Starting Salary Out of Tier 2 Forum

[Matix]

So I was just wondering if anyone could give some insight regarding starting salaries coming out of a t2 in CA. Thanks in advance.

[Helmholtz]

Somewhere between not good and horrendous.

Maybe it would help if your questions weren't so vague?

[Matix]

I was more interested in a range and maybe just the general outlook on employment prospects, whether it's picking up or not. I've spoken with friends from other schools and the job market still seems pretty dim.

[boaltrising3l]

You are about as likely to find legal work out of a tier 2 school as you are to find legal work without a JD. Whatever you can earn now is what you'll earn after.

[Jack Smirks]

What range of schools are you asking about. Like Davis/Hastings or like Loyola?

[Helmholtz]

What range of schools are you asking about. Like Davis/Hastings or like Loyola?

I assumed that OP had Loyola/Pepperdine/USD/Santa Clara in mind (UCD and UCH are "Tier 1")

[Doritos]

Are you in law school yet? This is really for people in law school trying to get a job. If you are a prospective there are other sub-forums for people to tell you a tier 2 is a generally a bad idea.

[Helmholtz]

Are you in law school yet? This is really for people in law school trying to get a job. If you are a prospective there are other sub-forums for people to tell you a tier 2 is a generally a bad idea.

Good point. Moved to the Choosing forum. If OP thinks the thread's proper place is in a different forum, feel free to explain.

[areyouinsane]

You are about as likely to find legal work out of a tier 2 school as you are to find legal work without a JD. Whatever you can earn now is what you'll earn after.

ROTFL! Thanks for making my morning! I hereby nominate that for Post of the Decade!

Seems like there's a lot of threads lately about the NYC area TTT's like Brooklyn, 'Bozo, St. Johns, R-N, Seton Hall et al. Even with decent schollys, most of these kids would be better off skipping law school altogether. "Grim" doesn't begin to describe the employment/salary metrics one can expect from these subpar diploma mills.

Sadly, these kids have a "shoot the messenger" herd mentality, and get quite angry when I, with a TTT degree and over half a decade in the NYC/NJ market, try to point out their folly. When these kids get angry they have "retard strength" and all.

[enron123]

Just go to Law School Transparency these responses seem particularly snarky even for TLS. Although asking a super broad question invited them.

[sjedood]

You are about as likely to find legal work out of a tier 2 school as you are to find legal work without a JD. Whatever you can earn now is what you'll earn after.

ROTFL! Thanks for making my morning! I hereby nominate that for Post of the Decade!

Seems like there's a lot of threads lately about the NYC area TTT's like Brooklyn, 'Bozo, St. Johns, R-N, Seton Hall et al. Even with decent schollys, most of these kids would be better off skipping law school altogether. "Grim" doesn't begin to describe the employment/salary metrics one can expect from these subpar diploma mills.

Sadly, these kids have a "shoot the messenger" herd mentality, and get quite angry when I, with a TTT degree and over half a decade in the NYC/NJ market, try to point out their folly. When these kids get angry they have "retard strength" and all.

you are just way to bitter about how your experience likely turned out at one of those schools. The realistic answer is that it is much harder to land a high paying job from those schools, but students from Brooklyn and Cardozo who finish top 15% have a real chance at big law.

About half of people on this site have never been to law school and have no idea what they are saying. Twenty five percent did well and are here to offer advice. The rest are people who had bitter experiences and hope to scare potential students.

[Helmholtz]

most of these kids would be better off skipping law school altogether

students from Brooklyn and Cardozo who finish top 15% have a real chance at big law

[sjedood]

"Grim" doesn't begin to describe the employment/salary metrics one can expect from these subpar diploma mills.
When these kids get angry they have "retard strength" and all.

But see, if you actually agreed with my assessment of these schools (at least cardozo and brooklyn, it is wrong to call them the equals of st. johns and SH), then you would agree that while kids near the bottom of the class have hard times finding jobs, and while not all kids in the top 50% get big law (this is not NYU), it still offers a great education and offers a high percentage of the class a shot at decent employment.

