Makes You Wanna' Treat Me with More Respect, Don't It?

Checking my email this morning, I found the daily news digest from Law.com indicating that starting salaries for new associates have been raised by one DC law firm to the lofty height of $180K annually.

One-hundred and eighty thousand dollars per year? For a brand-spanking new attorney fresh from the trials and tribulations of law school?

Wait, I'm one of those aren't I? You mean I'm worth 180 GRAND? (Shhhh, I say to the supervising attorneys giggling in the background).

Please...

I'd like to put that figure in perspective:

One hundred and eighty thousand dollars is more than a Member of Congress makes annually ($165,200) and more than the minimum starting salary in the NFL ($131,000), NHL ($125,000) and MLB ($109,000). It's more than eight times the federal poverty line for a family of four and nearly double what a top tier law school charges for tuition. More importantly, its a number that suggests that the client's money is somehow worth less than the firm's own. After all, it's the clients paying for these salaries, not the partners (find me one partner who wants to take funds out of their annual bonuses to pay new law grads such sums, and I'll show you a partner who's "Of Counsel".)

Now correct me if I'm wrong but isn't the point of being an associate that one has yet to learn enough to participate as a full partner in the practice of law with other lawyers? Is there anyone out there that thinks a first year associate, and I don't care if he or she graduated top of their class at Harvard, knows one single thing about the 'practice' of law?

So why the inflated salary?

In a word, oneupmanship. The firm at issue here, Williams & Connoley, is a DC-based firm that wants to top the New York firms in the salary department. Look at us, aren't we spiffy?

Oh, and there are practicalities at stake too of course. "The firm does not offer end-of-the-year bonuses as most firms do, so it typically compensates by paying higher base salaries."

Ohhhhh... of course.