<p>
[quote]
...The sad part about this story is the total lack of reaction from American law schools. Again, the Wall Street Journal’s report is not really new information. Law schools have had years to digest the information that clients think recent law school graduates are ill-prepared to advise them on their legal problems. Whether you go to a great school or one that gets sued over allegedly misleading employment statistics, clients are saying that you are not prepared to do what they need you to do.</p>
<p>Which is pathetic when you consider that you just spent three years and six figures to learn skills that people are allegedly willing to pay for. If law schools aren’t pumping out people who can convince clients to pay for their work, then what are law schools doing really?</p>
<p>...The clients’ unwillingness to pay is just another indication that law schools aren’t doing their jobs. But the clients can’t hold law schools accountable for their gross incompetence.</p>
<p>Back in the old days, law students would apprentice with an experienced practicing lawyer, and learn how to actually do the work.</p>
<p>I have a friend and his wife who both graduated University of Pennsylvania Law School, but when they bought their house, they had to hire a real estate attorney to do the closing.</p>
<p>And going to law school used to mean something. That was before they created scores of new law schools, and allowed just about anyone to get into SOME law school.</p>
<p>If they closed down 1/2 of the law schools tommorrow, none of those graduates would even be missed.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, incredibly, down here in Florida, they are about to open two MORE law schools.</p>
<p>While at the same time cutbacks are made at the University of Florida.</p>
<p>Do you think that this is indicative of a problem?</p>
<p>I’ve been practicing law for long enough to consider myself an expert in the fields where I practice, but when my husband and I bought a new house a few years back, we, too, hired a real estate lawyer to handle our negotiation and closing. We also hired attorneys to draft our will and settle the estate of a deceased relative. Why? It’s certainly not because law school doesn’t mean anything anymore.</p>
<p>I don’t specialize in real estate law, which often involves highly local laws and zoning regulations with which I am unfamiliar; nor do I specialize in trusts and estates law, where the wrong word or an error in procedure can result in significant tax liability and/or the failure of a will/estate plan to have the intended results. </p>
<p>Could I spend time learning about the intricacies of real estate or trusts and estates law? I suppose, but like many other complex areas of the law, it can take repeated experiences over the course of years to know an area of the law inside out. I don’t have that kind of time, nor the desire to become an expert in these areas of the law.</p>
<p>Students coming out of law school know very little about practicing law, but that is nothing new. Law schools teach basic legal principles and research skills, and generally, young attorneys learn by getting thrown into the deep end on the job under the guidance of seasoned attorneys. Many, if not most, law students do participate in hands on clinics in law school, internships and pro bono opportunities, all of which can provide some practical experience.</p>
<p>There has been talk of shortening law school to two years and then requiring a year-long internship (like the articling process in Canada - though law school in Canada is still 3 years). However, there are many complaints in Canada that the articling year is merely a way for law firms/other legal employers to have cheap labor for a year. </p>
<p>In my experience, one of the primary reasons why clients may request that there be no first or second year associates on a matter is because they fear the junior attorneys will take too many hours to get work done. Many law firms do indeed review the hours submitted by junior associates and reduce the amount of hours that are actually billed to clients (thus, “writing off” the hours). Junior associates can actually be quite valuable to clients, since they are a less expensive means to have research, document review, due diligence, transaction closings, etc. completed. (For the record, clients would also object to three separate, more senior attorneys all billing time to the same phone call or meeting.)</p>
<p>The only difference now is that there are fewer jobs for law school graduates and more graduates than ever.</p>
<p>But ay, there’s the rub, and the crux of both the blog post and the WSJ article that inspired it. As you said, newly minted lawyers, presumably even those graduating at the top of their class from the top law schools, still don’t really know how to practice law. They may know theory and research skills, but few truly practical legal skills. Heck, the overwhelming majority of new graduates won’t even be able to practice law legally until several months after they graduate, because that’s the time that they need to pass the Bar in their jurisdiction. </p>
<p>So that raises the natural question - why are these new graduates being paid so well, at least at the top law firms, starting from the very first day they are hired, if they don’t actually (yet) have strong practical law skills? Top law firms pay their first year associates about $160k a year just in base salary alone. Even presuming no year-end bonus and even after subtracting $30-40k/yr of debt payback, they’re still making $120-130k a year - a fantastic salary for somebody in their mid to late 20’s who, as you admitted, doesn’t really have any practical skills (yet). As a point of contrast, there are tenured professors of science or engineering at top schools such as Berkeley or MIT who don’t make $120-130k a year. Even the median primary-care physician (across all experience levels) made only about $186k in 2008 without factoring in medical school debt payback along with the years of low-paid medical internship/residency. </p>
