<p>Top firms pay lawyers $160,000 a year. Okay. Lawyers represent clients, and these clients have to pay their lawyer. If I am a lawyer for Firm X, and I win a $75-million-dollar lawsuit, don't I get a piece of that? But what if I dont get called for any cases? Do I still make my $160,000 salary?</p>
<p>That’s the difference between partner and associate I believe. An Associate is more or less a highly educated salaried/wage worker whose job it is to pull in the big bucks for the partners with the hopes that one day, he/she too will get in on a piece of the action; ie be made a partner at the firm.</p>
<p>So Associates make $160,000… and partners make even more than that? Basically an Associate is more of like the person behind the scenes?</p>
<p>An associate is an employee. A partner is an owner (well, an equity partner is an owner, some firms now have non-equity partners). As an associate you make your agreed-upon salary, which is only $160K at the very largest firms (Commonly know as Biglaw). You may make a bonus for billing a certain number of hours in a year (generally 2200 hrs or more). The law firm makes money by billing a client for your time by the hour. If you make partner you get a cut of the profits. You are also expected to bring in business, which is not billable time, while keeping your billable hours up and managing the associates under you. Your firm may be anywhere from unprofitable (no cut above your salary, and probably looking for work soon) to $700K PPP (profits per partner) per year. All of this affects your income.</p>
<p>And don’t worry about not being on any cases. Your firm will find work for you to do, and if you’re smart you’ll be proactive about seeking it out too. If they didn’t have work for you, you’d be handed your walking papers.</p>
<p>It sounds to me like you’re fixated on the $160K+ income. You are unlikely (statistically) to make this. Also realize that to bill the number of hours needed to make that, you will be living in your office. Broken down hourly, you could make just as much in several other professions. I’m not telling you not to go for it, just preparing you for the reality that there are many more top law school applicants than there are Biglaw jobs in this country.</p>
<p>I’m not even sure if I want to be a lawyer.</p>
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Actually the majority of T14 grads who go into the private sector are able to find 160k jobs. The 160k is also a base salary, which does not require overtime to achieve.</p>
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<p>I really don’t understand what you mean by this – do you think lawyers get paid time and a half after 40 hours a week? lawyers earning that kind of money are putting in hours that are incredibly long and often unpredictable-- in fact the same can be true of most lawyers whether or not they are earning that kind of money. whatever you hear in terms of “billable hours” – add a lot more to figure out how many hours a lawyer is actually at work since not every minute is billable by a long shot.</p>
<p>also to the OP – there are different ways in which lawyers are paid. lawyers can be paid a retainer – fixed sum up front that covers certain defined work. they can be paid hourly – most lawyers record their “billable” time in fractions of an hour (when i was in practice a tenth of an hour was the norm, i don’t know what current practice is). and yes to earn enough to pay associates that kind of salary the hourly rates being charged are huge – that’s why clients don’t want to hear excuses – they want their work done when they want it done. and lawyers can also be paid a contingency fee – which seems to be what you are referring to when you refer to a lawyer getting a piece of a settlement – the lawyer takes the case with the understanding that he gets a pre-agreed percentage of the recovery – not all cases are taken on that basis.</p>
<p>the compensation between a law firm and a given client can include any combination of the above.</p>
<p>at large firms these days there are equity partners (who get a share of the profits) and non-equity partners (who don’t).</p>
<p>an associate is an employee - his/her salary is set ahead of time and he/she may also earn a bonus at the discretion of the firm. what the law firm earns, whether thru retainers, hourly billings, or contingency fees, doesn’t effect that except to the extent that high earnings allows a firm to give generous bonuses - at their discretion. but when firm earnings drop as they have lately, you can not only end up with no bonuses, but layoffs.</p>
<p>The $160k starting salary is becoming even more elusive as more and more firms are cutting salaries. Typically the firms with the highest starting salaries are not taking contingency cases.</p>
<p>If you are familiar with legal practice and think you could love that kind of life’s work, then go for it. Try to get some exposure to actual legal practice, not just TV shows!!!</p>
<p>There are downsides. The following ancedotal informaton was gleaned from listening to friends, acquaintances and practicioners. Much of it holds true for any of the “learned professions”; law, medicine, accounting, engineering consulting, etc. </p>
<p>It requires huge amounts of technically uncompensated overtime just to keep your job!!!</p>
<p>If you are not considered a “core” employee, i.e. not from a name school and without “connections”, you are subject to layoff on a whim.</p>
<p>If you put in 3000 hours a year, not unheard of, and are paid $160,000,you made $53.33/hour plus fringes. Medical residents are paid worse and work harder. They do have a more secure path to big bucks if they want that. </p>
<p>There are societal and networking barriers to making partner in the big law mileau. It is not a given. If you cannot schmooze with the big boys/girls you cannot make partner.</p>
<p>It is not in the best interests of any firm to treat a good empoyee poorly. But when the going gets tough, a mere employee can be “thrown under the bus” or “thrown to the wolves” for the “good of the firm”;i.e. the partners.</p>
<p>If you are really good and are not treated well, you can start your own firm.</p>
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Just about every profession with a preset yearly salary require unpaid “overtime” on top of the 9 to 5 workday. At least pre-economic collapse, bonuses at law firms were largely dependent on extra billable hours.</p>
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Anecdotal evidence here, but I’ve heard that in LA this year, only a minority of “medium law” firms reduced their starting salaries from $160 to $145.</p>
