yo mystttal--don't you mean "craptastic"? not craptistic?

I suspect this will change in 2009 when the new IBR program kicks in. Public sector lawyers will never pay more than 12% of their income (a little more complicated than this, but essentially this is the number for most) towards loans, and after 10 years the remaining debt will be written off. This means an ADA earning 55K/yr will only pay about $450 towards his/her loans and still pay them off in 10 years.

In other words, these jobs will probably be far more competitive now that students that really want them can afford them.

Can we please have a discussion without attacks on Elie by no-nothing law students or bitter/racist associates?? You people are ruining this site.

Lat/Elie - you should hire somone to delete retard posts.

oh wait for it....TTT-ing in 3....2.....1......

3, does this apply to recent grads as well, say 2005-2008 grads or is it only for 2009 grads?

SevenTTTh

Anedoctal, but still very relevant. Much better than the trivial law school tales.

It's especially bad in Florida as PD's and ASA (Assistant State Attorney's - not District Attorney's) are paid the same across the entire state. So, an ASA living in, say Gainseville is making the same exact amount as an ASA in Miami, where the cost of living is considerably higher.
It's really sad what an ASA makes (less than a PD), especially in the higher cost of living areas here in Florida. The state tries to make them sign a 3 year commitment, but most leave before that's up since they simply can't make ends meet on such a paltry salary.

It's especially bad in Florida as PD's and ASA (Assistant State Attorney's - not District Attorney's) are paid the same across the entire state. So, an ASA living in, say Gainseville is making the same exact amount as an ASA in Miami, where the cost of living is considerably higher.
It's really sad what an ASA makes (less than a PD), especially in the higher cost of living areas here in Florida. The state tries to make them sign a 3 year commitment, but most leave before that's up since they simply can't make ends meet on such a paltry salary.

3 is partly correct, so long as one has no private loans.

"Income-based repayment is only available for federal student loans, such as the Stafford, Grad PLUS and consolidation loans. It is not available for Parent PLUS loans . . . not available for Perkins loans . . . not available for private student loans.

"The maximum repayment period is 25 years [10 years for public service]. After 25 years, any remaining debt will be discharged "

See http://www.finaid.org/loans/ibr.phtml

It's all supply and demand people. When the supply of a commodity exceeds its demand in the marketplace, its price plummets. There are way too many people coming out of law school in the United States -- more than society needs. Speaking as a judicial clerk, I feel somewhat qualified to comment on the vast amount of resource draining, borderline frivolous litigation going on in federal courts today. We need fewer lawyers out there drumming up unnecessary litigation, not more! Low salaries and starving lawyers aren't the problem -- they are the result of the problem. The solution? Cutting the number of US law schools in half (or more).

And it's hard to feel sympathy for starving lawyers because most of the ones I know ended up on that road because of naive, misinformed notions of what attending a second, third, or fourth tier law school would be like. And making it even harder to feel sympathy is the large proportion of 22 year old kids who enroll in law school almost whimsically, with no real idea why they're doing it or what they hope to achieve, other than making a lot of money and/or avoiding the real world for 3 more years.

That's it I'm done.

6, not sure. you might want to check http://www.ibrinfo.org/

Great. More bait for the legal "reformists."

I think the best part about biglaw salary is the ridiculous amount of fucking taxes we pay every month. Taxes which are quickly squandered by politicians I wouldn't even hire to clean my apartment, let alone spend my money.

Amen to that, 12

I second 12.

15--i don't know of many politicians who can also be hired to clean apartments

Considering BigLaw Associates are putting in billables upwards of 2000-2500/year, they are essentially working two jobs as well (hours-wise).

Anyway, doing things for the good of the public or for your belief in the constitution is for the birds.
"F#CK YOU - PAY ME!"

18 - Sarah Palin 15 years ago.

$600/month for a mortgage? Does she live in a double-wide? $600/month would not even get you that in SoCal. That is my car payment for my secretary's mercedes.