<p>Put more starkly, why should I as a client pay a rate of hundreds of dollars per billable hour for the time of a newly hired associate who, as everybody seems to concede, knows very little about the actual practice of law? Wouldn’t it be more economically efficient to simply pay people according to the actual value that they provide? </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Would that really be so outrageous? That’s what happens in medicine. Medical school is only 4 years long rather than being 7-10 years. But newly minted doctors also don’t immediately make 6-figure salaries. Rather, they have to trudge through years of low-paid residency with grinding hours where they are heavily supervised by attending physicians and where they obtain their ‘real’ practical medical training. Furthermore, their medical school debt continues to accumulate interest even during those low-paid residency years. Similarly, very few tenure-track faculty in science or engineering obtained their positions immediately after finishing their PhD. The overwhelming majority underwent years of low-paid post-doc work before they became strong candidates on the academic job market. Molliebatmit, a frequent poster on the Graduate School category, anticipates that even after completing her PhD in biology at Harvard - arguably the #1 school in her subdiscipline -
she will still have to undergo years of postdoc-hood if she wants a strong career in science. </p>
<p>The underlying principle seems to me that if you have few practical skills, then you shouldn’t be paid highly until such time as when you actually have developed practical skills. That’s what happens in the other disciplines I mentioned. Law seems to be one of the few professions where the top graduates from at least a T14 school can make a very high salary immediately after graduation before having developed practical skills, or, heck, before even having passed the Bar. In stark contrast, even somebody who graduates at the top of their class from Harvard or Johns Hopkins Medical School will not immediately make a high salary, because they still have to undergo a low-paid residency.</p>
<p>Besides, a Canadian-style 2-year law school system might not only be more efficient for the clients, but also for the students themselves. Sure, maybe that first post-graduation year will be converted to a year of cheap labor for the law firms. But so what? That still seems to be better than paying for that third year of law school. I would rather get paid a low salary rather than pay out another year of tuition. Similarly, medical students are surely better off by not incorporating the entire residency process to be 7-10 years long within the medical school (and hence charge 7-10 years worth of tuition). </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Like I said, it seems to me that the better option is to simply only bill the time of a first-year associate according to the actual value that he provides. You say that clients fear that such associates may take too much time to get work done. Well, if that’s the case, then why not just charge a far lower bill rate that actually corresponds to that associate’s productivity level and also pay him accordingly? If he doesn’t really know what he’s doing and therefore is only providing $20/hour worth of value, then pay him only that. Even if the law firm wants to charge a 100% markup, then that would mean only billing that new associate at a $40/hr rate. It seems as if clients would be far happier with such a cut-rate price. </p>
<p>Again, the underlying question is, why should new associates at the top law firms be paid so highly when we all agree that they know very little about the practice of law. Note, I have nothing against the notion of paying them well once they have developed strong practical knowledge about the law. But why before? Those first few years of associate work seem to be little more than an overpaid apprenticeship.</p>
<p>One important factor to consider when comparing law vs medicine is the long-term earning potential of doctor vs lawyer.</p>
<p>Top law firms pay six figure starting out, but they also have ‘up or out’ policy - in which associates are asked to leave their firms if they don’t make partner after their 8-year stint. Not to mention, many more associates will be asked to leave before completing their 8-year stint due to their lackluster performance, poor economic circumstances (in 2009, Latham Watkins fired 50% of their NYC-based first-year associates citing bad economy), or an associate’s lack of ability to play politics with partners. (I know two mid-level associates at a BigLaw firm who got into troubles with one partner, and were asked to leave the firm afterwards - per request of this particular partner at that firm)</p>
<p>Most of ex-BigLaw attorneys take jobs with up to 50-60% pay cut compared to what they were making at Biglaw. In contrast, doctors can keep making mid to high six figures until their retirement, without being ‘pushed’ out like the vast majority of law associates.</p>
<p>In this regard, the long-term earning potential/ job stability of a doctor is much greater than that of a lawyer.</p>
