lawyer currency
The Reality of a graduating law student
<p>How likely is it (without the 100s of variables that come into play) that a person gets his J.D from a 2nd Tier University and gets paid $250 an Hour within the first 3 years of working? </p>

<p>It would probably be very easy for a third-year associate to find someone willing to pay him $250 to spend an hour fighting a traffic ticket.</p>

<p>But if you're talking about a full-time job practicing law with a base salary equal to $250/hour, I'll go out on a limb and say the chances are literally zero.</p>

<p>That rate works out to about $520,000 annually, and there is probably not a firm in the world paying that much to third-year associates. Even among the highest-paying firms, the average is closer to $200K, which puts you at $96/hour. The highest associate pay I've hard of is about $330K, and that's for associates at the top of an <em>eight</em>-year pay schedule.</p>

<p>And of course, if you're at a top-paying law firm, you're working closer to 60 hours a week than 40. And if you're at the top of their payscale, you're probably closer to 80 hours than 60. So even at $330K, you're still only at about $105/hour. Luckily, these firms often offer very handsome bonuses, but even if you were somehow pulling down $330K for only 40 hours a week, you'd need a $190,000 bonus to get yourself to $250/hour.</p>

<p>For lawyers, at least, this does not happen. Anywhere. If it did, it would not happen to a third-year associate. If it did, it would not happen to a third-year associate from a second-tier law school.</p>

<p>(It is not at all uncommon for a third-year associate to <em>charge</em> $250/hour, but that associate is not getting paid all or even most of that money.)</p>
