Would you sell your soul for 160k a year?
On of my friends doing corporate law in Oxford is set to graduate next year. He told me the other night that the starting pay for a lawyer in the US is $160k.
….
That’s just sick. I thought my compensation was decent, but it really really pales in comparison to $160k. Damn all those median salary surveys! They never pegged lawyers at such a high earnings bracket. =(
I don’t know if I would have done law had I known you’d earn this much… but now I’ll never know. I mean, that’s just the starting pay! Obviously I love consulting, and I know I will really have a blast at my new job – but who is to say I wouldn’t have liked being a lawyer? I dunno, and it bothers me.
I guess the grass is always greener on the other side. I mean for corporate law, you’re dealing with contracts, reading the fine print etc. And that is mighty boring-sounding to me. So I most probably would not have liked it, and thus wouldn’t have chosen that career path.
But then again, $160k STARTING SALARY? That would take me YEARS to reach, I think.
What about you guys? Would you sell your soul/ do something not so interesting, for $160k?
P.S. If you’re a lawyer please don’t be offended. What is super boring for me can be fun to you, and that’s ok… in fact, you’re the one who will be earning $160K so there really isn’t any reason for you to get offended.
I make 25% of that working for an environmental non-profit and am very happy – no way would I suffer in a miserable job for the money.
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I think your friend may be “stretching” it a bit. Perhaps where he is interning, I assume being just out of college he is interning, the pay is very, very generous but I tend to doubt it. My daughter is a paralegal and had been an executive legal secretary for a long time before that. She also handled the payroll for a very olarge and prestigeous firm in this area and none of the beginnine attorney’s received a salary anywhere near that. Most of the time they are paid according to “time” spent on cases. Some may receive a stipend to sort of help them through the slim starting years. Perhaps if your friend is some sort of genius and can outdo the best layers in the country he just might, might I say, have been granted a larger stipend than most but I truly doubt it. Definitely not 160K for a ‘starting salary’, no way. So don’t feel bad. 🙂
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