<p>Residential real estate is not a good example. There are only a few states that require a lawyer to be involved. New York is one and I think Virginia is another - the lawyer lobby in those states has been successful in keeping the requirement for a lawyer. In most states, people don’t consider hiring a lawyer for a residential sale and everything is fine. It’s pretty standard stuff and good agents and title companies are completely capable of handling it.</p>
<p>Actually, the opposite is true with regards to long-term earning potential, which is almost certainly higher for lawyers than doctors, at least at the top end. You mention that top law firms have an ‘up-or-out’ policy where many associates will be forced to leave. But that nevertheless implies that some of them - albeit only a minority - will actually move up all the way to partner. The average partner at all law firms in the US, including small firms in smaller cities, made over [$640k</a>](<a href=“http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/blog/2011/01/even-among-partners-lawyer-salaries.html]$640k”>http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/blog/2011/01/even-among-partners-lawyer-salaries.html) in the recession and financial crash-wracked year of 2009, with some rainmaker partners were reportedly making 10 digits (yes, in the $10 million range). In contrast, only the small handful of physicians who happen to work in highly lucrative specialties will ever make $640k and certainly almost none will make $10 million. You can be the greatest primary care physician in the world and you’re still never going to make $10 million. </p>
<p>Where I agree with you that a physician’s salary is indeed less risky - hence lower variance - over the course of a career. I agree that even a mediocre physician will nevertheless have a quite comfortable life, whereas a mediocre attorney will not. But I don’t think that many students at Harvard Medical School or Harvard Law School envision themselves having mediocre careers. </p>
<p>Hence, if the best you can do is admission to either a low-tier medical school or a low-tier law school, then you should probably pick the former. But it’s far less clear - and dependent on your personal risk profile - whether matriculation to a top medical school is better than a top law school.</p>
<p>Making partner at NYC BigLaw, for sure, is a jack pot dollar-wise. However, Biglaw partners constitute such a small minority of all BigLaw firm lawyers, it should not serve as a major data from statistical point of view. </p>
<p>Making equity partner at BigLaw is equivalent to making MD at Goldman/JPM/Morgan Stanley - fiercely competitive, very difficult, and only very few make it up there. In fact, in 2010, Cravath (top NYC law firm) did not promote any of their associates to become partners, likely due to bad economy. Most years, only 3-4 associates would make partner at large NYC BigLaw, and I think I am being conservative in my estimate. </p>
<p>For the vast majority of Biglaw associates (close to 95%), partnership is out of window and they will wind up in in-house attorney jobs, government jobs, or small/mid-law jobs, all of which pay significantly less than BigLaw. (50-60% pay cut)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Sakky, I am only talking about BigLaw lawyers vs doctors. Not the vast majority of non-Biglaw lawyers who will never touch the kind of money most doctors do. Over 90% of all law school graduates will not get a chance to work at BigLaw to begin with, and they tend to face 40-60k jobs, if they are lucky to find jobs as lawyers. </p>
<p>BigLaw lawyers are not mediocre lawyers, in the sense that most of them all went to top law schools and performed very well at their law schools. And, even these Biglaw firm attorneys, who are not your ‘average’ neighborhood lawyers, don’t end up as well-off as most doctors, both financially and in terms of long-term career trajectory.</p>
<p>Finally, making partner at BigLaw has nothing to do with your academic credentials. The fact that someone graduated top of class from Harvard Law doesn’t really enter the equation. It is all about the associate’s 1) work product, 2) rain-making potential, 3) ability to play politics with partners and clients. The point here is that making partner at BigLaw requires that one is a superstar in every dimension possible. You have to be a star, academically, to break into BigLaw in the first place. And, you have to be a tremendous salesman and have to work like a maniac to have a shot at partnership. In contrast, in medicine, you can avoid all that, just do well in your expertise, and make high salary for most of your career. (without being subject to ‘up or out’ issues)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>If long-term financial success and stable career trajectory is someone’s priority, going with med school, even a low-ranked one, over a top law school is a much safer bet. Doctors are essentially guaranteed to make mid to high six figures for the majority of their careers. Lawyers, except for Big/Mid-law partners, don’t make that much money long-term. However, things don’t always work that way… I know that I suck at science, hate the idea of cutting through people’s chest, and could never handle med school.</p>
<p>But I’m not just talking about NYC BIGLAW. I agree with you that NYC BIGLAW partners are such a tiny minority of the total that they should not be statistically important. That’s why I pointed out that partners at all law firms in 56 cities, including the small law firms in the smaller cities, made an average of over $640k in the recession-wracked year of 2009. The odds of making partner somewhere are clearly far better than the odds of simply making partner in a major NYC firm. </p>
