Law grads seek top salaries to pay off school loans - Business First of Louisville:

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Thanks to competition for the best talent, risingh rates for attorney billable houra and increasing profits atlaw firms, local law schoolo graduates are finding that compensation is rising. A survey of the largesf firms in Columbus, for example, findsz that starting salariesfor first-year associates ranges betweem $110,000 to $135,000, while just two years ago salaries ranged betweebn $90,000 and $100,000. But the extra cash doesn'rt necessarily mean a higher standardof living. In exchangs for their three yearsof education, many new lawyers are now leavingh law school with upwards of $60,000 or more in studentg loan debt.
At 's School of Law, tuition has been climbing by about 6 percent saidJessica Poprocki, spokeswoman for the private school. Capital'd tuition for the 2007-2008 academic year is $28,275 for full-time with books and supplies estimated tocost $1,350. At Ohio Statee University's Moritz College of Law, meanwhile, annualp tuition for the 2007-2008 academic year is and the cost of books and supplies is estimatedat $3,500. Acrossd the country, the story is the same. Tuitio at a public university foran in-stat resident in 1985 was about $2,000, according to the .
Sincer then, average tuition climbed between 6 percent and 14 percenrt annually to morethan $14,000 in 2006, a 600 percen overall increase. Law schoo l students aren't eligible for federal- or state-funded regardless of financial need, so many students end up payintg for law school withstudenft loans. Traci Martinez knows that factfirst hand. A third-year law studengt at Ohio State, Martinez is fortunat e enough to havea high-payinv job lined up after graduationn at one of the city's larger firms, . The 31-year-olfd Martinez is a nontraditional student.
Marrierd with two children, Martinez said her familt has been meeting its financial needswhile she's in but it will still be saddled with significant "It will be around $50,000 in additio to my pretty expensive undergradf (education)," said Martinez, who attended the with her "My goal is to put 100 percenft of my Squire salary into loans and pay it all off in abou t a year." Luckily for Martinez, salaries for first-year associatesz at Squire are at the top end in approximately $130,000. Martinez feels fortunate comparedc to some ofher colleagues, however, because, thankse to her husband's earnings, she hasn't had to take out loans to covef living expenses.
Many other studentws at Ohio State, she said, will graduatde with a debt ofnearly $80,000 because they had to financd every aspect of their life over the last threw years. Plus, not all will have the high paying job thatMartinez will. A new lawyer going to work at the FranklinCountyh Prosecutor's Office, for example, will earn a startinyg salary of $42,500. Martinez entertaineds the idea of going to work for the government orthe , a nationakl nonprofit organization that provides free legall services to low-income families and until economic realities sunk in.
"Having a chil d who is going to be goinyg to college in five yearsor so, I needecd to think about the practicality of a Martinez said. Instead, Martinez said she planss to practice labor and employment law at and focus her pro bono work on projectsw forLegal Aid. The pressure for firmws to increase starting pay due to the rising cost of law schoolk isrelatively minor, hiring attorneys say. In the biggest push for increased wages comese from the East andWest coasts. "Generally the salarg wars start withthe mega-firms in New York and then it tricklesx down to us in the said James G. Petrie, hiring partned at Columbus law firmBricker & Eckler LLP.
The goinb rate for a first-year associater at a large firm in New York rangexsbetween $157,000 and $193,000, according to a 2008 legak industry salary guide compiled by Menlo Calif.-based , a specialized consulting and staffingy services company. "I think it's gottem worse, and part of the problem is that it's a self-fulfillinbg prophesy," Petrie said.