It’s All Downhill From Here? Pay Reaches Apogee, NALP Says
There’s nothing quite like the burning smell of deflation on a Monday morning. NALP has released its associate salary survey. The good news is that the median starting salary for associates is $130,000. The bad news is that there is no way on God’s green earth that the median salary is going to stay that high. The ABA Journal reports this excerpt from the NALP survey:
Salary information for the survey by NALP, an association for legal career professionals, was collected as of April 1, before large law firms paying the prevailing beginning salary of $160,000 began to cut pay. “This year’s report reflects what is likely to be the apogee of large firm salaries for the foreseeable future,” according to a NALP press release.
A cursory glance at Above the Law’s salary cut page will reveal that New York will secede from the Union sooner than New York will go to $190K. But there are other factors in play that will push down future median salary numbers.
More details after the jump.
The ABA Journal points out a significant statistic from the new NALP report:
NALP figures from 2008 found that about 56 percent of that year’s graduates obtained their first job in a law firm. Almost 27 percent reported public interest employment, where median salaries are lower, according to a prior press release. Overall, about 75 percent obtained a job for which bar passage is required.
It seems unlikely that 56% of 2010 graduates will receive their first post-law school job at a private law firm. Oh, they might get be getting paid a deferral stipend from a private law firm, but the first job of a lot of would-be Biglaw associates will likely be in a public interest organization.
If they get a job at all. Maybe the class of 2010 can hang on, but law students who graduate in 2011 will have a heck of a time hitting a 75% employment rate.
The silver lining in the statistics is that they are only statistics. Individual results will vary and vary greatly. There are still plenty of firms paying $160,000. The dream is still alive, they’re just giving it out to fewer and fewer people.
Median Starting Pay for Law Firm Associates Peaks at $130K [ABA Journal]
Salaries at Largest Firms Peak in 2009 [NALP]
(66) Comments
Comments
1st.
Poop
Moderate 1&2 so I can be first
NYC V10 partner here:
Pres. Obama, Gov. Patterson and the NYC legislature have implemented or announced massive income tax hikes on all NY BigLaw partners.
Rest assured we will be cutting associate numbers and salaries to compensate.
Hope you all like the Change you'll have left in your pockets.
Elie is a true demi-god.
meh
Boy, if some firms are still paying $160K, maybe I should still plan on applying to law school after college...
Any advice from other BigLaw attorneys out there?
4
Just goes to show you NYC still sucks
~Sick of hearing how great NYC is
@4
Dad, is that you?
I have a comment, I have a comment, everyone should read what I have to say.
4 - law student and fed society chair, or else someone who just took and failed the NY bar exam.
-Suck it Trebek
8: NY was just fine until the state's top marginal tax rate was raised by nearly 30% (from 6.85% to 8.97%)
9: nope - I wouldn't let my kids go near this business - BigLaw is finished as a business model - besides, there is no longer any point in striving to succeed, just so Pelosi, Rangel and et al can just confiscate it
Dow jones is up up up!
Can somebody please explain to me what that ungodly pressure is on my sphincter?
Here is my comment, here is my comment, I hope you've enjoyed what I have to say.
-10
4, you just need to make sure to not report your income. Invest in a few Dominican villas and conveniently "forget" that your bank account is getting monthly rent checks. Blame it on the language barrier.
Also, it helps to own four rent-controlled apartments in Harlem while living in another city.
Your friend,
Charlie Rangel (D-NY)
Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee
Thanks Obama.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/08/03/massachusetts.gates/index.html
I will not let this story die.
-Elie Mystal
-12
And your point is . . . . Also NYC has that fun little income tax as well. NYC and NY State (as well as NJ and CT) are absolutely killing their economies by taxing the people who create wealth and by bending over and taking whatever the unions give them.
~8
@14
Peeping turtle head or you are pregnant. If you are pregnant, then you are in for a raise under Obama's regime. Congratulations under either scenario!
16
But wouldn't that make you guilty of tax evasion/fraud, which usually has a prison term associated with it?
I love how everyone keeps blaming Obama for deflation/recession problems. It was George W. Bush that got us all into this mess.
@22
Stick to law, becasue your understanding of finance and economics is super flawed.
I will point out that LBJ's Great Society is the base root casue. Throw in the Fed's loose monetary policy plus unbashed deficit spending, with modifications imposed by Congress on lending standards and you get the mess we're in. Read up and then we can discuss.
22, you always blamed Clinton and never Bush for the early 2000s stock market collapse and recession (which officially began a month after Bush took office), right?
Liberals are known for their intellectual honesty and consistency.
Um, we can blame capitalism as a whole, thanks. No one president will ever be to blame for our "debt." Our society as a whole will crash at some point...just hopefully not during our generation.
