 who never found BIGLAW jobs, let alone any law firm jobs. It is just a competitive market. People who blow 35k a year on third tier schools are making a stupid investment. They should know that before they enroll.
My favorite part:
"Most law schools, Loyola included, grade on a mandatory curve, so half the students finish in the bottom half of their class,"
Actually, no matter what grading system you use, half of the students will finish in the bottom half of their class. That's what the bottom half means.
The prosecutor from Loyola Chicago assumes that she could get a a corporate law job. She can't, even with her trial experience. Law firms don't like prosecutors because they know they rarely write. They may be good at oral arguments and trial but they lack analytical and writing ability. So she really shouldn't be wondering how things would be like doing litigation at a corporate firm because that's not an option.
And as for grades it sucks, but it applies to even top 14's. I have average grades from a top 14 and I can't lateral even tough I have a couple years experience at a respectable BIGLAW firm. Whatever. It sucks, but that's what happens when you have 200 accredited law schools. I have friends who graduated from my top 14 who never found BIGLAW jobs, let alone any law firm jobs. It is just a competitive market. People who blow 35k a year on third tier schools are making a stupid investment. They should know that before they enroll.
The number of law schools should be cut by 15 percent.
http://www.ilrg.com/rankings/law/ has sortable stats so you OCD-types can compare schools within a state or something. http://www.ilrg.com/rankings/law/tuition.php/1/asc/Tuition has tuition stats. I think it's all for 2009.
Being $100K in debt sounds bad until you look at the tuition/other expenses at some TTTs. How do they do it...?
The prosecutor from Loyola Chicago assumes that she could get a a corporate law job. She can't, even with her trial experience. Law firms don't like prosecutors because they know they rarely write. They may be good at oral arguments and trial but they lack analytical and writing ability. So she really shouldn't be wondering how things would be like doing litigation at a corporate firm because that's not an option.
And as for grades it sucks, but it applies to even top 14's. I have average grades from a top 14 and I can't lateral even tough I have a couple years experience at a respectable BIGLAW firm. Whatever. It sucks, but that's what happens when you have 200 accredited law schools. I have friends who graduated from my top 14 who never found BIGLAW jobs, let alone any law firm jobs. It is just a competitive market. People who blow 35k a year on third tier schools are making a stupid investment. They should know that before they enroll.
Could we have a thread about how terrible the new design is?
The prosecutor from Loyola Chicago assumes that she could get a a corporate law job. She can't, even with her trial experience. Law firms don't like prosecutors because they know they rarely write. They may be good at oral arguments and trial but they lack analytical and writing ability. So she really shouldn't be wondering how things would be like doing litigation at a corporate firm because that's not an option.
And as for grades it sucks, but it applies to even top 14's. I have average grades from a top 14 and I can't lateral even tough I have a couple years experience at a respectable BIGLAW firm. Whatever. It sucks, but that's what happens when you have 200 accredited law schools. I have friends who graduated from my top 14 who never found BIGLAW jobs, let alone any law firm jobs. It is just a competitive market. People who blow 35k a year on third tier schools are making a stupid investment. They should know that before they enroll.
Lat, can you please post a follow-up to the Willkie thing?
I, for one, am committed to helping Jeanne McWrenn out. To show how generous I am, I have a special, limited time only offer for government -- walk away from my loans and I'll walk away from my job and Jeanne is more than welcome to it. That's a win, win situation.
That, and the new format is terrible. Where is Lateral Link and its plethora of pointless polls when you need them.
