First!, and let's try and push them higher: 190K in NY, DC, LA, and Chicago.

Amazing that this blog has created such empowerment. Good work David.

chicago to 728K!

yeah! this is a great idea! it will totally work!

"Prominent firms have hit a controversial high: about $3,100 a week for summer associates, or what would be just over $160,000 a year for fresh law school graduates."

What makes it "controversial?" For the purposes of making the story more interesting? Who knew that the effects of supply and demand could create such "controversy?"

Loyola 2L to $5.85/hr!

"Loyola 2L to $5.85/hr!

Posted by: Dept. of Labor | July 24, 2007 12:24 PM"

HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

Why isn't this post about Latham's and Kirkland's below market clerkship bonuses?

Insurance to 100k!

I snurk at Wilmer Hale.

are we going to get a real post anytime today?

There is definitely a correlation between law school tuition and associate starting salaries, but I wonder if there is any causation. Has anyone done an investigation? It would seem logical that if associate salaries rise quickly, tuition could be on the way up as well as at least top schools realize their students are "better able" to "pay." (re: they can shoulder more debt when salaries are at 160k than when they were at 145k).

"I feel like I deserve it," said Vincenza Battaglia, 25, a rising third-year law student summering at Steptoe & Johnson. "We work really hard in law school."

OMG. Spoken like someone who has never had a real job. I had a career in another industry for several years(> 5 - none of this two-year crap), go to a top law school, and am now a summer at a top law firm. First year associates are paid way too much (don't even get me started on SUMMER associates). I'll gladly take the money, but the lack of perspective is just shocking!!! I can't believe that clients put up with this!

I can't believe that partners/in-house counsel pose as summers on this board.

12:43, besides the market, do you have any objective measure that determines when an associate or summer gets paid "too much?"

Okay, you know what, 12:43? Give the rest of the money back, then, and only take what you think you as a summer associate and future first-year deserve. Some of us who will be sitting at our desks until 2:15am tomorrow morning turning documents because the client wants them today for no apparent reason think that the our-soul-for-your-dollars trade came at a pretty fair price, and can be spared your self-righteous bull$h!t.

And as for "the clients put[ting] up with this": if the clients were okay with some Loyola not-top-10-percenter putting in their markups for them, then junior associates wouldn't make this much. But as long as they choose their law firms based on how many Harvard JDs they can put on document review, they're going to pay for it.

people, stop abusing Lat.

David, 12:30 is a little abrupt about it, but it's a decent point. Now that OMM's clerkship bonus has gone to $50k, there's a little pressure on the rest of the L.A. posse.

And you, our beloved blogger, are just the man to firmly apply that pressure. Could you, pretty please?

Enjoy that summer clerkship pay, kiddies, what ever it may be.

You will never have less responsibility and (it will be a long time before you have more disposable income) than you do now.

You think LS is a hard? Try life with a monthly nut, including a mortgage.

Believe it or not, you will look back on this time as the most carefree of your life. ENJOY IT.

I am all for attorneys getting paid well considering the cost of law school these days and the amount of (often crappy)work we have to do- it a "professional" job, after all. However, I cannot get behind the fact that first year associates at fancy law firms are getting paid $160K a year, while first year attorneys at legal aid are making $45K a year. Just shows you where our country's priorities are- and why the national income gap continues to grow and grow...

I worked for five years, and I understand just how good I have it. I wish some of the Ivy League silver spoon fed people I work with who actually complain about having too much (not real) work knew just how good they have it.

This is, by a wide margin, the best summer of my entire life.

1:12, if the legal aid clients good afford to pay $500.hr, those attornies would make more than 45k. Since the large souless corporations can afford to pay a first-year $300 for doc review, the compensation is a little different

170K a year to perform paralegal work at best- I don;t get it. Then again, nobody ever accused lawyers (or their bilked clients) of being good businesspeople...

1:14 - The best summer of your entire life? By a wide margin? Man, you must've had an awful childhood.

12:57, I don't see much abuse of Lat in this thread (although I have elsewhere - like the bitching that led him to cut back on clerkship bonus coverage).

Anyway, despite all the hating, apparently ATL's traffic continues to grow:

http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=2431806336&topic=2701

Oh, I had a great childhood. But as a kid I didn't enjoy the pleasures of the flesh as I do today.

If you feel overpaid come to Howrey!

LOL @ 1:36

1:12: obviously, you and most legal aid lawyers get over 115K a year worth of smugness. Thus, you get paid exactly what you are worth. If you want to make more money, do something else. Don't complain because you get benefits other than $$ from your job.

