Forbes: BC Law private median salary $77,200; not $160,000
Mar 25, 2011
14 Comments
Boston College Law School reports its median salary for the private sector as $160,000. However, according to Forbes, this figure (along with similar figures from many other top law schools) is grossly misleading. They put it extremely bluntly:
Students are going to school with the idea of a big payback, but typically borrow over $100,000 to attend a private law school compared to $70,000 ten years ago according to the American Bar Association. A very small percentage of them will make $160,000 after graduation.
How misleading are we talking? Well, according to their report, there was not a single law school that actually had a starting (within the first two years) median salary of $160,000. There were only three law schools with a figure above $125,000.
Columbia Law School came in at the top of the pack with $157,000. Boston University Law School came in below Boston College with $75,800. See the full results here.
Who posted this article?
Forbes collected this data from PayScale, which requires self-reporting by law school graduates. And likely requires self-classification as to sectors of employment. There is zero indication of how many graduates of any given law school actually volunteered that information to PayScale to know how accurate any of that salary data is.
I’m not saying I really think that the average starting salary in the private sector is $160K/year, but obviously it depends heavily on what qualifies as “private” and what doesn’t.
If anything, it does show that BC and other law schools need to do better at tracking where their students are going and what they are earning. Since $160K is the maximum any first year attorney in biglaw is making (as base salary excluding bonus), it doesn’t take much of a math whiz to figure out that number is inaccurate.
I dare say if you can’t figure that out as a law school applicant, you probably are entering the wrong career. Not that that should give law schools a pass for offering misleading information. But as a consumer, before spending $180,000, you should probably do your homework.
Also, law school applications were down this year. So maybe a few years of a bad economy is opening people’s eyes to the racket of law schools.
A plague on all law school’s houses. Finally someone exposes those “extremely, extremely accurate” pay scale statistics on law schools’ websites. We need to bring the “The 3L” back to sue law schools in a class action for fraudulent inducement.
Forbes used an incredibly small sample size for this article, one website. In addition, the article doesn’t disclose how many graduates’ salaries they looked at. I can’t trust any findings this article made. They fail to disclose crucial information.
How much more reliable are Career Services’ figures? Do they disclose the “crucial information?” I am not asking these as rhetorical questions; I would genuinely like to know.
I’m sure if you bothered to go into Career Services and ask for this information, it would be available. Or if Eagleionline would like to report on that information, someone could go figure out where CS gets their figures.
Yes they do. Career services tells you what percentage of graduates reported their salary. Whereas here we have no clue how many graduates’ salaries they looked at. They could have looked at 2 people, 100, or 20. We have no idea.
I’d imagine career services actually also keeps a list of where graduates go to work (for those who do report – keeping in mind none of us are required to tell them anything about our salary or employment status) for those so interested in seeing where BCLS grads get jobs.
Then again, in my experience, law students would rather bitch and moan than go ask about anything.
A law school grad here (different Boston law school but same lies) with no love for law school, the industry, etc. SCAM! And yet the folks in power can outright lie and not go to jail or even get sued for fraud, mispresentation, falsification of official records, etc.? Nah, unacceptable. No law grads’ median was ever six figures. And with outsourcing approved by the ABA and other bar associations, the crushing debt and lies are making law grads and experienced attorneys reap a terrible whirlwind. Law schools, profs, administrators, bar associations, and their ilk are bottomfeeders and have perpetuated this lie for decades now.
I understand a median salary of “$77,200″ as it makes sense that below a certain income threshold, there can be wide variation in terms of market rates — there’s a bimodal graph of the various post-law school 1st year incomes with a huge spike/mode at 160k and then another much smaller spike with significant variation lower on the scale.
However, is anyone else bothered by a “median” income of $157,000, for Columbia? Someone at Columbia is being paid $157,000? Isn’t it either $160k or something much lower (or higher)?
Perhaps the source at PayScale confused “median” with “average/mean”?
The fact is the law schools knew the information they were receiving and publishing (in their own materials and through magazines) was completely inaccurate. So either they turned a blindeye or actively encouraged people to rely on the falsehoods. A school I know still says the median private salary is $160,000 out of school with over 90% employed! Really?! In this economy?! I’m calling that a flatout lie.
