Lawyer Pay
Median Starting Pay for Legal Services Lawyers is $40K, Survey Says
Posted Sep 18, 2008, 06:33 am CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss
Median starting pay for legal services and public interest lawyers is only a fourth of the highly touted $160,000 that big firm associates make, according to a new study.
Median starting pay for lawyers is $40,000 in legal services and $41,000 at public interest groups with issue-driven missions, according to 2008 salary data by the legal career group NALP. The results were reported on The BLT: The Blog of Legal Times.
Lawyers with 11 to 15 years of experience make a median of $60,000 in civil services and about $69,000 in issue-driven public interest groups, according to a NALP press release.
Median starting pay is $47,435 for public defenders and $50,000 for state prosecutors. Those with 11 to 15 years of experience make a median of $75,000 in public defender offices and about $81,000 in state prosecutor offices.
More than 650 public sector and public interest groups responded to the NALP survey.
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Comments
Posted by associate - 2 months, 1 week, 6 days, 9 hours, 58 minutes ago
Actually, in an apples to apples comparison, the 160k number should be compared to the top starting salary for any public job, which is not in your survey data.
Assuming a bell curve (which is probably inaccurate), you’re looking at 80k to 100k for the top pay in public sector or public interest work. That’s more like 1/2 to 2/3 than it is 1/4.
Or, you could compare median to median and get equal pay, but I guess that wouldn’t be quite so sensational.
Posted by ELLEN BARSHEVSKY - 2 months, 1 week, 6 days, 7 hours, 41 minutes ago
There is NO deliniation of the DIFFERENCES betwen the salaries given to MEN vs. the WOMENS salaries.
They obviously DONT want to divulge this because it will NOT be favorable to the WOMEN who deserve to be treated EQUALLY to men.
I think this is a simple concept which I still dont see employers adopting.
Certainly the PUBLIC sector knows about Title VII (CIVIL RIGHTS) and the EQUAL PAY amendments.
They must continue to improve by FOCUSING ON MAKING PAY EQUAL FOR MEN AND FOR WOMEN. That is the ONLY way to go.
It will take more time until the PRIVATE sector catches up to the EQUAL PAY AMENDMENTS. My father told me that when he was a boy, they would not even hire a woman for work, and it was only in the 1960’s that women started to get good jobs. I think I am lucky for being in the workforce now. I would otherwise have to be limited to only being a housewife, which I will do in about 3 years.
To other women, I hope you will all have choices. For now, we must insist on EQUALITY.
Posted by The Real Problem - 2 months, 1 week, 5 days, 16 hours, 38 minutes ago
The discrepancy debate is a diversion.
The real issue is that you would be hard-pressed to find a law school in the country that costs less than $150,000 to attend. At that level of debt, plus undergraduate loans in most cases, $40,000 AVERAGE is obnoxiously low.
Sure, in many circumstances, the firm or attorney paying these salaries would not be able to support higher levels of pay, and no one can blame them for that, but in a great number of cases, the partners setting these starting salaries are just from a time when law school cost 100%-150% less than it does today, and they don’t understand the financial strain recent grads are under.
Then they discount young associates who comment about their inability to sustain themselves (let alone their families) off of their salaries as a generation whiners.
Something has to be done to either change the way new attorneys are paid or change the amounts they are paying to go to law school, and to help those new associates who are trying to enter an industry burdened by financial obligations that threaten their livelihood into their retirement.