Posted on 06/14/2021 1:42:51 PM PDT by ChicagoConservative27
It used to be that personal injury lawyers working on contingency fees got 33 1/3 % of the settlement. Now the lawyers here (Las Vegas) are advertising that they will not take more than 50 % of the settlement. What a deal!
$200k in NYC can’t go very far I would think?
Good for these young lawyers. Make all you can but many will live in NY or CA where cost of living is ridiculous.
Is there a lawyer shortage I’m unaware of?
Of course $200k is a big number...living in NYC, though, is very very expensive. Even with the economic hit it has taken by its moron leadership.
Yep. Working 80 hours a week as glorified paralegals and touching nearly every case in the office while the partners decide whether or not you've got the goods.
For the first five years after each one of them graduated from law school and went to work for big law firms, they ALL gave me variations of the following two statements every time I asked them about their careers:
1. "I hate my job."
2. "This is the most pointless work the human mind ever invented. I could have done this job effectively at the age of 14."
—”They drive their associates like they stole them.”
Reading this article and thinking things must have changed?
Some years back a guy that worked for me was a former attorney, yes passed the bar...About five years before he gave it up.
When asked he always said, “It just was not what I thought it would be.” He was asked that question many times.
200K is over twice what his position pays today, but it is almost always 9-5.
High end corporate starts ware making about 100k in 1980. So 200k doest look so remarkable 40 years later.
Inflation hurts us
These are the creme de la creme of the top rated law schools. The overwhelming majority are scrambling to find work in the legal field.
What about the firm of Dewey, Cheathem and Howe?
_____________________________________
We call the firm: Dewey Sue’em and How.
I am not willing to give up my life for $200K. I’ve read too many Gresham books.
“...n Minneapolis invited a number of us up to his firm’s offices in downtown. They had a large balcony area where we were watching multiple July 4th fireworks all across the city.”
___________________________________
That must have been the same 4th of July that I was invited to the top of the Calhoun Beach Club, and we stepped out to see fireworks all across the metro. We looked West and North. Maybe you saw me!!!
These are salaries for big law attorneys, which means attorneys in the top 10% of their class or from top-14 law schools. Those who wind up with those jobs have horrible lives. The hours suck, the work sucks and the pressure is intense.
Corporate lawyers negotiate and document multi-million dollar deals. Why is that any less important than litigating? You are comparing apples to oranges.
If the French fryer gets $17 an hour, then I should get $102 an hour. Isn’t that how wage inflation works. I mean, if I could make the same money doing some menial task like throwing fries in a basket, then why would I choose to do anything more complex? Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free?
Yeah but, you have to live in New York.........
Would this be a good place to add that I am a lawyer (I don’t practice) and that back when I did it was corporate law?
Everybody who commented in this thread is correct. Associate attorneys get driven like cattle by the firms they work for. I know I was. 75 hours is a light week. 85 is more like it. At 60 or even 65 hours a week you still have a life. Not at 85. Plus, $200,000 sounds like a lot but divide by 2 when comparing it to the rest of America - yes NYC is that expensive. Yes, I know because I lived in NYC and was bar certified in NY.
Did I mention that the job is not only long hours it is BORING drudgery? You have no life. You just read over contracts, cross reference with other contracts, look up case law on this or that term in the contracts, etc etc. You don’t even get to meet the clients, travel anywhere, do anything remotely fun or exciting. There is a reason why more than half of law school grads do not practice law and why the profession has one of the highest rates of career changing of any profession.
I would not accept an offer to do that job for twice what they’re paid.
It’s nice to hear another’s viewpoint who “lived there done that”
We need more scumbag lawyers like we need a hole in the head. The Judicial system is a big part of the downfall of the Republic.
That used to be the case, and it may still be the case in the ugly metros, but outside the metros where the other half lives, after 40 years of the pedal floored on passing through "unqualified" law students, those "unqualified" struggle openly upon graduation, while their schtruggle has actually made it easier for the rest, ie, a good young lawyer is harder to find precisely because of affirmative action.
That is why lawyers insist on perpetuating their 40-year circle jerk...
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