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Fortunately there’s some middle ground between biglaw and TTTemps.</p>
<p>to even mention a 9-5 day when talking about being a lawyer at a law firm and the idea of “unpaid overtime” seriously misrepresents the nature of a lawyers working hours. do not even think about 9-5 as a norm or concept in the context of life at a law firm. lawyers don’t think of themselves as working “overtime” - paid or unpaid. they do the work that is necessary in the time that is necessary – its not "over"time – its the work time - period. its not something extra – its what is expected and what you need to do. its part of the definition of the job.</p>
<p>a lawyer who isn’t working the long hours has a lot more to worry about than the size of any bonus.</p>
<p>Lots of lawyers are having a hard time finding the hours they need to be safe in this economy. Some firms, that have two hourly tracks for associates, have forced those not meeting hourly expectations to move to the lower billable hour salary tier. That means a cut at some firms from $160k or $145k to about $125k.</p>
<p>Detail: The 25-Median-75 for level 1 attorney pay in the United States is $76,239 - $89,146 - $103,635. Ergo, odds are you will NOT make $160K.</p>
<p>source: [Average</a> Level I Attorney Salary. Level I Attorney Job, Career Education & Unemployment Help](<a href=“http://swz.salary.com/salarywizard/layouthtmls/swzl_compresult_national_LE11000001.html]Average”>http://swz.salary.com/salarywizard/layouthtmls/swzl_compresult_national_LE11000001.html)</p>
<p>PS: Baker & McKenzie is hardly a “medium” firm, and they made cuts this year.</p>
<p>The median means nothing in a bimodal distribution. There are 197 ABA-accredited law schools in the US. They are producing more lawyers than needed, which is in turn driving the salaries of lawyers in the lower mode down.</p>
<p>[Empirical</a> Legal Studies: Class of 2007: A More Extreme Bi-Modal Distribution](<a href=“http://www.elsblog.org/the_empirical_legal_studi/2008/07/class-of-2007-s.html]Empirical”>http://www.elsblog.org/the_empirical_legal_studi/2008/07/class-of-2007-s.html)</p>
<p>Salary cuts and layoffs are regionally dependent.</p>
<p>[Law.com</a> - Law Firm Salary Cuts Keep on Coming](<a href=“http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202430403772]Law.com”>http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202430403772)</p>
<p>Edit: Here’s an article explaining why you probably shouldn’t take out debt to attend a sub-tier 1 school.</p>
<p><a href=“http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119040786780835602.html[/url]”>http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119040786780835602.html</a></p>
<p>They referred to someone from seton hall law. Im sure Stanford/Harvard law students are bettet off</p>
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<p>I’ve always wondered what exactly that means. Seriously, what exactly is the difference between a non-equity partner and just an associate, or perhaps a senior associate? Isn’t that basically the same thing? If you don’t actually receive a share of the profits of the firm, then how are you really a ‘partner’? Aren’t you basically just a higher-paid and more experienced associate? Isn’t the term ‘non-equity partner’ really an oxymoron? </p>
<p>Now, granted, I understand that non-equity partners can attend (but usually not vote) in partnership meetings and may even have access to internal firm financial data. But come on, that’s small potatoes. Who cares about attending partnership meetings and seeing financial data if you don’t actually share in the profits of the firm? I suspect that the real purpose of the non-equity partnership is to confer the status of the partnership ‘rank’ without actually providing the profit sharing that is commensurate with that rank.</p>
<p>I don’t really know but I would think “non-equity partners” would be immune to layoffs. As long as the firm had any money, their salaries would be paid.</p>
<p>If this is not true, then the term is meaningless and is probably a “title in lieu of money” scam.</p>
<p>To everyone: Get it in writing. Get it in cash or cash equivalents. Submitting to “at will” employment is for suckers.</p>
<p>A non-equity partner means different things at different places. Voting power is a totally different thing; some firms have handed control to a manager, others to a committee, and others are run by one guy who decides what everyone makes. (I’m not kidding.) Some firms only have votes on specific subjects. That’s all over the map.)</p>
<p>Non-equity also means different things. On one end of the spectrum, it’s a glorified senior associate. Moving along, it becomes a job in which your salary is no longer guaranteed - beyond a base draw - so you are forced to bring in business or die on the vine. (For some firms, bringing in a level of business is a pre-req for partnership, except for areas - like corporate tax or bonds - where most people don’t have their own clients - but then, they tend to have fewer partners because of that. Clients = power.)</p>
<p>Non-equity in many places means you get a portion of the business you bring in, as opposed to getting a salary no matter what. Firms vary on how they divide business up; some give credit for origination, some for development of new business with an existing client, etc.</p>
<p>With my Electrical Engineering degree and a JD from an Ivy League school what salary should I expect???</p>
<p>Being any kind of a partner is no guarantee of continued employment.</p>
<p>Sakky is exactly right about "non-equity’ partner being an oxymoron. Non-equity partnerships have none of the indicia of an actual partnership. Many of us who were practicing law when the term was introduced found it offensive. The term “permanent associate” was briefly in vogue at firms that decided to repeal their “up or out” policy.</p>
<p>I found the granting of “non-equity partnerships” to be symptomatic of a general decline in collegiality that has become endemic at large law firms. That lack of collegiality has, in some instances, led to the collapse of a number of Biglaw firms, something that was once nearly unheard of. </p>
<p>EE2JD, there are no guarantees. Salaries are a function of supply and demand, which fluctuate over time, and vary according to local conditions. After you take the LSAT, graduate from college, gain admission to a law school (Ivy League or not), decide what city you wish to practice in, and are close to graduation, our crystal ball readings may become a little clearer.</p>