Here's a little fact: the people that legal aid helps (usually) don't create jobs for anyone. The clients the 160K a year folks service: provide the jobs that legal aid clients hope that can get a hold of one day.

Stop complaining about the people that make the economy go. If you keep that up, we'll all move to the mountains of colorado and tell the rest of you to jump off the bridges that we built.

1:51...been reading a little too much "Atlas Shrugged?"

That was sarcasm about my own point, as well as 1:12's in my note.

1:51 --- LMAO! good one...

1:12 is right about the first point. Most public interest attorneys aren't struggling by on $45K a year, but have ample parental support for their Sisyphean quest for justice. It's no surprise that the most self-righteous public interest oriented law students come from the wealthiest backgrounds.

Also, 1:12--I'm wondering--what country has its priorities so ordered that first year legal aid attorneys make more than 45K a year?

For the record, the people driving out the middle class are NOT first-years at big law firms. Maing 160K in LA or SF or NY does not make you "rich." It would make you upper middle class if middle class meant anything anymore. Problem is, it doesn't. Nowadays it's just a temporary repreive from the abject poverty we'll ultimately all fall into, with a few exceptions that prove the rule. I and my fellow associates, for the most part, live in decent-but-not-great apartments and struggle to save a bit each month as we pay down massive amounts of debt and bills we wouldn't have if we had an ounce of time to actually take care of the everyday shit in our lives that we don't have because we almost live in our offices.

You want to point fingers at the expanding wage gulf, point them squarely at the partners who make millions to "bring in business" and tell us what to do. If you look at billing stats, partners on average bill way less than ssociates -- and partners who were associates 20 years ago were not billing as much as we bill today. Add to that the fact that when THEY were working as associates, 1) the housing market was affordable and they had a shot at owning property and 2) the partners before THEM had not pulled up the ladder behind them, as they have done to US. And if you REALLY want to point fingers at someone, point them at the clients who pay their CEOs ungodly salaries that NO HUMAN COULD EVER POSSIBLY DESERVE, SHORT OF PERHAPS CURING AIDS, CANCER, AND WORLD HUNGER -- and then have the audacity to bitch at law firms for raising billing rates oh-so-slightly to help compensate for ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY cost-of-living increases for the OVERWORKED PROFESSIONALS in their employ, who will never, ever, ever reap the full benefits that the generation before us had the chance to look forward to.

In other words, if you were born after 1975, in this economy you are just plain fucked beyond fucked. So give us our goddamn 160K crumbs and stop griping about it already. In another 20 years or so we'll all be living under the China-Apple-and-Google-dominated one-world dictatorship anyway.

wow.

I've been dutifully plugging away as a government attorney for 10 years now and I'll never make as much money as a summer associate. How depressing! Almost as depressing as my student loans.

2:49: off your medication today? But what would I know. I was born in 1974, so I guess I'm part of the problem in your book, even though I'm still an associate just like you.

everyone is worth what the market will bear. if you're going to get all entitled about what people deserve, why should the 45k/yr legal aid lawyer choose the 160k/yr associate to compare himself against instead of the $10/yr sub-saharan africa child? compared to that child, you're grossly, grossly overpaid -- far more so than the associates or CEO's are as compared to you.

12:30 and 1:09, excellent points. Good time to revisit that subject, it seems.

3:01, can you read? Being born earlier would only mean you're perhaps slightly less fucked (or perhaps not -- in case you were unable to tell from the context, the year was a rough estimate) -- not every unfucked person is part of the problem, only the really mean, greedy ones.

3:13, yup, that's the winning argument there. We're all better off than starving, oppressed HIV orphans in Africa, so none of us has any right to complain about anything until we lose a few limbs or something. Meanwhile we should all just be grateful for the privilege of paying taxes to a corrupt, corporate-owned government, because -- hey, it could always be worse. Therefore it's awesome.

(Stop being an asshole.)

12:30 / 1:09 / 3:27: You can thank all the clerkship bonus commenters who pissed off Lat (see "Further Update"):

http://www.abovethelaw.com/2007/06/clerkship_bonus_watch_latham_w_1.php

Now he doesn't like to cover the subject.

3:58: can you think coherently? No, wait, you already answered that from the context of your message.

249 and the like: Quit crying about how difficult your life is at $160k. Like the legal aid atty, you've chosen to take on the burden of the long hours at the end of a short leash tethered to your desk. Get over it. If you don't want that job. Quit. Get another job. There are a thousand L2L's that will take your job in a heartbeat.