<p>Actually, what I believe happens is that many former Biglaw associates who were forced out will head to smaller law firms where they will once again have the chance to eventually become partner. Heck, I believe that some of them who (barely) missed making Biglaw partner will be directly offered partnership by a lesser firm. And as I established, being partner at even a lower-end firm in a smaller city is still pretty good. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I have always agreed that most law school graduates attend lower-tier law schools and therefore never have a chance for biglaw in the first place. </p>
<p>But I’m not talking about them. I’m specifically talking about the students at the top. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>But as I emphasized before, if you are that rare superstar in law, you will make far more than you will make as a superstar physician. Rainmaker biglaw partners can make 10 figures. Even the best physicians cannot do that. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>On the other hand, if you’re self-confident and entrepreneurial and you want to take a shot at massive wealth - either by becoming a BIGlaw partner or simply by starting your own law firm - you should almost certainly take a top law school over even a top med-school. </p>
<p>I would also point out that if your ultimate goal is flexibility with regards to other careers, then there is no comparison to be made. Not even a single doctor has ever become President, and only a handful ever got close. On the other hand, numerous lawyers have become President. Far more lawyers than doctors have become CEO’s of major firms. </p>
<p>So again, I would say that it all depends on your risk profile. I’ll put it to you this way. You say that even a low-tier medical school is better than a high-tier law school. According to the BLS, the average attorney (across all experience levels) made about $110k a year. Yet the vast majority of attorneys graduated from low-tier law schools, so if we include only those graduates from T14 schools, we are probably looking at an average of $150k a year. On the other hand, the average graduate from a low-tier med-school probably makes around $225k a year (not including low-paid residents who make a pittance). I am also neglecting all debt paybacks, which both parties must endure. </p>
<p>The fact is, a difference of $150k vs. $225k a year - which is only ~$40k in after tax income - isn’t really all that large. Sure, you’ll drive a better car, live in a better house, have better vacations, but at the end of the day, your lifestyle is basically the same. But if you have a shot at $640k, which is what the average partners made at all firms in 56 cities, your lifestyle can change dramatically.</p>
<p>It’s a bit off-topic from where this thread has gone, but I need to respond.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Actually, it is. I know plenty of people in title-closing states who hire lawyers to handle their negotiations and closings anyway. I would recommend doing so to my friends and family, and I know plenty of people who are thankful that they had an attorney when things got rough, even in title closing states. Just like most other things, if everything goes perfectly than you shouldn’t need an attorney. You can sign contracts on the back of napkins all your life and never have a problem. Unfortunately, by the time the problem arises, it may be too late to resurrect the deal or find a financially appropriate solution.</p>
<p>That said, I have also hired an attorney to handle a property line dispute with a neighbor, to review an environmental matter that had the potential to affect my family and to represent my family in a matter with a government agency. None of those representations means that I am a bad or incompetent lawyer. In fact, recognizing the areas where it is inappropriate to give advice (to yourself or anyone else) is part of what makes me a good, professional attorney.</p>
<p>There is little denying that first-year associates are overpaid in the grand scheme of things. However, because top law firms are competing with investment banks, consulting firms and others who pay very high wages to MBAs and others similarly situated forces law firms to pay these salaries. In addition, there is a belief (I don’t know whether or not it has been documented) that if starting Biglaw firm salaries weren’t so high, the cream of the crop students would choose other professions altogether. Believe me, most Biglaw firm partners would be just as happy to line their pockets a bit more by reducing salaries to associates. </p>
<p>Junior associates serve a very important purpose in law firms. Not only are they potentially the future leadership of the firms, but at the beginning, they do much of the work that clients wouldn’t want to pay much higher rates for more senior associates and partners to do. While junior associates are doing this actual work, which needs to get done (it’s not just busywork), they are also learning the ropes. </p>
<p>I remember that one of my very first assignments as a first year associate was drafting closing papers (closing checklists, funds flow memoranda, receipts, etc.), attending the closing of a large transaction and doing whatever was necessary during the closing to help get the deal closed. It’s amazing how much you learn by doing work like that (and it doesn’t hurt when you have fantastic partners walking you around the room during spare moments explaining how all of the documents fit together and why they are all necessary). In fact, today I make sure that all of my junior associates do the same thing. During this time, though, the junior associates are still providing a very valuable service to the clients. Someone needs to draft those closing documents and funds flow memoranda, and someone needs to keep track of signatures and UCC filings and authorizations from governmental agencies and bank routing numbers during the closing. Why shouldn’t that person be a first -year associate? (Most clients wouldn’t want the partner to bill them for that work.)</p>
