Is $57,000 a good salary for a JD-required job in SoCal (near LA)? Forum

[Anonymous User]

It's a salaried position, with medical/dental/vision and 8 vacation days/5 sick. Would appreciate some input.

[Anonymous User]

It's a salaried position, with medical/dental/vision and 8 vacation days/5 sick. Would appreciate some input.

No

[junaman]

It's a salaried position, with medical/dental/vision and 8 vacation days/5 sick. Would appreciate some input.

This might be the most insulting part.

[BasilHallward]

It's a salaried position, with medical/dental/vision and 8 vacation days/5 sick. Would appreciate some input.

No

^^^TCR

57,000k is not a good salary for southern CA period

[Anonymous User]

Absolutely not. I made more (with better benefits) in my first year outside of college with a humanities degree as a teacher.

[AnonCanary123]

It's a salaried position, with medical/dental/vision and 8 vacation days/5 sick. Would appreciate some input.

No

^^^TCR

57,000k is not a good salary for southern CA period

Obviously a typo but 57000k is an amazing salary lol

[Anonymous User]

It's a salaried position, with medical/dental/vision and 8 vacation days/5 sick. Would appreciate some input.

This might be the most insulting part.

What is the typical benefits package for JD-required jobs? Like what should one be expecting?

[Anonymous User]

It's a salaried position, with medical/dental/vision and 8 vacation days/5 sick. Would appreciate some input.

No

^^^TCR

57,000k is not a good salary for southern CA period

57,000k?

[Anonymous User]

It's a salaried position, with medical/dental/vision and 8 vacation days/5 sick. Would appreciate some input.

No

^^^TCR

57,000k is not a good salary for southern CA period

Obviously a typo but 57000k is an amazing salary lol

Sarcasm, right?

[Anonymous User]

I can't imagine living on $57,000 in any state, much less the most expensive one.

[Iowahawk]

I can't imagine living on $57,000 in any state, much less the most expensive one.

Bait, but that’s a middle-class income for a single person with no dependents even though it’s low for a lawyer

[Anonymous User]

I can't imagine living on $57,000 in any state, much less the most expensive one.

Bait, but that’s a middle-class income for a single person with no dependents even though it’s low for a lawyer

OP here, this isn't "bait" and I assure you I was most definitely offered this JD required position for $57K. I'm not making this up.

[Anonymous User]

I can't imagine living on $57,000 in any state, much less the most expensive one.

Bait, but that’s a middle-class income for a single person with no dependents even though it’s low for a lawyer

I presume from your username that you're from Iowa, where cost of living is nowhere near comparable to SoCal.

[whats an updog]

I can't imagine living on $57,000 in any state, much less the most expensive one.

Bait, but that’s a middle-class income for a single person with no dependents even though it’s low for a lawyer

I presume from your username that you're from Iowa, where cost of living is nowhere near comparable to SoCal.

I am from California. 57k for a single person with no dependents is fine pretty much anywhere (and I live in a very high cost area) if you aren't planning to buy. Yes, it is not good for a lawyer (very bad even), but not being able to "imagine living on $57,000 in any state" is either super fucking dumb or super fucking privileged

[Anonymous User]

I can't imagine living on $57,000 in any state, much less the most expensive one.

Bait, but that’s a middle-class income for a single person with no dependents even though it’s low for a lawyer

I presume from your username that you're from Iowa, where cost of living is nowhere near comparable to SoCal.

I am from California. 57k for a single person with no dependents is fine pretty much anywhere (and I live in a very high cost area) if you aren't planning to buy. Yes, it is not good for a lawyer (very bad even), but not being able to "imagine living on $57,000 in any state" is either super fucking dumb or super fucking privileged

OP here. FYI this is my 3rd JD-required role out of law school. So my trajectory so to speak is $45K-->$51K-->$57K.

Someone above said that the 8 vacation/5 sick is "insulting" though I was under the impression that "work-life balance" isn't really a thing for JD required jobs across the board. I was a bit surprised by that.

[CanadianWolf]

OP: Calculate your take home pay each month and then subtract your necessary expenses (rent, food, utilities,gas, any loan payments, etc.) in order to determine whether or not $57,000 ($4,750 per month before taxes) will enable you to live without going into debt. (Your take-home pay should be approximately $3,800 per month.)

In answer to your question, no $57,000 per year is not a good salary for a JD degree required job--especially if you have student loan debt.