Don't got to a crap ass law school then. If you can't break into the top 100 (and that is being unbelievably generous) you should find something else to do, because what are the chances you'll be at the top of your class at whatever "TTT" you got into?

I would let Sarah Palin clean my house any day.

I’m with Walt Disney on this one: “Don't forget this: it's the law of the universe that the strong shall survive and the weak must fall by the way, and I don't give a damn what idealistic plan is cooked up, nothing can change that.”

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for the public good. Hell, I do 150+ hours of pro bono work a year. If I had no debt and a couple of million in the bank, I might even consider being an PD and fighting “the man” on behalf of “the downtrodden.” That said, anyone who takes on $100,000 or more in loans for a law degree only to accept a position paying $50,000 a year is either (1) not capable of doing better or (2) batshit crazy delusional.

We need to draw a distinction here between state and federal prosecutors. Many state DAs do indeed hire almost exclusively from TTT and pay crap because the TTT grads have nowhere else to go.

The feds are extremely selective in their hiring. Landing a job at a big city US Attorney's Office is as difficult as getting a V10 job, in some cases moreso. USAO are stocked full of HYS grads, particularly among the younger lawyers.

The reason the feds can hire such great lawyers while offering shit pay (though not as bad as ADAs) is that being a fed prosecutor is infinitely more enjoyable than working at a firm. Fed prosecutors are actually happy, and like their jobs.

So in both cases, the demand outstrips the supply. But in the fed cases the demand is high because the job is good, not because the applicants have no other options.

Do state DA offices hire GULCers?

Good item!

Look, we need PDs and SAs and I'm glad they do their jobs. But there's no need to be a martyr about it. You think your services are worth more? Make your business case to the voters and legislature, the people who pay your salaries. Nobody is going to cough up more money just because you perceive you are doing something more "noble" than those in private practice.

Public defenders are only doing it because they "believe in the ConsTiTuTion"

I'm a federal attorney in DC and I'm actively looking for a second job. Seems my agency think an LRAP program is for recruitment but not retention.

I have rich surgeon friends who laugh at my biglaw salary.

I knew a HLS grad who was working in Chicago biglaw in the mid-90s, making then market of around $80-85k as a third/fourth year, who worked as a shot girl at a cheesy nightclub and made an extra $35-45k/year working only Friday and Saturday nights.

I have rich banker friends who used to laugh at my biglaw salary. Now they don't have jobs.

My banker stole my money last week.

When I was working a gov't job before law school, I had a second job, too. It just seemed like the thing to do in order to pay down some of my undergard loans and save a little before law school - not a big deal, and not something I felt like bitching about. I don't see why this is newsworthy; taking a second job is what people do when they a) have time and b) want more money but want to keep their current, primary job.

Oh, wait, I know why this is news here - because of the pernicious sense of entitlement from which so many lawyers/law students suffer. It's something along the lines of "but I'm a lawwwwwyer...I shouldn't have to do this." This is the reality of taking a lower paying job when you have a large debt load (and a mortgage!). I work a biglaw job, my spouse works a biglaw job, and we pay a crapton for our mortgage....and we don't spend money on anything else. It's our choice, we knew what we were doing when we made it, and we have a sweet house as a result. Do we whine about how we should be able to spend spend spend like our friends? No. We're cool with the choice we've made. Other people should try it sometime.

I think your "market" salary is going to level off for about a generation.

It's the same in all the graduate professions. If you want the respect and lifestyle that goes with being the small town doctor making 50K a year, that's wonderful and there's more small towns that need you than doctors looking for the job. Same for lawyers taking state and local DA jobs. It's good, meaningful work that needs to get done. They hire lawyers who want the job. I would guess there's a shortfall in most parts of the country because even lawyers from poorly ranked state schools have private loans.

The PROBLEM with the arrangement is the skyrocketing cost of higher education, and the lack of public commitment to subsidize it. I recall Pres. Clinton had a plan where if you worked for a few years after college they forgave your loans, we need the same for law and medicine, but only so long as those Federal loans cover 100% of tutition.

