Top Law School or Not at All?

[sallyawp]

<p>In the November/December issue of the ABA magazine dedicated to the Section of Business Law, there is a short but interesting article which I have exerpted below:</p>

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The ballooning salary myth deflates

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<p>

Although those impressive . . . starting salaries of $160,000 aren’t false, they are rare, and reserved mostly for firms with 500 lawyers or more – not the first job for the vast majority of law school graduates.

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<p>

While 90.7 percent of last year’s graduates were employed within nine months, 80 percent of them were working for firms with fewer than 100 lawyers and the majority of graduates end up at firms with 10 lawyers or less. Taking into consideration location, most lawyers in private practice can expect to earn . . . between $40,000 and $45,000 their first year.

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<p>What is most interesting to me is that nine months after graduation, almost ten percent of law school graduates have no job at all – not even a contract position, a document review position or a paralegal position. That is frightening for someone who is considering taking out even $50,000 in student loans.</p>