Happy I'm in that 160K group after reading those articles....
not sure how much i like the new site format... but maybe it's because i just got too used to the old one.
just to throw it out there, the chicago piece somehow manages to put BU on par with loyola. is that a fucking joke? i go to BU and a ton of biglaw firms come to campus. i have friends BELOW the median who have biglaw jobs lined up. basically, if you're top 50% here and on a journal you're golden...
that girl must have graduated in the bottom of the class to be as fucked as she is... but i'm sure if you look at the bottom 10% anywhere they're not doing so hot.
but to compare BU and loyola is ridiculous...
not sure how much i like the new site format... but maybe it's because i just got too used to the old one.
just to throw it out there, the chicago piece somehow manages to put BU on par with loyola. is that a fucking joke? i go to BU and a ton of biglaw firms come to campus. i have friends BELOW the median who have biglaw jobs lined up. basically, if you're top 50% here and on a journal you're golden...
that girl must have graduated in the bottom of the class to be as fucked as she is... but i'm sure if you look at the bottom 10% anywhere they're not doing so hot.
but to compare BU and loyola is ridiculous...
The new format sucks. I would rather read the Drudge report....
This font is almost unreadable
2:49(1): Your answer is substantively correct. However, one "conjugate[s]" verbs, not nouns. You should have said: "Only nouns need to be pluralized."
Thank you for your time,
Grammuh Time
just align the comments and articles on the right. and get rid of the pictures. NO ONE WANTS TO SEE THE SAME PICTURE OVER AND OVER AND NO ONE WILL "JOIN" YOUR SITE SO THEYRE NOT ANONYMOUS ANYMORE
2:48, you conjugate verbs, not nouns.
This new format sucks. Striked-through text can't be read clearly. Quoted text is bold (???) rather than indented in a box and easily read. Some tweaking is in order.
This new format is awful. The quoting system (with light blue background) of the old site was much easier on the eyes.
This new format is awful. The quoting system (with light blue background) of the old site was much easier on the eyes.
If I'm a guest of ATL, I expect my pillows to be fluffed each night and my bed to be free of bedbugs.
Lat-Why don't you do a meaningful poll for once?
New Format?
Old Format?
When you do the poll make the commitment before hand that whatever the readers decide you will go with.
BU is a joke when compared to UVA. Don't even bother posting.
Above the Law is a bright spot in my otherwise dreary day. I turn to it in solace after I've gotten another arbitrary deadline from a partner who has clearly lost touch with reality. It gives me comfort to know there other miserable souls out there.
However, this page is hideous now. The content may still be here, but I can't read it because I have to shield my eyes everytime I load the page. Thanks for further ruining my day, Lat.
Above the Law is a bright spot in my otherwise dreary day. I turn to it in solace after I've gotten another arbitrary deadline from a partner who has clearly lost touch with reality. It gives me comfort to know there other miserable souls out there.
However, this page is hideous now. The content may still be here, but I can't read it because I have to shield my eyes everytime I load the page. Thanks for further ruining my day, Lat.
The new format is certainly slicker (and probably more advertiser-friendly) than the old one, which looked a bit like an Angelfire webpage from 1996 (all it was missing were frames). And I doubt the old format will return, given that the sister sites (Fashionista and Dealbreaker) have gone a similar route.
When on ATL from work, I'd like to at least give the appearance of being studiously at work...the vertical series of guys in black suits kind of makes it obvious that I am not...which means, it's time to find a blog that looks like work to anyone looking over my shoulder.
the format does hurt my eyes.
and I liked being able to use clever names as my name.
cosign 4:22
Guys at my high school used to implement hideous, blinding layouts on their tabloid websites all the time, it was no big deal.
Fucking terrible format, Lat. Ditch it at once and hope we forget you were stupid enough to think this was a good idea.
I'm of two minds when it comes to the issue of the number of accredited law schools and the multitudes of graduates they produce.
On the one hand, lots of lawyers could serve to keep fees down for legal services such as divorce work, individual bankruptcy and other such work. If there were less lawyers, certain segments of the population would have little access to legal representation. That being said, if their representation is un-or-under-qualified, that presents a problem in itself.
On the other hand, diminished entrance requirements for practicing law, opens the profession to people who should not be practicing law and drags the reputation of the profession down.