<p>I would argue that finance and consulting are also equally overpaid, if not more so. </p>
<p>But more to the point, finance and consulting firms also hire graduates directly out of name-brand medical schools and PhD programs. For example, I can think of several students at Harvard Medical School who are thinking of not even completing their medical licenses at all, but rather may take jobs in finance or consulting right after graduating with their MD’s. I can similarly think of numerous engineering PhD’s from MIT who went directly to consulting and finance. </p>
<p>But the salaries for medical residency or engineering postdocs haven’t adjusted upwardly to reflect the competition against consulting or finance. The guy who graduated at the top of his class at Harvard Medical School who actually wants to be a practicing physician has to undergo years of grueling and low-paid residency. He can’t just say: “Well, I have a competing offer from McKinsey, so the residency has to pay me likewise”. They don’t care; the residency slot is simply not going to raise its salary, and if you don’t like it, then they’ll simply offer the residency to somebody else. Medical residencies are just as poorly paid now as they have been in the past, and probably always will be. The same is true of science/engineering postdocs. </p>
<p>So that raises the question of, why do law firms feel that they need to match the salaries of consulting and finance firms when other professional career paths feel no such compunction? </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I continue to draw the contrast between law vs. medicine or science/engineering. Sure, first year associates may have important roles in the firm by doing much of the grunt work while learning the ropes. But the same could surely be said for medical residents. Let’s face it - most hospitals would implode were it not for the residents who do much of the grunt work. Similarly, science and engineering academia would also implode without its armies of postdocs who configure the experiments and analyze the data. Nevertheless, medical residents and postdocs are poorly paid. </p>
<p>Perhaps the bottom line is that medical residencies and postdocs should be paid far more than they do - perhaps by several times. </p>
<p>It also elucidates why law school continues to be so popular. Like I said, even after standard debt payments, you’ll still probably make at least $120-130k in your first year in Biglaw. Other than the aforementioned finance and consulting, what other profession allows you to make that kind of money by age 25-26? Many scientists and engineers will never attain that level of salary at any time in their careers, let alone by their mid 20’s.</p>
<p>Actually, it’s much less when you take into account the costs of living in the big cities where law firms pay $160,000/year to start, including the high cost of taxes (in addition to federal and state taxes, cities like NYC and Philly also have significant city taxes – then there are high sales and property taxes added on, too), rent, commutation, dry cleaning, groceries, etc. Just throwing that out there . . . </p>
<p>I agree that medical residents should make more money. Newly minted lawyers at Biglaw firms should probably make a bit less. Then again, I think that teachers should also be paid more and professional athletes should be paid a bit less, too, but that’s just me. We could circle around all day talking about what is the “right” salary for different professions based upon whatever criteria you deem appropriate – years of schooling, value to society, whatever the market will bear, etc. </p>
<p>Referring back to the original article, starting lawyers are indeed ill-suited to providing advice directly to clients. Then again, I would not consult with a fifth year associate on a make-or-break or game changing matter for my company either. I would want the most senior partner with the most years of experience to advise me on that matter. (Let’s not forget either that there are attorneys with many years of practice under their belts who are just not very good at what they do.) However, I do need to know that after consulting the senior partner who has the goods, he or she can then make efficient use of their legal team to get the work done and get it done correctly. It’s no different that going to see the surgeon with the most experience in a particular procedure, and assuming that that surgeon will rely on someone else in the operating room to hand the surgeon instruments and betadine-dipped gauze. In fact, I think we all know that there are often residents present in the operating room who will actually do various parts of a procedure, under supervision (we hope). </p>
<p>Many companies do indeed negotiate with the law firms they employ on rates that will be paid, what disbursements will/will not be allowed and how deals will be staffed. If companies are not taking these steps, perhaps they should be. However, if they specify that no junior associates should be staffed on their matters, that work will then be assigned to more senior, and more expensive, associates.</p>
<p>Companies also have the option of seeking counsel in smaller, less expensive cities, or at smaller, less expensive law firms (though not all smaller firms are indeed less expensive). Companies could change the market by making different choices.</p>
