Law students know that they do not live in Lake Wobegon and they know that they cannot all be above average. However, most of the law students who are in the top half of their class (or near) do hope to earn an income that is above average.
Each year the media publishes reports about starting salaries for young lawyers. For example, it was widely reported that last year that the average starting salary for a first year lawyer about $74,000. Further the ”best” law firms were widely reported to pay an average salary of $160,000 to first year lawyers.
In reality the great majority of young lawyers are paid substantially less than average. In 2012 less than 15% of first year lawyers were paid $160,000 or more; About 3% of the young lawyers were paid the “average” salary; and more than 50% were paid between $40,000 and $65,000.
This has created what looks like the Lake Wobegon effect in reverse: The majority of bright, capable young lawyers are feeling under-appreciated and under-compensated because they are being paid less than the “average” salary. We think that is unfortunate.
For further reading, we recommend: Catherine Rampell’s article.