Hence, part of me supports closing down practically all T3 and T4 schools while another part of me supports full disclosure on the part of these schools to their students concerning the dismal job opportunities, debt burden, etc. But not outright closure, b/c that runs in opposition to the notion of free markets.
People are bad at assessing economic issues. This is not specific to lawyers. The costs of higher education are not hidden, and, if you actually put some effort in, the information about what professions earn isn't either.
What about the dolts who run up six+ years of private tuition debt for a graduate degree in some sort of liberal arts? Or med students, with an extra year of school and absolutely no prospect of big money immediately out of school, so tack on several more years of borrowing/treading water at best.
The law students/lawyers who should be caned for idiocy are the one who blindly follow US News rankings in the same tier and go out-of-state when they got into their public school. Someone from Indiana going to USC because of ranking, for example, is deranged.
"But not outright closure, b/c that runs in opposition to the notion of free markets."
These are the same people who think that taking ~40% of my income for paternalistic social services are a good thing... but who oppose the paternalistic practice of shutting down TTT law schools that trick otherwise promising people of middling intelligence into taking on a $100,000+ debt burden with zero job prospects.
4:22, if people can "look over [your] shoulder," then you don't have an office, which means you don't count.
- Real attorney
"trick otherwise promising people of middling intelligence into taking on a $100,000+ debt burden with zero job prospects."
I completely agree. However, if schools were required by the ABA to fully disclosure all material information to aspiring law students, it could no longer be said that those students were "trick[ed]." At that point, caveat emptor could govern. Hopefully, this would result in less unqualified people matriculating in law school and less complaining from slake-jawed yokels about their dismal employment opportunities and high debt burdens.
People, when you close down law schools (even if only the T4 ones), tuition and student loans will increase at the remaining ones. And then more people will complain about how they were tricked into going to three years of school and were too lazy to do any research on their prospects.
There is enough TTT law student whining on the Internet as it is.
"trick otherwise promising people of middling intelligence into taking on a $100,000+ debt burden with zero job prospects."
I completely agree. However, if schools were required by the ABA to fully disclosure all material information to aspiring law students, it could no longer be said that those students were "trick[ed]." At that point, caveat emptor could govern. Hopefully, this would result in less unqualified people matriculating in law school and less complaining from slake-jawed yokels about their dismal employment opportunities and high debt burdens.
This part of the article is completely ridiculous:
"Those at the very top take a much higher share of the total. And for decades now, this winner-take-more phenomenon has accelerated."
The economy is not a zero-sum game. An increase in salaries for Biglaw associates does not come at the cost of salaries/incomes of other lawyers. The tone of this part of the article shows the reporter's lefty douche bias.
This part of the article is completely ridiculous:
"Those at the very top take a much higher share of the total. And for decades now, this winner-take-more phenomenon has accelerated."
The economy is not a zero-sum game. An increase in salaries for Biglaw associates does not come at the cost of salaries/incomes of other lawyers. The tone of this part of the article shows the reporter's lefty douche bias.
This issue extends beyond Law School. How is a law degree from a less than stellar school different from an Liberal Arts Phd. from pretty much anywhere but a truly elite program? Aside from medicine and the sciences, all advanced degrees suffer from oversupply.
The best solution is more information. Either USN&WR or law accreditation boards should begin insisting that law schools provide accurate graduate employment information. Beyond that, there is only so much you can do to discourage people from making bad decisions. Plenty of people still succeed after starting a virtually any law school, and law schools are hardly in a place to identify who the successful students will be at admission. The cheaper, shorter law programs is an interesting idea as nobody should have to fork out $150K for a license to hang out a shingle and do real estate closings.
Med students get to defer their student loans while in residency and only have to pay the interest on their federal loans.
the new format is awful and unreadable.
Don't liberal arts grad students get paid to go to grad school and teach classes and do research and basically act as slaves to the university? Isn't that why it takes 6 years to get a phd?
