List of median private practice salaries? Forum

[super6]

In an effort to quantify the value of the law schools I'm considering the media private practice salary is very relevant. Does anyone know of a place that has this information compiled nice and neatly in one place? I tried google but the only place I could find with something like what I wanted was ILRG which has a site that looks like it came from 1995, data from 2007, and a broken sort function on their list, which all leads me to not trust the data they have.

[kalvano]

It would be useless, it varies too much. A private practice law can make $125K one year, and $500K the next, and then back to $100K. All depends on the cases.

[Rand M.]

You should never trust data wrt law schools.

[super6]

It would be useless, it varies too much. A private practice law can make $125K one year, and $500K the next, and then back to $100K. All depends on the cases.

I think you might be thinking of solo practice. Private practice would be non-public law, IE Big Law.

You should never trust data wrt law schools.

Any idea on whether salary moves linearly (and inversely, obviously) with USNWR rank?

[kalvano]

It would be useless, it varies too much. A private practice law can make $125K one year, and $500K the next, and then back to $100K. All depends on the cases.

I think you might be thinking of solo practice. Private practice would be non-public law, IE Big Law.

Private practice covers everything, basically. I just assumed you meant solo practice, since BigLaw salaries and such are easily found and discussed in great detail.

[super6]

It would be useless, it varies too much. A private practice law can make $125K one year, and $500K the next, and then back to $100K. All depends on the cases.

I think you might be thinking of solo practice. Private practice would be non-public law, IE Big Law.

Private practice covers everything, basically. I just assumed you meant solo practice, since BigLaw salaries and such are easily found and discussed in great detail.

They weren't easy for me to find. Where can I get a list of them of school?

[justadude55]

i don't buy any of those stats. somehow a t-4 advertises 125k, and a t-1 advertises only 80....i think the surveys are all skewed, and some schools go extra shady by only asking the very top of their class to respond.

[XxSpyKEx]

Biglaw firms in major markets all pay $160K or in some cases $145K. In secondary markets it varies from $80-120k typically. You can review salaries by the firm and city on NALP.

Midsize and smaller firms vary greatly in what they pay. Generally if it's not listed on NALP it becomes difficult to figure out what the firm pays and will involve some leg work or a job offer from the firm. However, some generalizations can be made in terms of what firms pay based on the location and size (you can find this information online). But it's important to keep in mind those are just averages for all firms in that given size range and not reflective of what all firms pay in that size range. For example, it is possible that you could go work at a 8 attorney law firm at graduation that pays $160K /year, even though a firms of that size might have an average of $50K /year. Conversely, it is also possible that you could go work for an 8 attorney law firm that pays $10 /hr. (The range of salaries are huge, particularly when you get down to firms below 50 attorneys.)

i don't buy any of those stats. somehow a t-4 advertises 125k, and a t-1 advertises only 80....i think the surveys are all skewed, and some schools go extra shady by only asking the very top of their class to respond.

I thought every school advertised a $160K /year median salary nowadays?

Basically all those schools stats tell you is that 1 person made at least the median salary because a t4 could just have the one student that got biglaw in a major market reply and then advertise that they have a $160K /year median. Based on the assumption that virtually every law school engages in this type of practice (which they do), it is pretty scary if a law school can't advertise a $160K /year median because that means they couldn't even get 1 student into biglaw.

Almost always schools will leave out how many students responded to the salary survey. Some schools go an extra step by soliciting to everyone an employment survey that asks the student if they are employed (legal or non-legal). So when they get that response then effectively they have a 100% response rate to the "employment" survey and they advertise that. Then they only have something like 30 students respond to the "salary" survey, out of which 15 got $160K /year jobs, so bam they got a $160K /year median, even though only 15 out of their 450 students got $160K /year jobs and the other 435 students couldn't find any paying legal employment at all. The ABA should really step in to stop this type of shit because it's obviously designed to mislead prospective students and to induce them into thinking the $150-200K for law school at the TTT is a reasonable investment.

[super6]

Biglaw firms in major markets all pay $160K or in some cases $145K. In secondary markets it varies from $80-120k typically. You can review salaries by the firm and city on NALP.

Midsize and smaller firms vary greatly in what they pay. Generally if it's not listed on NALP it becomes difficult to figure out what the firm pays and will involve some leg work or a job offer from the firm. However, some generalizations can be made in terms of what firms pay based on the location and size (you can find this information online). But it's important to keep in mind those are just averages for all firms in that given size range and not reflective of what all firms pay in that size range. For example, it is possible that you could go work at a 8 attorney law firm at graduation that pays $160K /year, even though a firms of that size might have an average of $50K /year. Conversely, it is also possible that you could go work for an 8 attorney law firm that pays $10 /hr. (The range of salaries are huge, particularly when you get down to firms below 50 attorneys.)

i don't buy any of those stats. somehow a t-4 advertises 125k, and a t-1 advertises only 80....i think the surveys are all skewed, and some schools go extra shady by only asking the very top of their class to respond.