<p>Medicine career is not a good comparison because there are strict and high barriers to entry into specialties. Most hospitals require board eligability/certification to have privleges, and then the privleges are specific for the specialty. Medicine does limit the number of training positions, and switching is somewhat difficult. Thus you can chose to take a long and poorly paid residency with the likelihood that you field will not become flooded and you value decreased. As far as paying the residents more, having been one, they are getting a living wage, and with care you can keep up with interest payments so the debt does not capitalize if one is careful. Since the resident doesn’t have much of a life, his or her expenses are pretty low :)</p>
<p>And for that, I’m afraid I have no sympathy. Plenty of engineers work in Silicon Valley, a location arguably even more expensive than NYC. Yet many of them will never make $130k ever in their lives, let alone at age 25. </p>
<p>Or take all of the poverty-stricken science/engineering postdocs at Harvard and MIT who have to live in the Boston/Cambridge area, which ain’t exactly cheap. Or, perhaps even worse, take the Stanford postdocs who have to live around Palo Alto, which houses one of the greatest concentrations of wealth in the world. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Which again raises the interesting question of why they continue to be paid so well. Sallyawp, you said it yourself - senior partners would surely love to lower the salaries of first-year associates because that equates to more profit for them. So why don’t they? They clearly have the power to do it. </p>
<p>Economists would deem this a fascinating market failure that can surely only be explained by sociological/cultural factors. Do biglaw firms fear being the only firm that lowers its associate salaries, driving all of the best graduates to other firms? If that’s the case, then why don’t they all collude to lower salaries together? {Why not - they’ve already basically colluding now to keep salaries high, as whenever one biglaw firm announces a salary boost, the others inevitably match it - so if you can collude going upstairs, why not collude downstairs?} Or why don’t some biglaw firms dispense with hiring fresh graduates entirely and only poach, say, the best 4th-8th year associates from other firms (after those other firms have invested in their training)? Again, that’s basically what private equity firms and hedge funds do with Ibanks: let the Ibanks invest to train the fresh graduates who lack skills, and once they’re tooled up, now poach them.</p>
<p>I could understand why MD’s might undergo a long, poorly paid residency to enter the most lucrative specialties such as surgery. I can also understand why they might do so to obtain admitting privileges or other hospital privileges. The residency then effectively becomes an enforced investment/savings mechanism - you earn less now to make more money or enjoy greater career options in the future.</p>
<p>But what I cannot understand is why even the relatively low-paying specialties such as family practice or pediatrics still require a poorly paid residency (albeit usually of shorter duration than the higher paying specialties). Surely some physicians must tell themselves:“If even a family practice doctor has to spend 3 years on a penurious residency anyway, I might as well spend a few more years for a specialty such as radiology that will double my salary.” </p>
<p>Or, even if you believe that family practice doctors must undergo a residency for training purposes, why can’t they at least make a higher salary? I know some secretaries who make more than many medical residents do. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Well, first-year biglaw associates don’t have exactly much of a life either. And as sallyawp established, they don’t really have many practical skills. They’re nevertheless being paid far better than the medical resident’s living wage by several multiples. True, biglaw associates have a debt load, but so do medical residents, which is probably larger as they had to pay for 4 years of schooling rather than 3.</p>
<p>How curious that there is so much passion about what junior associates earn at biglaw firms. There are many inequities of pay in our society. Why do we pay a Master of Social Work, who has a near equivalent amount of schooling as a JD, a poverty wage when there are so many people they may help over the course of their career? Indeed, why do we pay such a premium for a kid who can throw a round ball very fast? The reason is that in the latter case these skills can bring great profit to the business of a baseball team. The social worker, no matter how good they are, is probably not creating a large profit for the business they are a part of.</p>
<p>On the other hand, a jr. associate is probably billed at about $350/hr, less than half of a senior lawyers’ billing as Sallyawp rightly pointed out. If you multiply that billing rate by 2000 hours over the course of a year and subtract by the annual salary of $160k, you will find that the firm may net half a million dollars from the work of a single jr. associate over the course of one year. That’s a pretty healthy return. One could argue that the jr. associates are quite underpaid.</p>
<p>“If you multiply that billing rate by 2000 hours over the course of a year and subtract by the annual salary of $160k”</p>
<p>You’re overlooking the enormous recruiting costs, never mind benefits and overhead. You’re also overlooking the fact that in today’s climate, the firm may be forced to write off a lot of those 2000 hours. I doubt the profit off of a first-year approaches your estimate.</p>