You seem to feel as though if your not top 15% your time was wasted there.

[timbs4339]

You are about as likely to find legal work out of a tier 2 school as you are to find legal work without a JD. Whatever you can earn now is what you'll earn after.

ROTFL! Thanks for making my morning! I hereby nominate that for Post of the Decade!

Seems like there's a lot of threads lately about the NYC area TTT's like Brooklyn, 'Bozo, St. Johns, R-N, Seton Hall et al. Even with decent schollys, most of these kids would be better off skipping law school altogether. "Grim" doesn't begin to describe the employment/salary metrics one can expect from these subpar diploma mills.

Sadly, these kids have a "shoot the messenger" herd mentality, and get quite angry when I, with a TTT degree and over half a decade in the NYC/NJ market, try to point out their folly. When these kids get angry they have "retard strength" and all.

you are just way to bitter about how your experience likely turned out at one of those schools. The realistic answer is that it is much harder to land a high paying job from those schools, but students from Brooklyn and Cardozo who finish top 15% have a real chance at big law.

About half of people on this site have never been to law school and have no idea what they are saying. Twenty five percent did well and are here to offer advice. The rest are people who had bitter experiences and hope to scare potential students.

tbf, that kind of describes the state of the legal job market in general. There's very little middle ground between biglaw and scratching out a living on a salary equal to what you would have made before law school. Extreme opinions are expected.

[ndirish2010]

LOL at this thread.

[cmckid]

Depends on your grades...

[areyouinsane]

But see, if you actually agreed with my assessment of these schools (at least cardozo and brooklyn, it is wrong to call them the equals of st. johns and SH), then you would agree that while kids near the bottom of the class have hard times finding jobs, and while not all kids in the top 50% get big law (this is not NYU), it still offers a great education and offers a high percentage of the class a shot at decent employment.

You seem to feel as though if your not top 15% your time was wasted there.

Wrong. These schools do not offer a "great" education, they offer the same thing every other school does from Yale on down: useless BS classes that debate "policy" and discuss ancient, irrelevant cases from the 19th century, a focus on exceptions to exceptions to obscure (and often obsolete) rules that perhaps 0.00000001% of lawyers will ever encounter even once in a lifetime, a few token "practical" classes on legal writing, a "rubber stamp" diploma that's your ticket to the bar'zam, and tons of crushing, non-dischargable debt plus the loss of 3 years of earnings and COL expenses.

Also, there is no practical real-world difference between 'Bozo and BLS vs. St. John' / Seton Hall. All of the aforementioned are subpar, grossly overpriced schools with lax admission standards, huge night programs, zero prestige, and for 90-95% of the class no realistic shot at Biglaw in this economy.

It's not just kids at the "bottom of the class" who have trouble finding "decent" jobs, unless you define "bottom" as anyone not top 5 to 10%. These schools have as much as admitted that a HUGE portion of their "employed" grads are/were in temporary doc review "jobs" which offer no health insurance, no paid leave, $25 to $30 an hour, and zero stability, experience, or lateral/upward mobility options. Many are not working in the legal field at all.

Small firms could care less where you went to law school for the most part, as they're just looking for bodies to cover routine court appearances, handle depositions, and cut & paste semi-coherent motions and pleadings together, all for 40-50 K a year if you're lucky. As I've said a million times, the so-called "midlaw" market is largely a mirage. Most people move DOWN from biglaw into midlaw, not up from shitlaw. Midlaw has a sort of "check valve" akin to a plumbing system, that prevents sewage from the TTT's from being siphoned upwards into the fresh water supply. You'll see many "midlaw" ads on lawjobs.com and such that say "no insurance defense attorneys need apply" and "personal injury experience does not constitute "litigation" for our employment purposes." These are hints to the TTT'ers not to apply.

For example, I saw an ad about 2 yrs ago posted by a recruiter for a decent Midlaw commercial lit. firm paying 80-90 K. The ad wanted someone with "extensive deposition experience." Having taken and defended over 200 depos while at the injury/med mal firm I worked at from 2006 to early 2008, I thought maybe I'd actually have a shot at this gig. I tweaked my resume, wrote a nice cover letter, etc. I explained that I thought my experience "in the trenches" of personal injury would translate well to other types of litigation, that in PI you have to do intensive depo. preps, be on your feet, etc.

