Paychecks Rose to a Median of $108K for 2007 Law Grads in Law Firms
Median pay for 2007 law grads who went into private practice has surpassed the $100,000 mark, but salaries for their counterparts in other legal jobs still pale in comparison.
The median annual salary for new law grads in private practice was $108,500, a jump of $13,000 over 2006, according to new survey results released by NALP.
Median salaries were less than half that amount in other legal jobs, however, according to NALP, which bills itself as an association for legal career professionals. The median salary was $50,000 for new grads in government, $42,000 for those in public interest positions and $48,000 for judicial clerks.
Just 16 percent of grads had big-firm starting salaries of $160,000 while 38 percent earned $55,000 or less, according to a NALP press release. For all jobs, the median starting salary was $65,750, and salaries of $55,000 were almost as common as salaries of more than $75,000. This so-called “bimodal distribution,” also reflected in 2006 salary figures, has some law professors condemning the big-firm hiring model that created a system of have and have-not law grads.
The NALP survey of 186 ABA-accredited law schools found that nearly 92 percent of 2007 law grads for whom employment status was known were employed in February 2008, a slight increase (PDF) over the past three years. Nearly 77 percent whose employment was known had jobs that require bar passage. Another 7.7 percent had jobs for which a J.D. is preferred or required, but bar passage is not necessary.
A majority of the employed graduates—55.5 percent—landed jobs in private law firms. However, the number was lower for African-American graduates; only about 48 percent went to private law firms.
Differences were also reported for employed women. About 31 percent took judicial clerkships or jobs in the government or public interest sectors, compared to about a quarter of employed men.