If you live at home and have no student loan debt and your goal is to get JD required work experience, then you should be fine.

[nixy]

I can't imagine living on $57,000 in any state, much less the most expensive one.

Bait, but that’s a middle-class income for a single person with no dependents even though it’s low for a lawyer

I presume from your username that you're from Iowa, where cost of living is nowhere near comparable to SoCal.

I am from California. 57k for a single person with no dependents is fine pretty much anywhere (and I live in a very high cost area) if you aren't planning to buy. Yes, it is not good for a lawyer (very bad even), but not being able to "imagine living on $57,000 in any state" is either super fucking dumb or super fucking privileged

OP here. FYI this is my 3rd JD-required role out of law school. So my trajectory so to speak is $45K-->$51K-->$57K.

Someone above said that the 8 vacation/5 sick is "insulting" though I was under the impression that "work-life balance" isn't really a thing for JD required jobs across the board. I was a bit surprised by that.

There definitely are lots of lawyer jobs that offer more vacation/sick leave. You may not be able to take them whenever you like due to workload, but you still in theory have the option. 5 sick days is the thing that’s kind of incredible to me.

In any case, whether $57k (not $57000k which made me lol) is a good salary is kind of irrelevant if you don’t have other options. What are your other options? What field is this? I actually think a lot of PD/DA jobs in that region pay more than this, but in a lot of parts of the country these salaries would be typical for PD/DA. Or if this is something like legal aid or some kind of cash-strapped local public interest group, that salary progression might fit. So while $57k may not be *good*, it might be competitive for the field. If you’re working in private firms, there are certainly lots of options that should pay more even if not biglaw market salary. Depends a little on how good the health benefits are.

But if you don’t have other options then it doesn’t much matter how this salary compares. Unless of course you’re trying to negotiate something higher, in which case you really need to know what other similar employers are offering (same kind of job, not just same region. A 5-person DUI firm is almost certainly not going to pay the same as a biglaw firm but you can’t expect them to; you’d need to look at other DUI or small firms to gauge your current offer).

[Iowahawk]

I can't imagine living on $57,000 in any state, much less the most expensive one.

Bait, but that’s a middle-class income for a single person with no dependents even though it’s low for a lawyer

I presume from your username that you're from Iowa, where cost of living is nowhere near comparable to SoCal.

I am an Iowa native but have long since left for an expensive major city. $57k is a middle-class income in LA for a single person. The city’s median *household* income is $62k.

https://www.pewresearch.org/interactive ... dle-class/

And OP, I wasn’t calling your post bait, I was calling this brave anon bait

[Anonymous User]

I can't imagine living on $57,000 in any state, much less the most expensive one.

Bait, but that’s a middle-class income for a single person with no dependents even though it’s low for a lawyer

I presume from your username that you're from Iowa, where cost of living is nowhere near comparable to SoCal.

I am an Iowa native but have long since left for an expensive major city. $57k is a middle-class income in LA for a single person. The city’s median *household* income is $62k.

https://www.pewresearch.org/interactive ... dle-class/

And OP, I wasn’t calling your post bait, I was calling this brave anon bait

I thought the Census would consider a single person with no kids living alone a "household."

[Anonymous User]

OP: Calculate your take home pay each month and then subtract your necessary expenses (rent, food, utilities,gas, any loan payments, etc.) in order to determine whether or not $57,000 ($4,750 per month before taxes) will enable you to live without going into debt. (Your take-home pay should be approximately $3,800 per month.)

In answer to your question, no $57,000 per year is not a good salary for a JD degree required job--especially if you have student loan debt.

If you live at home and have no student loan debt and your goal is to get JD required work experience, then you should be fine.

$57K is gross. My bi-weekly take-home paycheck, after all deductions, is $1705.89 only. I've been at this job for almost a year. I was wondering if what I was earning is typical for JD grads in the area or if I'm getting the short end of the stick. Seems like most people ITT think the latter, especially re: the PTO I mentioned (8 vacation/5 sick)-someone above even called it "insulting". I thought I was just being "entitled" or whatever, but it seems like the pay and benefits are not at all up to par for a JD grad in a JD-required full-time position in SoCal. I'm not happy at all with the benefits and compensation package. The health insurance is so terrible that I've spent over $5K on medical expenses this year, and I avoid going to the Dr. even when I'm clearly unwell. I've already exhausted my 5 vacation days-3 of them from having a 102 degree fever back in July (yes I'm vaxxed). But, as you know, leaving a job with nothing else lined up is going to burn bridges.