So the next day the recruiter sends me an email saying "This is DEFINITELY not a position for you, unfortunately. However, we have several document review projects coming up that I'll be happy to submit you for. Please come in to 555 West 42 St to register with one of our temporary staffing recruiters."

The all caps in "DEFINITELY" was in her original, as if she was screaming at me for being so stupid to think a legitimate law office would be interested in my garbage resume/experience.

I'd resign from the bar tomorrow in exchange for a total discharge in BK of my student loans. I have many friends who feel the same way. So yes, I do consider my TTT degree "worthless" and my time in law school and "practice" (if that's what you want to call 7 years of combined doc review and slaving in ambulance-chasing boiler rooms for under 50 K a year) a complete, total & utter waste.

HTH

[NYC Law]

Cali + T2 = $0.00 / year


The California market is horrendous even for T14 grads.

[bigkahuna2020]

You are about as likely to find legal work out of a tier 2 school as you are to find legal work without a JD. Whatever you can earn now is what you'll earn after.

ROTFL! Thanks for making my morning! I hereby nominate that for Post of the Decade!

Seems like there's a lot of threads lately about the NYC area TTT's like Brooklyn, 'Bozo, St. Johns, R-N, Seton Hall et al. Even with decent schollys, most of these kids would be better off skipping law school altogether. "Grim" doesn't begin to describe the employment/salary metrics one can expect from these subpar diploma mills.

Sadly, these kids have a "shoot the messenger" herd mentality, and get quite angry when I, with a TTT degree and over half a decade in the NYC/NJ market, try to point out their folly. When these kids get angry they have "retard strength" and all.

you are just way to bitter about how your experience likely turned out at one of those schools. The realistic answer is that it is much harder to land a high paying job from those schools, but students from Brooklyn and Cardozo who finish top 15% have a real chance at big law.

About half of people on this site have never been to law school and have no idea what they are saying. Twenty five percent did well and are here to offer advice. The rest are people who had bitter experiences and hope to scare potential students.

tbf, that kind of describes the state of the legal job market in general. There's very little middle ground between biglaw and scratching out a living on a salary equal to what you would have made before law school. Extreme opinions are expected.

Considering the average salary of a employed college graduate 9 months out of law school is now 27k and the unemployment rates I have seen range from 25-45%, I think you are on crack. I know engineering grads from decent schools who are desperate to get jobs paying 40k, and outside of the narrow band of (usually horribly incompetent and generally stupid) business majors who make it in finance, and a few smatterings of engineers, researchers and teachers, the best job I hear of people getting is assistant manager at a restaurant they used to work at in high school.

The legal market is bad, but as a 2008 graduate, I don't think you realize how terrible the job market is in general.

[bigkahuna2020]

But see, if you actually agreed with my assessment of these schools (at least cardozo and brooklyn, it is wrong to call them the equals of st. johns and SH), then you would agree that while kids near the bottom of the class have hard times finding jobs, and while not all kids in the top 50% get big law (this is not NYU), it still offers a great education and offers a high percentage of the class a shot at decent employment.

You seem to feel as though if your not top 15% your time was wasted there.

Wrong. These schools do not offer a "great" education, they offer the same thing every other school does from Yale on down: useless BS classes that debate "policy" and discuss ancient, irrelevant cases from the 19th century, a focus on exceptions to exceptions to obscure (and often obsolete) rules that perhaps 0.00000001% of lawyers will ever encounter even once in a lifetime, a few token "practical" classes on legal writing, a "rubber stamp" diploma that's your ticket to the bar'zam, and tons of crushing, non-dischargable debt plus the loss of 3 years of earnings and COL expenses.

Also, there is no practical real-world difference between 'Bozo and BLS vs. St. John' / Seton Hall. All of the aforementioned are subpar, grossly overpriced schools with lax admission standards, huge night programs, zero prestige, and for 90-95% of the class no realistic shot at Biglaw in this economy.

