First year as a lawyer SALARY

[hasskassem]

hi just wondering what my salary would be for a first year lawyer in melbourne? Undergrad or JD. does it make a difference?

[dcc]

One million dollars.

[Water]

1 million dollars with 200,000 dollars bonus as a first year lawyer fresh from university. The world is your oyster mate, pursue the lawyer dream.

[Frozone]

I don't think you should worry about first year salary so much. First year graduates generally don't get paid too much generally because of the lack of experience.
But if you are persistent you could pm ninwa.

[excal]

Significantly less than you'd expect.

[charmanderp]

If you sign with Pearson Specter you'll receive $25,000 as a starting bonus.

[clıppy]

If you sign with Pearson Specter you'll receive $25,000 as a starting bonus.

What if we didn't did go to Harvard?

[brenden]

Quit the rubbish ITT.

[ninwa]

Ya know, there's a LAW FAQ thread stickied RIGHT IN THIS FORUM, and the answer to your question is at the very top of that post...

Update: please read this news article - if you are considering law for the money, look elsewhere

Update 2: Australia's top law firms are offering graduate positions to less than half, and sometimes less than a quarter, of their clerks. To be a clerk at a top tier law firm means that you are amongst the very top of your graduating cohort. Yet, most of them still can't get a graduate job.

If you're looking to study law in the next couple of years, please keep the state of the job market in mind. It is no longer "law degree = cruise into high flying career, money, hookers and blow". There are far too many law students for the jobs that are available and it is very, very tough.

Be prepared to work your ass off. Be prepared to spend a long time working your way up from the very lowest rungs of the ladder. Don't do law just because you have the ATAR for it. You're wasting years, money and sanity.

Here's the same idea, repeated by a national law firm recruiter.

Most lawyers are not wealthy. This is because there are so many law graduates out there looking for a job that salaries do not have to be competitive, because law firms know that if one person turns down that minimum-wage graduate lawyer job, there will be another 100 graduates lining up to take it.

A friend recently signed a 3-year contract as a graduate lawyer for what works out to be approximately $19/hour. He works 8:30am to 7pm every day. It's not even a big firm, it's a tiny little place with 8 employees but he signed that contract because he spent 7 years of his life becoming a lawyer and the bills needed to be paid and he had no other choice.

Exception: if you go for one of the larger firms. But you will need brilliant marks plus a highly impressive CV, and be willing to have no social life for a decade or so until you make partner.

Finally, judging by your investment banker post your only concern is money. Can I strongly suggest you come up with some other reasons for choosing a career path. If you choose a course just for the money, you are going to have a miserable time. And IMO, you would deserve every single bit of that misery.

[lynt.br]

Obviously depends on a combination of factors, such as the State you work in, the size of the firm you work for, the financial health of that firm and the state of the legal market more broadly, whether you are male or female etc..

As a very rough guide, you might find this report helpful from page 96 onwards. The numbers seem to be consistent with other websites I have seen.

TLDR version:

• For a graduate at a top-tier firm (however they have defined this), in the ballpark of $55-70k
  
• For a graduate at a mid-tier firm (however they have defined this), in the ballpark of $45-65k
  
• For a graduate in a small practice (however they have defined this), in the ballpark of $30 to $50k
  

With capacity for benefits on the side, although most grads won't be paid bonuses.

They don't list public sector starting salaries for lawyers in the report but they would most likely be at the lower end of the scale.

I doubt there is any difference between starting salaries for JD and LLB students.

Hope that helps.