Law Schools

Sorry, Law Students, But Your Starting Salary Will NOT Be $190K

Here's some rain for your completely unrealistic parade.

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on

‘Where’s my $190K?’

Current law students and prospective law students who have been reading Above the Law this week must be absolutely, positively pumped about the new $190K salary scale that is slowly but surely catching on among Biglaw and boutique firms alike. Who cares about that humungous student loan balance? You’re going to have a gigantic starting salary!

It’s a very exciting time for the associates whose firms have decided to adopt the new compensation system, but for everyone else, it’s a bit depressing. The thing that’s more depressing is the fact that the vast majority of current and prospective law students will likely NEVER have an entry-level salary of $190,000. Yes, you read that correctly. You will likely NEVER have a starting salary that high.

How do we know? Check out the bimodal starting salary distribution for the law school class of 2016, courtesy of James Leipold’s informative lecture on employment statistics at the most recent National Association for Law Placement conference.

Please pay very close attention to the fine print at the bottom of this slide:

The left-hand of the graph reflect salaries of $40,000 to $65,000, which collectively accounted for not quite half of reported salaries. The right-hand peak shows that salaries of $180,000 accounted for almost 16% of reported salaries.

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Only about 16 percent of law school graduates had starting salaries of $180K, and thus far, Biglaw firms haven’t adopted the $190K pay hike as uniformly — or nearly as quickly — as they did back in 2016 when the $180K scale was first announced. Accept the realism of your situation and embrace the suck. $190K is simply not for everyone.

Stop trying to make $190K happen, it’s not going to happen — unless it’s your outstanding student loan balance, of course. That could totally happen.

Staci ZaretskyStaci Zaretsky has been an editor at Above the Law since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

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