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Received an offer from a mid law firm in a large SE city. However, the pay is somewhat low ($20/hour). I have heard from some students that midlaw typically pays SAs 1/2 of what they pay first year associates (per week) and I was wondering if others had heard similar things or had a similar experience. I would be worried taking an SA position if I was only going to be making $45,000ish post-grad.

Do you have any other options?

OP here. I am currently waiting on a number of firms that I networked with last year to get back to me as to whether or not they are hiring, but if I did it would be for smallish (10-20) size firms where there isn't the same kind of offer rate as the MidLaw position. But nothing else concrete yet.

I had a similar offer and turned it down. You can make more than that working in a toll booth plus you'd get state benefits. I actually did this for a summer in high school and it is my backup plan. 10 inch TV and work at night. set. for. life.

Anonymous User wrote:Received an offer from a mid law firm in a large SE city. However, the pay is somewhat low ($20/hour). I have heard from some students that midlaw typically pays SAs 1/2 of what they pay first year associates (per week) and I was wondering if others had heard similar things or had a similar experience. I would be worried taking an SA position if I was only going to be making $45,000ish post-grad.

If the pay were $130K a year, you would be paid $2.5K a week, even as an SA. Anything other than that is news to me.

Not to nitpick, but if they pay 2x SA to associates that is $40 an hour which based on 2k hours (i.e. 50 weeks full time) is $80k. If there is any sort of locked in raise or bonus system and depending on the market and your debt that it could be a much better situation than $45k (Unless you were talking 45k take home which might be close, idk taxes)

Just don't want you to talk yourself out of a job that might be better than you think.

Is there anyway to find out what the pay for first years is before I start? I know I can't ask without a fulltime offer on the table first, but I would really like to know because 80,000+ would be good money.

20$ per billed hour or 20$ per office time? Because 20$ per office time, considering that you will be working 60 hours a week (guessing here) does come to $1200, which translates to 60K.
Double that and you are fine.

Is 20 per office time, but capped at a normal work-week for the summer (no overtime).

Anonymous User wrote:Is 20 per office time, but capped at a normal work-week for the summer (no overtime).

I would take it. As an associate will it also be capped and will you still be paid hourly? Hourly would seem inefficient because of overtime etc. but who knows.
In either case, if wage doubled this is a great job. And if you capped as an associate, you did better than the big law people. You get 80K while having a life. Congrats.

Anonymous User wrote:I have heard from some students that midlaw typically pays SAs 1/2 of what they pay first year associates.

Since some SAs are paid on a $160K basis, I doubt if first year’s start at $320K. . . I wish that were the case, but no.

Anonymous User wrote:Is there anyway to find out what the pay for first years is before I start? I know I can't ask without a fulltime offer on the table first, but I would really like to know because 80,000+ would be good money.

How long did they give you to respond to the offer?

It seems like a perfectly fair game question at this point. They interview 2ls so they should know how the hiring cycle works.

Only reason I wouldn't ask is if you have some reason to believe that the offer is volatile for some reason. If not, given that you have an offer in hand, two of the most reasonable questions you can ask would be what are the chances of the SA turning into a FT offer and how much have first year associates typically started at. Might see if the firm or a firm you know to be a peer firm show up on glassdoor or something like it though.

I saw that peer firms typically started at about 90,000 for first years, thats why I was thinking that the double SA salary for first years was plausible. I have no reason to feel like the offer would be revoked, but I would wait until the offer paperwork is in my hand before asking (paperwork isnt sent out until all offices hire). I didn't know if asking about first year salary was reasonable at this point yet. Is this normally asked, or is it not an issue for most TLS posters because BigLaw starts at a known market rate?

JO 14 wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:I have heard from some students that midlaw typically pays SAs 1/2 of what they pay first year associates.

Since some SAs are paid on a $160K basis, I doubt if first year’s start at $320K. . . I wish that were the case, but no.

He's not asking about Biglaw firms. He's asking about smaller firms.

OP, yes, you're correct that a lot of smaller firms that have SA's essentially pay 50% starting salary to SA's.

Thanks Kalvano, thats what I was looking for.