I thought every school advertised a $160K /year median salary nowadays?

Basically all those schools stats tell you is that 1 person made at least the median salary because a t4 could just have the one student that got biglaw in a major market reply and then advertise that they have a $160K /year median. Based on the assumption that virtually every law school engages in this type of practice (which they do), it is pretty scary if a law school can't advertise a $160K /year median because that means they couldn't even get 1 student into biglaw.

Almost always schools will leave out how many students responded to the salary survey. Some schools go an extra step by soliciting to everyone an employment survey that asks the student if they are employed (legal or non-legal). So when they get that response then effectively they have a 100% response rate to the "employment" survey and they advertise that. Then they only have something like 30 students respond to the "salary" survey, out of which 15 got $160K /year jobs, so bam they got a $160K /year median, even though only 15 out of their 450 students got $160K /year jobs and the other 435 students couldn't find any paying legal employment at all. The ABA should really step in to stop this type of shit because it's obviously designed to mislead prospective students and to induce them into thinking the $150-200K for law school at the TTT is a reasonable investment.

This is a thorough and well reasoned response and I appreciate it. Does the fact that all biglaw pays the same mean that graduates from any T14 should expect the same pay?

[XxSpyKEx]

Biglaw firms in major markets all pay $160K or in some cases $145K. In secondary markets it varies from $80-120k typically. You can review salaries by the firm and city on NALP.

Midsize and smaller firms vary greatly in what they pay. Generally if it's not listed on NALP it becomes difficult to figure out what the firm pays and will involve some leg work or a job offer from the firm. However, some generalizations can be made in terms of what firms pay based on the location and size (you can find this information online). But it's important to keep in mind those are just averages for all firms in that given size range and not reflective of what all firms pay in that size range. For example, it is possible that you could go work at a 8 attorney law firm at graduation that pays $160K /year, even though a firms of that size might have an average of $50K /year. Conversely, it is also possible that you could go work for an 8 attorney law firm that pays $10 /hr. (The range of salaries are huge, particularly when you get down to firms below 50 attorneys.)

i don't buy any of those stats. somehow a t-4 advertises 125k, and a t-1 advertises only 80....i think the surveys are all skewed, and some schools go extra shady by only asking the very top of their class to respond.

I thought every school advertised a $160K /year median salary nowadays?

Basically all those schools stats tell you is that 1 person made at least the median salary because a t4 could just have the one student that got biglaw in a major market reply and then advertise that they have a $160K /year median. Based on the assumption that virtually every law school engages in this type of practice (which they do), it is pretty scary if a law school can't advertise a $160K /year median because that means they couldn't even get 1 student into biglaw.

Almost always schools will leave out how many students responded to the salary survey. Some schools go an extra step by soliciting to everyone an employment survey that asks the student if they are employed (legal or non-legal). So when they get that response then effectively they have a 100% response rate to the "employment" survey and they advertise that. Then they only have something like 30 students respond to the "salary" survey, out of which 15 got $160K /year jobs, so bam they got a $160K /year median, even though only 15 out of their 450 students got $160K /year jobs and the other 435 students couldn't find any paying legal employment at all. The ABA should really step in to stop this type of shit because it's obviously designed to mislead prospective students and to induce them into thinking the $150-200K for law school at the TTT is a reasonable investment.

This is a thorough and well reasoned response and I appreciate it. Does the fact that all biglaw pays the same mean that graduates from any T14 should expect the same pay?

No, because most t14 grads don’t get biglaw anymore. Honestly, when the class of 2011 numbers are finally released in 2012 (on law.com), I’d be surprised if much more than 40% of all t14 grads from the c/o 2011 have permanent biglaw offers. It’ll definitely get better by the time you graduate if you are going to be in the class of 2014, but as of right now, biglaw is definitely not something you can count on or should plan on when matriculating law school unless you are going to Yale because it’s definitely not even close to a sure thing anymore.

[dood]

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[super6]

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I've seen the NALP stats but they consider all grads from ABA-approved schools, don't they? I would hope a chart that included only T25 or T14 schools would be screwed further to the right

[XxSpyKEx]

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I've seen the NALP stats but they consider all grads from ABA-approved schools, don't they? I would hope a chart that included only T25 or T14 schools would be screwed further to the right

Yes, and they are. However, the number of jobs further to the right is a lot smaller than there was for the class of 2008 (a class that did OCI in 2006).

Unless you're going to Yale, deciding whether law school is an economically sound investment based on the assumption that you will get biglaw nowadays is insane because the odds of not getting biglaw are likely greater than getting biglaw across the t14 as a whole. Even when you narrow it down to just the t6 schools, the odds of not getting biglaw are really high.