Above The Law Median Salaries off? Forum

[Cobretti]

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Don't these numbers seem incredibly low? Considering they are supposedly median private sector jobs, I don't see how anyone on that list could possibly be lower than 145k. Looking at NU, who doesn't even make the list (so allegedly would be less than 101k median private sector starting), their c/o 2011 data is so much higher that I find it impossible to believe numbers have fallen that much. Especially when by all accounts employment has recovered slightly since 2011.

Thoughts?

[RetakeFrenzy]

Yes.. from UVA down, all the $$$ seem too low..

[Micdiddy]

This list was compiled by Forbes and it doesn't seem suspicious to me. It is only looking at their very first year as a lawyer and the median suggests many are making more (people in big law) and many are making less.
The list extend out to 25 btw and NU is 11th.

[Cobretti]

This list was compiled by Forbes and it doesn't seem suspicious to me. It is only looking at their very first year as a lawyer and the median suggests many are making more (people in big law) and many are making less.
The list extend out to 25 btw and NU is 11th.

Well I didn't bother looking beyond 10 because NU's 2011 median starting salary was clearly 140+ for the overall class, and 160 for private sector. And the NLJ rankings this year put NU at 50%+ this year so they didn't drop in employment.

There isn't any math that could support this list unless I'm really missing something.

[Micdiddy]

Maybe they said median but
Meant average and everyone elses job really sucks?

[09042014]

1) They probably don't have a good representative sample. Who is putting their data on payscale.com? People using it to look at salaries. Someone at a lockstep firm doesn't have to go to payscale to figure out salary. Not that they don't, but that they don't do it as often.

They only have about 5% of salaries reported here. A 5% sample, not randomly picked isn't worth anything. Some schools will have less than 5%.

2) This is 0-5 years. That's 2008 til now. A lot of 2008-2009 people got laid off with no experience, ruining their career before it even started. A lot of 2010 got differed forever, i.e. laid off before you even start.

3) The numbers schools report is usually bullshit. Unless they are counting unemployed as 0, it's not even going to be close.

[Cobretti]

Maybe they said median but
Meant average and everyone elses job really sucks?

Ya I was thinking that too, but even then...

If you take the data from NU's page and assign everyone in each range the middle number for the range, and take a weighted average, it comes out to $128K average. And that's not just private sector. If you use the bottom number of each range it still comes out to 124K avg.

Pretty sure Forbes screwed this up royally.

[homestyle28]

The problem is with payscale.com as a data source. It's a self selected group, how many NU grads last year do you think signed up for an account on payscale.com? If it's more than 2 I'll eat my hat.

[Cobretti]

1) They probably don't have a good representative sample. Who is putting their data on payscale.com? People using it to look at salaries. Someone at a lockstep firm doesn't have to go to payscale to figure out salary. Not that they don't, but that they don't do it as often.

They only have about 5% of salaries reported here. A 5% sample, not randomly picked isn't worth anything. Some schools will have less than 5%.

2) This is 0-5 years. That's 2008 til now. A lot of 2008-2009 people got laid off with no experience, ruining their career before it even started. A lot of 2010 got differed forever, i.e. laid off before you even start.

3) The numbers schools report is usually bullshit. Unless they are counting unemployed as 0, it's not even going to be close.

I think the bold really answers our question right there.

You bring up a good point in 2 too, they probably are looking at starting salaries for every job they posted, not just the first job after graduation, and the people that hopped around after getting hosed are going to put a lot of downward pressure on those numbers.

[guano]

the numbers seem fine, but the conclusions in the article are retarded:

“I think the main reason for Columbia being on top is reputation,”

No, it's because they place more into NY biglaw than any other school

[sinfiery]

With UPenn at 90k and not having fallen below 50% on the NLJ 250 from what I can remember, no, the data does not seem fine. But the explanations ITT seem to explain it.

[Skye]

With UPenn at 90k and not having fallen below 50% on the NLJ 250 from what I can remember, no, the data does not seem fine. But the explanations ITT seem to explain it.

Even mid-sized Philly firms pay 6 figures, so no clue where $90K could come from (especially talking median). What is that cliché called when someone puts in junk data and gets back junk data results… whatever it is called, fits here.

[Yukos]

With UPenn at 90k and not having fallen below 50% on the NLJ 250 from what I can remember, no, the data does not seem fine. But the explanations ITT seem to explain it.

Even mid-sized Philly firms pay 6 figures, so no clue where $90K could come from (especially talking median). What is that cliché called when someone puts in junk data and gets back junk data results… whatever it is called, fits here.

Garbage in, garbage out?