Most law schools are profit centers for universities. Unlike a med school, all we need is a podium and a bunch of desks, the rest is window dressing (okay maybe a library and OCI too). Why the hell can't public law schools cover their overhead with $15,500 per student per year. If they can't do it, then up the friggin Stafford to whatever number allows public law school to cover 100% from federal loans.

Then lawyers can either go work for the government and accept loan forgiveness in lieu of bonus or go for mediocre pay in the private sector and still cover their loans.

"Those of us who make a career in the field of indigent defense do it because we love it and we believe in the Constitution."

That and because you went to TTT law schools/earned TTT grades.

33 - yes, but the $1.8 million they made on average in the last fiscal year (or roughly 12 times what you made) slightly cushions the blow. they could surf in fiji until 2020 and they'd still be wiping their asses with benjis.

Yes, yes, there are too many lawschools and too many T2-4 lawschools with 20k+ a year tuition. But, regardless of whether you go to a low ranked school or not, the pay for many government jobs is not high enough to pay back large loans and have a decent living in a city. There are plenty of T14 grads in DC who struggle to pay their loans and to have a life while working for Congress or prominent nonprofit agencies or think tanks. These are competitive positions. I have met more than one Congressional staffer with a T10 JD who bartends on weekends. It's depressing.

Public defenders and prosecutors should unionize. After my 1L year, I interned at the DA's office in Boston. They do all sorts of interesting stuff there, and it would've been a great place to practice law - if it didn't pay something like$33K. (I then went the summer associate/biglaw route.) When I told a Boston cop I knew that I couldn't afford to work as an ADA, he told me that if I was that interested in law enforcement, why didn't I just join the Boston PD? There, I'd easily start to clear $100K with overtime after not too many years on the force. Apparently a rookie cop willing to work overtime can get into the 70s. Mind you, one need not have 7 years of higher education to be a cop. The difference is that the cops here have a really well organized union while the public defenders and prosecutors simply do not.

Law students should unionize too. It's incredible that my law school tuition went up 8% every year even though my school's ranking and professors stayed the same.

41, What you wrote sounds like an argument against unions - not for them.

I have a second job while working as a government attorney. I agree with 35; it's simply a choice that I make. I would rather work hard now, while I'm in my twenties, and put extra money into retirement while paying down debt, so that I can worry less when I have kids and am at the age when I want a more comfortable lifestyle. I consider myself lucky in that I have zero sense of entitlement and have worked hard my entire life. Biglaw or not, my finances will excel.

I don't want to hear any complaints from someone with a $600 mortgage.

you also probably don't want to live in a house that costs $600/month.

43, so what would the market pay a cop ?

I want to be a new hybrid cop lawyer where I beat the shit out of criminals on the weekends and then defend them during the week.

I would like and read this blog so much more if someone would go through and delete the auto-admit and garbage posts

39- You know that those bankers haven't saved a dime of their salary and bonuses from the last ten years. Hence, they are up the river.

35 is right on, and I am tired of the disrespect for blue collar work which is implicit in the article, i.e., the Chicago lawyer who complains that he could make more doing construction. So what, your construction worker buddies don't deserve to make as much as you do because they didn't sit at a laptop playing Typershark for three years at Long Island State University's Jack McCoy School of Law? Construction is hard work, and they earn it, just like the cops.

If blue collars had to go through 7 years of schooling to work their jobs I wouldn't complain. The blue collars I know smoke pot on their work breaks, down beers at lunch and go four wheeling on the weekend. No wonder American auto companies are out of business.

46,

It probably beats the $2,300 I pay in rent for a fairly small apartment.

-45

6, I think the loan repayment program should apply to you too, as long as you have only government-backed loans. Even if you have some private loans, it should still apply to any federally backed loans once you consolidate them with a federal consolidation loan. A professor I had last year helped put this program in place and has given several talks at school explaining it.