What? You mean my PhD in Women's Studies isn't going to land me 160k?
Has anyone noticed that if you go back to the archived comments, they have this same set up but instead of "guest" they have your clever name. There must be a way to do that here.
new format is teh sux.
4:57 PM
The ABA thought basically the same way. In a report from several years ago they reasoned, "Many people can't afford legal services. Increasing supply decreases price; more law grads increases supply; therefore if we crank out grads price will come down." What they failed to realize is that if providers of any good or service in an economy will exit the market if they aren't getting their break even price. They needed to consider whether the market could provide a break even price for all of these grads with high debt. Obviously, it can't.
ABA, if you want to improve low cost access to legal services, you can't just throw bodies at the problem. That just creates misery for some people without really providing low cost services. If you want to solve the problem, you have to find money to subsidize the providers of low cost legal services.
You don't hear the AMA saying that we should crank out medical grads to solve the medical care problem.
Deferring student loans does little to actually pay them off and you are giving up multiple years of your physical prime and consequent earning potential relative to the Biglaw option that is at least *open* to lawyers. And when you do finally become a full doctor, you aren't necessarily guaranteed huge bank, anymore than lawyers are assured of being partner-track at NYC scale firms.
Doctors do get pretty badly screwed.
-
Private law schools should absolutely be required to disclose the average debt incurred and the real job prospects, and what those people earn. I'm not sure if that should apply to public institutions as well. On the one hand, their mission is to educate the people in their state, and they do it at pretty low cost. On the other hand, at least the T1's attract a lot of out-of-state students who are paying as much as most private schools.
We don't need more low-quality "retail" lawyering in this country. Who here would seriously want to be represented in anything by someone who was at the bottom of their class at their school? You remember those guys. And they had drastically better raw ability than most people who would be given licenses under an "expansion" program.
Paralegals are a different deal. Experienced para's are just as competent as many lawyers. Maybe bring back the "reading the law" apprenticeship approach for them.
Here's my deal: top 30% from a T1 school, graduated last June, JUST got a job that pays $65K. I cleaned out my retirement from the two years I worked post-undergrad, took out $200K in loans. I did my research before coming to law school (which, I'm sure most of you BigLaw kids didn't even thought you are calling everyone else stupid for the same thing). If I knew then what I know now...
10:09, You are an idiot. You are (a) not even top 10%, (b) from a school outside of the top 20. What the hell did you expect?
10:09, You are an idiot. You (a) were not even #1 in your class (b) did not attend Yale. What the hell did you expect?
That's a little rough, 10:14. However, you need: a) connections; 2) a top 14 education; d) top 5-10%; or e) something really amazing to have a shot at biglaw. Sadly, I don't have any of those, although I am pretty good at making coherent lists.
10:09, you are mentioning retirement savings. That and your "BigLaw kids" comment leads me to suspect that you are somewhat older than a tradtional student. Good for you, but did you look into the demographics of incoming firm classes in your pre-law school research?
Non-trads can get big firm jobs, but they had better be exceptional and/or have a hard science background. You are basically top third from what's not a T14, and firms don't believe that you are as moldable (i.e. willing to put in crazy hours and take crazy amounts of BS) as "kids." I'm not sure if I would call it discrimination, but it's a real factor.
"You don't hear the AMA saying that we should crank out medical grads to solve the medical care problem."
You don't hear the AMA saying shit to address the medical care problem in this country--which is one of the biggest reasons our medical care delivery system is in a shambles, and the AMA is scared to death that socialized medicine will have all their non-cosmetic surgeon members making $50k a year soon. We need to stop looking at the AMA as a model.
The medical care delivery system is a shambles, not "in [sic] a shambles," you idiot.
10:09, I hear you. It's a ridiculous and largely arbitrary system. That being said, I lateraled after a couple years from teenylaw to biglaw. It's rare, but keep the hope alive.