Post
by Bronte » Fri Aug 17, 2012 8:04 pm
ksllaw, you've posted a number of threads that seem to misunderstand the way legal hiring works. Most gainful legal employment is obtained at the end of a law student's first year summer. Big law firms hire using a system called "on campus interviews." They go to top law schools at the end of the first year summer, looking to hire people for their second summer internship, called a summer associateship.
The vast majority of these summer associate positions turn into full time jobs via an offer for full-time employment extended at the end of that second summer. Thus, by the end of the second year summer, many law students know what they will be making when they graduate. Given that post-summer offer rates near 100% at most firms, many students know what they will be making to a near certainty at the end of their first year summer.
Most of these firms are in New York, and almost all the New York firms pay the same rate: $160,000 a year to first year associates plus an annual bonus, about $7,500 for first years. Large firms in Chicago and LA usually pay on this same scale. Large firms on this model in smaller markets usually pay $145,000 or a somewhat lower six figure salary.
When people are talking about the crisis in the legal market, they're primarily talking about the shortage in employment at these types of firms that ensued following the financial crisis. Because the clients of these big law firms are big businesses--especially big businesses in the financial sector--the law firms themselves were hit hard during the financial crisis. This caused a reduction in the "big law" jobs available to graduates of top law schools, causing them to flee to other forms of employment, like public interest, government, and small firm work and to secondary markets. This trickled down and negatively affected lower-ranked law schools.
Outside of employment at these big law firms, the legal market is fairly thin. A small percentage of law students go on to work at prestigious public interest and government positions, but governments are in crisis as well. Small and midsize law firms generally hire lawyers with at least a few years of experience. Thus, the market is pretty grim for people who do not get big law or do not get good government employment. Note that those who do get government employment will usually have the rest of their loan balance paid down by their law school via some form of loan repayment assistance program (LRAP).
To answer your question directly, I am a rising 3L who will be making $160,000 plus bonus starting next fall. I, like numerous other people on these boards, have received a full time offer from one of these big law firms after my summer associate program ended. In the next month, many rising 2Ls on these boards will be getting summer associate positions that will likely turn into these same $160,000 jobs.
Then there're the people who do not get big law. It's very contentious--on these boards and elsewhere--how many of them there are and what they end up doing. But by all accounts there are a lot of them.
But it's still be helpful to get people's advice. ...Now, I just have to go out and do my best on the upcoming LSAT. 