Here's a link:
http://gulcfac.typepad.com/georgetown_university_law/2007/09/new-federal-stu.html

Also, I am a little annoyed at the tone of the post and the comments. I came to a private, top-15 school knowing full well that I would wind up with a ton of debt and that I would not earn as much in the public sector as my friends at large firms. The financial bit isn't a surprise, either; my fiance and I carefully calculated how we could control my debt (we have no undergrad debt and are living on his public-sector salary) and how we could pay it back (I chose my school partly for its excellent LRAP).

And yes, I knew before I came to law school that I want a career in public interest law. It's what interests me most. I'm making good grades at a good school, so it's not like a public sector job is "all I can get." I wonder why some big-firm folks are so insecure that they feel the need to make such comments about those who choose a different career. Aren't you getting what you want? If so, why are you so upset that I'm getting what I want, too, just in a different way?

51- ah yes, much better to put in an 80-hour week, drink martinis at lunch, and then work all weekend, with a few hours to drink yourself silly and pay a bar tab of $300. Silly blue-collars. Being a lawyer is so much more awesome.

What does TTT stand for?

55 - it stands for [Google it yourself, you lazy slob]

That 600/month mortgage sounds awesome.

I went to a top-10 law school, worked for a top-30 law firm for several years, and then went to work for a PD's office, where I make 70% less and work just as much. The job rocks, but the pay sucks. We work harder than the prosecutors and make less.

"Speaking as a judicial clerk, I feel somewhat qualified to comment on the vast amount of resource draining, borderline frivolous litigation going on in federal courts today."

Could there be more sanctimonious a**holes commenting on this thread?

TTT=ThirdTierTwatwaffle

Anyone who does defense-side work for medium to very large companies knows that there is a lot of frivolous litigation in federal courts. And we've been practicing for more years than a judicial clerk.

The PDs should work with their clients and rob people.

This article is sadly true. Staff Atty position for KY Courts is about $24,500/year. Last month, I saw a sign that the local Taco Bell is hiring managers for $40k a year. It made me wonder...

So yes, I take extra work on nights and weekends. It's tiring and dissapointing to think that I have a JD but hand out samples of toothpaste at Wal-Mart on Saturdays, but it's paying bills that my salary doesn't.

The people that work these jobs are also home by five o'clock, meaning they work 1/2 as much as BigLaw. I'd say they are paid appropriately.

Okay, 64, presuming that in BIGLAW one routinely works 16 hours a day or 80 hours a week (patent bullshit, despite claims to the contrary), an ADA or PD or Legal Aid lawyer still makes between 1/4 and 1/3 of what a BIGLAW lawyer makes.

Haha no wonder people have so many jokes about lawyers - some of you BIGLAW people are pretentious a$$holes. "I went to a Top 10 school"...."I make lots of money"...."Public interest lawyers don't work as hard". Get over yourselves.

I agree 66.

Also, I don't mind making only 50k/yr (more than I ever made in my life) right out of school. Working for the government also means I get tons of holidays, amazing health plan, a pension (how's your 401k doing??), strict 9-5 generally. More importantly, while my firm colleagues are busy being overpaid paralegals reading discovery materials, I am in court litigating. Alot of new firm associates won't see the inside of a court room for years.

It's all about trade-offs. I'm happy with mine. Are you happy with yours?

I am a 10 year attorney who graduated in the top 10 percent of a Tier 1 law school, worked as a state prosecutor in Florida ($25K) and clerked for a federal judge ($50k) before entering the hallowed halls of BigLaw seven years ago for a six-figure income. Although public service work is horribly underpaid, there are many bright, Tier 1 attorneys who do it because it is important work, and they love it. As many have noted and I have witnessed firsthand, a large percentage of BigLaw attorneys are pretentious, miserable, money-grubbing minions who could not try a case if their lives depended on it. The U.S. Attorney's Office is where it's at. It pays well (actually better if you break it down by hours worked), it is highly selective, and it affords autonomy and meaningful, challenging work.