The most recent edition of NALP's serial publication, Jobs & JD's, includes the chart excerpted below [click-on to enlarge]. It is the distribution of full-time salaries for all members of the Class of 2006 who reported income data to their respective law school (22,665 graduates). If you were looking for a single graphic to illustrate the most vexing problems facing law firms, law students, and law schools, this would be it. A more dramatic bimodal distribution you will not find.Read the whole thing to get a better understanding of the implications of this chart.
The sample includes--in order of size--private practice (55.8%), business (14.2%), government (10.6%), judicial clerks (9.6%), public interest (5.4%), and other (2.8%). Half of the graduates make less than the $62,000 per year median--but remarkably, there is no clustering there. Over a quarter (27.5%) make between $40k-$55k per year, and another quarter (27.8%) have an annual salary of $100K plus.
If the chart were a flipbook of the last twenty years, the first mode would be relatively stationary, barely tracking inflation, while the second mode would be moving quickly to the right--i.e., the salary wars. In fact, because of the recent jump to $160K in the major markets, the second mode has already moved even more to the right.
Also read these two posts about what kind of job situation students can expect after law school:
(HT Patently-O)
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