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Comment by xphilter | Hacker News Reader

With respect, this comment is wrong in so many places. “High five figures” is not a lot of money considering the opportunity cost (and actual cost of a law degree) (7 years and likely $200,000 all in). The 1 in 4 figure is not close to right either—it’s typically fewer than 1 in 10 get the actually high paying jobs outside of t-14 schools. And I’m glad commenter likes the grind, but most lawyers that I’ve worked with over the years are miserable and drink too much, regardless of school and rank. Sounds like a serious case of survivor bias. This article is closer to reality: https://www.wsj.com/articles/law-school-student-debt-low-sal...

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I don't see how high 5 figures is not high salary. 100k is literally double the average salary for the US, and 3 times the median wage. And a lot of people earning the median are also deep in student debt. If earning 3 times the median is not good money, maybe your view of what "good money" means something else.

The lawyer median wage is 125k, and the 75 percentile is 186k. I consider 186k to be a high wage, it's 6 times the national mean wage. And according to the sources below, 1 in 4 lawyers are above that.

Median wages https://www.bls.gov/ooh/legal/lawyers.htm

Lawyer wages https://money.usnews.com/careers/best-jobs/lawyer/salary

I am sorry, but I just don't see how the commenter above is wrong, the numbers say he is spot on. But anyway, I am not a lawyer, and I am not trying to be disrespectful, but I see a lot of high earners in many fields that complain having small wages and tough life, but when you compare it from the outside, it doesn't look so bad. For example, the guy in your article:

  said Dylan Boigris, a 2016 Miami Law graduate, who began his career making about $45,000 as a public defender

Making 50% more than the median right out of college, I would say that is pretty good, don't you think? And he is a low percentile, because in your article:

  Graduates who finished law school in 2019 earned a median $72,500 the following year,

Then your article goes to show earning vs debt on a graph. I think it's quite an expectation to have your annual earning cover the cost of the entire law degree...and then bemoan when it doesn't. How many other professions have this luxury?

Lumping your comparison to include people without high school degrees with lawyers is making a huge mistake. At a minimum the comparison should be between collage graduates and lawyers minus the opportunity cost of law school.

Consider, when comparing starting salary your accountant or whatever not only makes money in both years a lawyer is in law school they also likely have two raises before the lawyer gets his first paycheck and start paying back undergrad loans while a lawyer is still adding interest and new debt.

If your opportunity cost from loans, tuition, lost wages and delayed carrier advancement adds up to a conservative 10k/year after taxes for the rest of your life, then your 72k pre tax lawyer is actually making the equivalent of ~58k pre tax and 1/2 of starting Layers are doing worse than that.

Also factor in cost of living and rent. That ~$72k is not going to fly in SF or NY after rent if you are trying to start a family and not have 3 roommates.

I don't see how this is relevant. Of course lawyers must make more in a HCOL to make ends meet, but how is this different than any other profession? Are there significantly more lawyers in HCOL areas?

The demographic you refer to are renters because their debt to income ratio is not sufficient for a mortgage. After going to law school, having to scrape by and pay back student loan debt + HCOL rent is how you are entering your adult life with a law degree. Your entry level salary is still depressed relatively speaking to an entry level software dev in HCOL area. If your spouse is not the breadwinner you are in trouble.

I still fail to see the reasoning here. Most other young professionals are in the same boat: debt out of college, smallish starting salaries, renting, HCOL areas.

Lawyers have higher salaries than most other professions, though. They are 10% better paid than software developers. We have a huge amount of really well paid developers in SF, Seattle and NYC, and lawyers still have a higher median salary.

https://www.bls.gov/ooh/legal/mobile/lawyers.htm

https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/...

Thanks I see where you are coming from. All things considered you can make a great life out of a law career if you are driven and motivated, like you said the ceiling is much higher for law than general population jobs

not everyone who's a lawyer can be an accountant and vice versa.

Sure, but the job was irrelevant substitute librarian or anything other than unemployed and the opportunity cost still exists. IMO, the comparison is still quite generous as it ignores risks associated with trying to become a lawyer.

> 100k is literally double the average salary for the US, and 3 times the median wage.

I'm not sure what source you're using, but no, it isn't even double the median US salary ($56k): https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_nat.htm

It's good money, don't get me wrong, but it's not immediately worth it if you spend $200k paying for law school.

Edit: I misread the data above, but I'm finding similar numbers from other sources, so I guess it depends on where you look. Regardless, you're correct in your overall point, I just wanted to point out that a $100k salary does not necessarily make it worth going to law school.

With that said, you're right: if your goal is to go into law to make money, it shouldn't be very difficult earn well into the six figures a few years in. I imagine most competent lawyers earning less than that are working in public defense or a similarly underpaid aspect of law, knowing the tradeoff. For reference, the median salary for software engineers is only $110k, but that is clearly on the low end of what a competent engineer can make after even just 5 years in the industry.

That’s “Annual mean wage” not median wage.

Oops, you're right, I completely misread. Thanks! In any case, I'm finding a lot of conflicting data, so at best I think the actual number depends on where you look.

>> Graduates who finished law school in 2019 earned a median $72,500 the following year

The number I want to see his how much their salaries increased after law school, what they made over and above their pre-lawyer income. At law school I ran into many students who "earned" lots of family money prior to school. Some were on trust funds but other had token jobs in family firms. One of the top earners in our class was a guy hired immediately by his father's firm, but I think he was already some form of on-paper employee with them prior to law school too. Other people came from relatively stable jobs prior, only to struggle to find work afterwards.

There's a problem with your post: you linked to "median lawyer pay" but many graduates will not get lawyer jobs. Median lawyer pay doesn't include folks with a law degree who went back to whatever they were doing before law school.

The vast majority of folks earning “high five figures” don’t have to waste three years on dubious education at a cost of $50k per year (not including debt for living expenses because you can’t work your first year at all). So you’re right, high five figures could be a great salary if you’re a manager of a target and didn’t go to law school, but it’s a bad salary if you had to go to law school to get it.

There are a lot of people with 4 year graduate degrees (with same cost) that earn less.

Right. And those are bad too.

Source?

$45k is right on the median for a college graduate.

For perspective: https://www.federalpay.org/military/army

Army Captain. Someone with a degree and a few years in the job. Someone in command of perhaps 50 people. A federal employee. The sort of person who most Americans would consider solidly middle class.

Base monthly pay = $6,023

There is a contingent in tech (and probably other areas like Wall Street) that is absolutely delusional about what most people consider comfortable middle class--or even upper middle class--salaries.

Those same people probably disagree about an army captain being middle class. Some would say that any public employee short of a presidential appointment is per se something below middle class. The average congressman or senator, the people on TV making all the decisions, are paid 175k/year. The president is paid 400k. Such people normally have other private income streams but that is the base pay. So anyone talking about "low six figures" as "middle class" really needs to take their head out of the sand.

It's either regional differences where people pretend that the exception is the rule [0] or rich people pretend to be "middle class" because that way the middle class will vote for the benefits of rich people.

[0] I can't afford a $2 million house, therefore I am not middle class if don't earn at least $200k.

I have not served, but my sense is that there are some additional factors at play:

* If you are deployed, I believe there may be some tax advantages?

* You may get combat pay

* Don't you still get a pension? And free/subsidized healthcare, even after you leave?

* Does a captain typically pay for housing?

All that said, your point is taken. However, I'm not sure anyone is joining the US Army to get rich.

Doesn't the army give housing and food allowances? Do you even pay anything if you live and eat on base?

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