My loans are on federal pandemic forbearance at the moment, and payments will resume in January 2022. I have $40K outstanding.

My family-immediate and extended-is all on the east coast, where I grew up.

[Anonymous User]

I can't imagine living on $57,000 in any state, much less the most expensive one.

Bait, but that’s a middle-class income for a single person with no dependents even though it’s low for a lawyer

I presume from your username that you're from Iowa, where cost of living is nowhere near comparable to SoCal.

I am from California. 57k for a single person with no dependents is fine pretty much anywhere (and I live in a very high cost area) if you aren't planning to buy. Yes, it is not good for a lawyer (very bad even), but not being able to "imagine living on $57,000 in any state" is either super fucking dumb or super fucking privileged

OP here. FYI this is my 3rd JD-required role out of law school. So my trajectory so to speak is $45K-->$51K-->$57K.

Someone above said that the 8 vacation/5 sick is "insulting" though I was under the impression that "work-life balance" isn't really a thing for JD required jobs across the board. I was a bit surprised by that.

There definitely are lots of lawyer jobs that offer more vacation/sick leave. You may not be able to take them whenever you like due to workload, but you still in theory have the option. 5 sick days is the thing that’s kind of incredible to me.

In any case, whether $57k (not $57000k which made me lol) is a good salary is kind of irrelevant if you don’t have other options. What are your other options? What field is this? I actually think a lot of PD/DA jobs in that region pay more than this, but in a lot of parts of the country these salaries would be typical for PD/DA. Or if this is something like legal aid or some kind of cash-strapped local public interest group, that salary progression might fit. So while $57k may not be *good*, it might be competitive for the field. If you’re working in private firms, there are certainly lots of options that should pay more even if not biglaw market salary. Depends a little on how good the health benefits are.

But if you don’t have other options then it doesn’t much matter how this salary compares. Unless of course you’re trying to negotiate something higher, in which case you really need to know what other similar employers are offering (same kind of job, not just same region. A 5-person DUI firm is almost certainly not going to pay the same as a biglaw firm but you can’t expect them to; you’d need to look at other DUI or small firms to gauge your current offer).

I'm already in the job, and have been for nearly a year. I posted this because I wanted to know whether this is "normal" or not. I thought I was just being an entitled complainer about the compensation/benefits, but apparently that is not the case.

Yes, I'm not happy about the sick days thing. I've already exhausted all 5 sick days by July of this year, 3 of them in July because I got a 102 degree fever. Giving so little sick time to your workers just encourages them to be walking disease vectors.

Since they are public record, I just looked up the PD and DA salaries locally, and you're absolutely right, they are indeed higher. Significantly so. This is typical PD/DA pay in the South or less urban areas of the US.

The field is academic law librarianship, which requires not only a JD but also an MLIS degree. The base pay is $57K, with $1,500 extra adjunct law professor pay if I teach a credit-bearing course (i.e. "Advanced Legal Research" type classes), which is not every year. My other options are applying to academic law librarian positions at higher-ranked law schools, or other law librarianship settings (firms, courts, government agencies, etc.)

[AnonCanary123]

It's a salaried position, with medical/dental/vision and 8 vacation days/5 sick. Would appreciate some input.

No

^^^TCR

57,000k is not a good salary for southern CA period

Obviously a typo but 57000k is an amazing salary lol

Sarcasm, right?

At the risk of detracting from the main topic . . . 57k is not the same as 57,000k. The k denotes 1,000 and so 57,000k means millions. Which is why I acknowledged it's probably a typo. You should read a little more carefully before posting anon.

[nixy]

Ohhhh. Okay, I hate to say this, but that is not that atypical for an academic library job. That doesn’t make it a *good* salary, but I don’t think it’s unusual. Academia pays badly and a lot of academic institutions (whether public or private) are pretty broke. Your salary is actually on the higher end for non-administrator librarians at my local law school’s library (though admittedly I’m in a lower COL state and it’s a fairly small state school).

That said, I think the variation among schools can be enormous. So there are definitely library jobs that do pay more than what you’re making. (I tried googling some public law school salaries and it looks like at least some law librarians at Berkeley make over 2x what you’re paid, though they may all be pretty senior.) Unfortunately library work generally is pretty competitive - law library stuff maybe less so, since fewer people are going to have an MLIS *and* a JD, but it’s still an oversaturated field (there aren’t that many law schools out there).

