Lawyer Pay
Pay for Massachusetts Prosecutors Ranges from $37K to $149K
Posted Jul 31, 2008, 08:30 am CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss
The salaries of Massachusetts district attorneys are set at nearly $149,000 a year by the state legislature, but the salaries of their underlings vary.
On the low end is the $37,500 salary paid to junior prosecutors in Worcester County, the Springfield Republican reports. At the high end is the $115,750 salary paid to the first assistant district attorney in Hampden County.
The assistant prosecutors’ salaries are set at the discretion of the district attorneys. Hampden County District Attorney William Bennett told the newspaper that payroll eats up 90 percent of his budget. "If I had more money I would raise all the salaries in my office. For the responsibilities they have, they're all underpaid," Bennett said.
Some lawyers who agree with that assessment are leaving for jobs that pay more.
Michelle Cruz says she was paid in the $50,000 to $60,000 range by Hampden County to handle a workload of 150 cases in the family protection unit. Now she makes double that amount as a victims’ rights watchdog for the state of Connecticut.
Cruz, a single mother, said she needed more money to help pay the mortgage and her student loan debt. "I thought I would be a career prosecutor,” she told the Republican. “I loved my job, but I drive a Kia and I had to take this job to make ends meet."
A hat tip to Legal Blog Watch.
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