22: Obama and the Democratic Congress are to blame for pretending the economy, health care reform etc. can all be solved without raising taxes on those making $250K or less. The 'rich' will of course pay more (they already pay the huge majority of income taxes), but that won't be enough. Obama is going to be forced to enact massive, broad-based tax increases, along the lines of a federal VAT.
4/12/23
You don't like it?
Enlist and go to Iraq where you military pay is non-taxed.
That would be the good Republican thing to do (right?).
@27
Been there done that. Next retarded comment from you is?
There is a difference between taxing for the common defense, and wealth redistribution. See Earned Income Tax Credit.
How you like me now?
26 - If a VAT is enacted, the streets will finally run red with blood and the second American revolution will begin. Mark my words, the insurrection is coming. The time is approaching when we all must choose a side.
28
Pretty impressive that a NYC V10 partner was off fighting in OIF.
But shouldn't that give the proper perspective that wars are expensive and have to be financed somehow?
And no way the EITC costs as much as OIF, so stop being retarded.
27: correct - I don't like it when dinosaur liberals like Pelosi, Rangel, Waxman etc. try and confiscate my pay. Clever idea about military enlistment, but with an all Democratic federal government US troops will be in shameful retreat from thugs and terrorists around the globe, so that option is quite limited.
Hey guys, how is everybody doing?
@31
How did you do on the LSAT since your critical reading skills suck. I am not the V10 partner.
4 -
Much of the pain you are currently
feeling could have been avoided if
the early settlers and Founding Fathers
had decided to pick their own cotton.
"We didn't get our forty acres and a mule, but we did get you, CC"
22 - It's all OK because the Chinese will keep handing us cash as long as we ask nicely. Like one big, human-rights ignoring, soul-crushing ATM!
Oh, the feds need to confiscate your printer...they seem to have run out of green ink to print dollars at the Treasury.
Why is every liberal on this blog absolutely lacking any basic finance or economic knowledge?
Chicago to 160
Anyone who complains about income taxes isn't a true player. All the real players pay the individual capital gains rate, not the individual income rate. Suckers. How you like that billable hour now?
Chicago to 160
39, the Obama health care surtax will also hit your capital gains. Sucker.
37, welcome to the internet.
p.s. the conservatives are idiots, too.
NYC V10 partner = K&E 6th year nonequity partner (glorified associate) in M&A
37 - Your question contains its own answer.
25 - Capitalism in and of itself is not to blame for the current economic situation. Poor business decisions are. The repeal of Glass-Steagal certainly contributed, not to mention other legislative and policy initiatives.
41:
Sorry pal, that's not accurate. It's based on AGI, which does not include sales of capital assets.
You're a wage slave; you aint a player.
45, sorry buddy, check the first page of your 1040 again.
www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1040.pdf
Capital gains are on line 13, which is added into the gross income total (line 22), and thus part of the AGI total (line 37). The only thing that's not added in AGI is tax-exempt interest (line 8b), which specifically says it's not added into the gross income column.
This is why the average law student should not try to be a tax lawyer.
45 - AGI includes capital gains. Idiot.
45
Um evidently you have never invested, AGI includes Cap Gains. . . Dolt
45
See 37
7 - Go for it! Here's some practical advice for you:
1. Get really drunk the night before the LSATs. Most big law schools will accept you with a really low score.
2. Once you get into East Jesus Nowhere Law School, remember that a 70 is passing. And all you need to do is pass.
3. Repeat (1) the night before the bar exam.
[/sarcasm]
Are you nucking futs?
Philly is at 145 for the 4 or so obvious firms that can afford it. More are at either 135 or 125.
I think we should use the word "apogee" more in our daily lives.
The ship be sinking...
"...the first job of a lot of would-be Biglaw associates will likely be in a public interest organization."
I find it amusing that some people consider "working" for a public interest outfit a "job."
37=46=47=48=49
39=41=55
When were first year associates ever really worth $160K?
What does Apogee mean?
When i started as an NYC BIGLAW Associate in early 00's I move to NJ to avoid the NYC income tax. It has literally saved me thousands of dollars and I got liad just as much as those douches living in overpriced "Junior 1 BRs" in NoLita.
"I got liad ..." means you just wacked off. A lot.
56 - When they were bringing in 2400 hours x $350 = $840,000, give or take $100,000, a/k/a 2003 through mid-2007.
3/4 of this board and 100% of the editors voted for Obama...i hope you are all happy
No war for oil, 61. Jeez.
59, maybe he was talking about the Illiad? Cuz NJ is boring as shit, he got a bunch of copies of the Illiad?
I hate the people I work with. I wish they would quit or get laid-off.
4: We won't need any pocket change, when we start to eat biglaw partners and their children.
Goodness, chill out folks. Does negativity make you feel good? Same as it ever was.