People took out loans, in part, based on the return on investment (median salary a key factor in that). The ABA, administrators, profs, Big Law (that prospers through outsourcing and other tactics) all loved it because it worked for them. Too bad tens of thousands of experienced and new attorneys suffer because the market is flooded, the ABA and others destroyed the profession through outsourcing approval, and other games. If the ABA (which doesn’t represent the vast majority of attorneys, only a small group in Big Law) and law schools who love to profess ethical behavior can’t regulate themselves and/or be sued, prosecuted, well, then they need to step aside and let all the people who have been screwed regulate the system. Oh, if anyone in any law school tells students they need to “network” harder to land a gig, ask them what they have been doing and why the law degree has become virtually worthless (especially when the ABA allows individuals in other countries who never attended US law schools or had to pass bar exams to now perform US legal work for pennies).
BC still advertises those figures on its website – FYI. At least with regard to the “private” sector. But as I mentioned above – has anyone asked what is meant by the “private” sector? The website provides almost not information that actually explains what any of these categories mean.
That said, if you were going to buy a house, or even an expensive car, you’d probably want to know everything you could about it. So frankly the only people to blame are the students borrowing $125K in just tuition without actually saying, I want to see what backs up these figures. I have sympathy for those of us graduating this year (and the class ahead and maybe even behind us) because we were unaware that the market was changing. But anyone going to law school today without doing their research is an idiot. Though realistically, it might make sense to borrow money, hide away for three years and pray the economy recovers. It isn’t like there are a ton of jobs out there for people with a bachelor’s degree.
And I question the idea that the market has permanently shifted. The big law law firms still seem to be hiring in similar numbers as they have the last few years and most that had lowered salaries have returned to market (which is still $160K in most major cities, including Boston). My friends and former classmates who are attorneys in biglaw seem to be as busy as ever. I’m not convinced the market has dramatically changed. There is just now an oversupply of attorneys looking for work because of the three years of depressed hiring patterns, all with an increase in law school attendance. I am hopeful that with law school applications and LSAT test takers declining, it’ll correct itself in time.
That of course doesn’t forgive misleading statistics by law schools. But at the end of the day, I haven’t seen any sued for it either.
The legal game has changed forever starting in 2008 with ABA decision to allow outsourcing. This not only affects doc review (once the bread-and-butter) for large law firm associates, but also extends to contract drafting and other areas. With 150+ law schools, more schools being accredited, the situation will not improve. Even US Attorney Offices are offering the “privilege” of working 1 full-year without pay as a Special AUSA (multiple districts across the USA) with no relocation and barred from working elsewhere during that time or applying after the term. After that person is done, they can “hire” the next one. The situation will not improve. Internships (basically working for free with the hope they might hire you), decreasing salaries, and many other factors have caused massive decline.
Private sector = anything the law school defines it as. And as for getting information, obviously law schools shade the info. Unless you have a public school and can file a FOIA request for the info., students’ only remedy is a fraud suit, otherwise the law school has no obligation to reveal anything (unless of course trustees and others don’t think fraud in higher education should be tolerated by anyone).
Law school applications are down 11.5% from last year, more law schools notwithstanding. And realistically the law schools being added and the students matriculating in those schools are not competing with you for any jobs. I think you overestimate doc review as the bread and butter and while certainly if firms actually do start to outsource, things might change, but there is little evidence firms are doing this on any dramatic scale.
I think the only thing that has dramatically changed is the demand. Not the structure of law firms or the payscale. Almost all biglaw firms are back to market for pay. No one is arguing there aren’t fewer jobs out there. But there is zero indication the way they do business is dramatically shifted. They are just hiring fewer attorneys each year fresh out of law school. As a result of these declining opportunities, law school applications are on the decline. The reality is we all ended up in law school when this happened. But in five years, the market will have corrected itself.
Yes, obviously private sector = anything the law school defines it as. But as a potential student, maybe you should ask what exactly that definition is. If the law school is unwilling to explain their figures, that should be a red flag to anyone not to go there. If someone is willing to throw $120K away without asking any questions, it is no wonder law schools aren’t being open at the outset. Seems like a pretty lucrative racket to me. But you’re just as much to blame for giving them the money as they are for taking it.