Academia is also often sought after for its work/life balance - working in a law library is not going to require all-nighters or (most of the time) weekend work or being at the beck and call of partners and clients 24/7. Benefits are also often better (a lot of universities have fringe benefits like tuition waivers - I know of a woman who worked as an admin asst at UPenn for 30 years, put all her kids through school there tuition-free, and quit the day her last kid graduated). This is why they can get away with lower salaries.

In any case, apart from the leave being stingy, I wouldn’t say you’re exactly getting screwed over at that salary, in that overall it’s a low-paying field (kind of like how it sucks that most artists or poets don’t make a lot of money, but if you are an artist/poet not making much money, you’re not necessarily getting personally screwed so much as that it comes with the territory). It sucks that you needed 2 grad degrees to get that job, but academia is filled with underpaid PhDs (and an inflated sense of its own desirability) so has a pretty skewed perspective on this.

But again, that doesn’t make it a good salary or mean you have to just put up with it. I think you can do better if you have the qualifications to move to a higher ranked/wealthier school (not sure how courts/gov agencies pay, it probably varies a lot as well; big firms probably pay more). You will probably need to be willing to move around the country though (that’s how academic hiring works). If you need/want to stay where you are, it’s really just going to depend on who else is hiring.

[Anonymous User]

It's a salaried position, with medical/dental/vision and 8 vacation days/5 sick. Would appreciate some input.

No

^^^TCR

57,000k is not a good salary for southern CA period

Obviously a typo but 57000k is an amazing salary lol

Sarcasm, right?

At the risk of detracting from the main topic . . . 57k is not the same as 57,000k. The k denotes 1,000 and so 57,000k means millions. Which is why I acknowledged it's probably a typo. You should read a little more carefully before posting anon.

Ahh, RC fail on my part. :facepalm:

[Anonymous User]

Ohhhh. Okay, I hate to say this, but that is not that atypical for an academic library job. That doesn’t make it a *good* salary, but I don’t think it’s unusual. Academia pays badly and a lot of academic institutions (whether public or private) are pretty broke. Your salary is actually on the higher end for non-administrator librarians at my local law school’s library (though admittedly I’m in a lower COL state and it’s a fairly small state school).

That said, I think the variation among schools can be enormous. So there are definitely library jobs that do pay more than what you’re making. (I tried googling some public law school salaries and it looks like at least some law librarians at Berkeley make over 2x what you’re paid, though they may all be pretty senior.) Unfortunately library work generally is pretty competitive - law library stuff maybe less so, since fewer people are going to have an MLIS *and* a JD, but it’s still an oversaturated field (there aren’t that many law schools out there).

Academia is also often sought after for its work/life balance - working in a law library is not going to require all-nighters or (most of the time) weekend work or being at the beck and call of partners and clients 24/7. Benefits are also often better (a lot of universities have fringe benefits like tuition waivers - I know of a woman who worked as an admin asst at UPenn for 30 years, put all her kids through school there tuition-free, and quit the day her last kid graduated). This is why they can get away with lower salaries.

In any case, apart from the leave being stingy, I wouldn’t say you’re exactly getting screwed over at that salary, in that overall it’s a low-paying field (kind of like how it sucks that most artists or poets don’t make a lot of money, but if you are an artist/poet not making much money, you’re not necessarily getting personally screwed so much as that it comes with the territory). It sucks that you needed 2 grad degrees to get that job, but academia is filled with underpaid PhDs (and an inflated sense of its own desirability) so has a pretty skewed perspective on this.

But again, that doesn’t make it a good salary or mean you have to just put up with it. I think you can do better if you have the qualifications to move to a higher ranked/wealthier school (not sure how courts/gov agencies pay, it probably varies a lot as well; big firms probably pay more). You will probably need to be willing to move around the country though (that’s how academic hiring works). If you need/want to stay where you are, it’s really just going to depend on who else is hiring.

I don't even get those nice academia benefits you mentioned-and like other people noted, 5 sick days per year is terrible and atypical. I'm totally willing to move again, but I'm worried that if I leave this role, it will burn bridges. The law school I work at would be called a "TTT" by TLS elitists. It's good to know that higher-ranked schools tend to pay better, like you mentioned.