And don't even try to argue that you need the big salary to pay the big debt from law school. First, you chose that debt by going to that school. Second, I have about $75k debt and only pay approx. $500 a month on it. $1,000 a month is not too burdensome when your monthly take home is in excess of $10,000.

I also should mention that I have no sympathy for legal aide atty's for the reciprocal reason (and I was a gov't atty for 3 1/2 years).

The people we should really feel bad for are the judges. At least in NY, the judiciary hasn't received a raise (COLA or otherwise) since 1999. They make $125k. That is just not right.

4:01, yup, it actually is a winning argument. where does your "worth" come from if not what people are willing to pay for you? you've got a roof over your head, food in your stomach, and clean water -- why do you deserve more?

sorry you couldn't get a better job.

12:30/1:09/3:37/4:05:

Surely Lat does not hold the idiotic and short-sighted rantings of the few against those truly interested in his information-gathering. So many were quick to point out appreciation.

Unfortunately, the keyboard often allows the insecure and dissatisfied to feel powerful (which they then often equate with jerkiness). However, they are the few and, regrettably, the loud---they are not the majority. Please, Lat, we would appreciate it if you would continue to cover those subjects.

Thank you for providing such an entertaining (and, as someone called it, addicting) blog.

oh come on, 4:24, why did you blow it at the end? the judges could quit just as easily as you or the legal aid attorney. they choose to stick around because all of the non-monetary rewards of being a judge make it worth it. they need to quit whining about the unfairness of the market too -- and that criticism extends all the way to roberts, c.j.

In the end... all BIGLAW lawyers are stupid for not becoming investment bankers

Amendment to earlier post:

"Information-gathering" should be construed to include the goals or effects of all of Lat's work, including but not limited to market influence, information-dissemination, and information-gathering.

Also, 3:37 should be corrected to read 3:27.

4:32 -

I did sort of blow it at the end, but the problem I have with suggesting that the judges just quit and go elsewhere (which some are) is that it hurts the overall quality of the legal system. I believe that in the long run the market will correct itself and create a balance of good and bad attys who work in Big Law or at Legal Aide, and on the whole that we can afford to wait for the system to work itself out. I'm not so certain we can afford to let the judiciary "correct" for the market. Just too much at stake. I want the "best and brightest" on the bench, so when I go to make an argument, they will (a) understand it and (b) make a reasonable decision on it. I fear what may become of the judiciary if the judges become the lowest common denominator of atty b/c the smart ones get out for the big bucks. I'd just as soon pay more so that the smart ones will be the judges.

4:24, it's a fallacy to assume the smartest people necessarily care the most about getting the most money possible, over all else. Indeed, there's a fair argument that the opposite is true.

Plus, I know of no other professional industry where those in the field haven't gotten a raise of some kind in 9 years, which garners some sympathy from me.

5:11 -

Agreed. But when at least one smart judge starts every session of court with a diatribe about how a first year at BigLaw makes more than him and that he hasn't received even a COLA increase in 9 years, it's hard not to recognize that there is a very real danger of losing a smart judge.

Consider also - I'm not suggesting that the judge's salaries should be increased to be the equivalent of the profits received by a partner at a BigLaw firm. The judges know that they are losing money in comparison to what their peers make in private practice. The point I am trying to make is that the judge's shouldn't be outdistanced by a fresh-out-of-law-school-doesn't-know-jack-about-the-practice-of-law associate at a BigLaw firm. Or at least, that their whining about it is reasonable.

And please don't take this post to suggest that I believe that partners in BigLaw are as smart as judges. I'm sure some are and some aren't and that the vice versa is true as well.

4:24, who's the judge you're referencing? If you're talking about Roberts' infamous diatribe recently, well, as a liberal, I can't say I'd be sorry to see him leave (not that he woud do so any time soon... sigh).

As a biglaw slave, I'd favor cutting partner salaries as a better way to alleviate the disparity. They don't even have to give the money to me -- hell, give it to charity for all I care. But there's something sickeningly wrong about the fact that the dude I work MY ass off for makes ten, fifteen times what I do to take eight weeks of vacation a year and forget half of our deadlines even when I remind him seventeen times. Maybe cutting their salaries would give them a much-needed dose of humility, and satisfy the judges that they did, indeed, make the right choice.

God, but I feel vindictive this week.

I work for free for a non-profit that helps people. Some shit-head was being paid $3,100 to get wined and dined, yet still managed to fuck it up. At least I still have a (non-paying) job.

5:11 -

I'm not referring to CJ Roberts. The judge to whom I am referring is a NY State Supreme.