It's not just kids at the "bottom of the class" who have trouble finding "decent" jobs, unless you define "bottom" as anyone not top 5 to 10%. These schools have as much as admitted that a HUGE portion of their "employed" grads are/were in temporary doc review "jobs" which offer no health insurance, no paid leave, $25 to $30 an hour, and zero stability, experience, or lateral/upward mobility options. Many are not working in the legal field at all.

Small firms could care less where you went to law school for the most part, as they're just looking for bodies to cover routine court appearances, handle depositions, and cut & paste semi-coherent motions and pleadings together, all for 40-50 K a year if you're lucky. As I've said a million times, the so-called "midlaw" market is largely a mirage. Most people move DOWN from biglaw into midlaw, not up from shitlaw. Midlaw has a sort of "check valve" akin to a plumbing system, that prevents sewage from the TTT's from being siphoned upwards into the fresh water supply. You'll see many "midlaw" ads on lawjobs.com and such that say "no insurance defense attorneys need apply" and "personal injury experience does not constitute "litigation" for our employment purposes." These are hints to the TTT'ers not to apply.

For example, I saw an ad about 2 yrs ago posted by a recruiter for a decent Midlaw commercial lit. firm paying 80-90 K. The ad wanted someone with "extensive deposition experience." Having taken and defended over 200 depos while at the injury/med mal firm I worked at from 2006 to early 2008, I thought maybe I'd actually have a shot at this gig. I tweaked my resume, wrote a nice cover letter, etc. I explained that I thought my experience "in the trenches" of personal injury would translate well to other types of litigation, that in PI you have to do intensive depo. preps, be on your feet, etc.

So the next day the recruiter sends me an email saying "This is DEFINITELY not a position for you, unfortunately. However, we have several document review projects coming up that I'll be happy to submit you for. Please come in to 555 West 42 St to register with one of our temporary staffing recruiters."

The all caps in "DEFINITELY" was in her original, as if she was screaming at me for being so stupid to think a legitimate law office would be interested in my garbage resume/experience.

I'd resign from the bar tomorrow in exchange for a total discharge in BK of my student loans. I have many friends who feel the same way. So yes, I do consider my TTT degree "worthless" and my time in law school and "practice" (if that's what you want to call 7 years of combined doc review and slaving in ambulance-chasing boiler rooms for under 50 K a year) a complete, total & utter waste.

HTH

So much wrong here. 10%+ are still making biglaw, I know numerous people rising up from small to biglaw (if you leave out med mal types, people working legit fields like labor law, IP, securities etc certainly can and DO move up to midlaw. Your perception that some medmal work gives you a shot at commercial litigation is also a joke.

[bigkahuna2020]

Also, while I cannot speak for Cali, I know in NJ/LI the salaries out of T2's are generally 45k-65k, but its an eat what you kill system (which to me is actually super tempting---better to get 50-75% of the business you bring in than 33%)

[NYC Law]

Considering the average salary of a employed college graduate 9 months out of law school is now 27k and the unemployment rates I have seen range from 25-45%, I think you are on crack. I know engineering grads from decent schools who are desperate to get jobs paying 40k, and outside of the narrow band of (usually horribly incompetent and generally stupid) business majors who make it in finance, and a few smatterings of engineers, researchers and teachers, the best job I hear of people getting is assistant manager at a restaurant they used to work at in high school.

The legal market is bad, but as a 2008 graduate, I don't think you realize how terrible the job market is in general.

I agree with all of this, sometimes TLS underestimates just how bad shit is in every other field as well (except healthcare, but that bubble is going to burst sooner or later).

But dude, you can post everything in one post

[bk1]

I hope for your sake that you mean a SoCal T2 school and not a NorCal one. While things are pretty ugly at T2's in general, they are downright horrifying at USF/SCU where 75% of their graduating class does not get full time jobs as lawyers even nine months after graduation.

Source: http://www.lawschooltransparency.com

[bleedcubbieblue]

$0.00 + debt

[071816]

Which T2 in CA?