Suburban Law Firm Salary

[dste6]

You can hide this advertisement by registering.

I think we should all drop this silly law business. Its a complete waste of our time, spending all day reading and writing...for a mere 100k!? Outrageous. How ever shall we feed our children! Or even our dogs!?
Look at the poor spoodle...for christ's sake man, he needs caviar!

I have the solution: we should all become gastroenterologists. We'll make our 500K+ easily...all we have to do is spend the next 20 years half way up someones ass.

[jtyler]

lol.. what a shock it must be for some people

turns out it's not a good idea to blindly follow "the money" and study something you don't enjoy... who knew...

[cannibal.horse]

Originally Posted by jtyler

lol.. what a shock it must be for some people

turns out it's not a good idea to blindly follow "the money" and study something you don't enjoy... who knew...

I want to throttle those people.

'I did law coz I wasnt sure what I wanted to do and mum said I should pick it coz I had the marks'

There's a girl in my course who's doing law because her parent's made her, she doesn't even want to be at our university...wtf?

The more of them there are the less spoodles to go around, and considering they were too good for spoodles in the first place it makes me mad.

[dste6]

Originally Posted by cannibal.horse

'I did law coz I wasnt sure what I wanted to do and mum said I should pick it coz I had the marks'

That's a prime example of why I agree with the Melbourne Model (shifting law and med to postgrad only) that we have down here. Its not a very popular opinion, and I concede that in part its a money making scheme by Melb Uni.
...but there are alot of high school students that have no business, what so ever, deciding that they want to study law or medicine while they're in year 12.

[cottoneye]

Originally Posted by cannibal.horse

I want to throttle those people.

'I did law coz I wasnt sure what I wanted to do and mum said I should pick it coz I had the marks'

There's a girl in my course who's doing law because her parent's made her, she doesn't even want to be at our university...wtf?

The more of them there are the less spoodles to go around, and considering they were too good for spoodles in the first place it makes me mad.

Unfortunately this is a problem at all universities and all courses. The higher the lay prestige of a university or course the more people who do not know what they want to do will begin the course just to do something. Some may find they enjoy what they study and make a career out of it, some will transfer, some will fail, some will just work in another area. The high rate of law students who have no intention of working in the law or leave after a year or two is indicative of how misunderstood a life in the law is. No-one really knows if they will enjoy or succeed in any field before they try, the difference with law and medicine is you are looking at serious time and financial commitments to have that shot.

[Omnidragon]

Nah I don't quite like the Melbourne Model. A lot of graduates in many industries now have comm/law degrees and they don't go into law. A law degree is just like this extra 'something' to make you more likely to be employed in the financial sector etc.

Btw I agree 100k is not poor. But I still don't think it's that comfortable.

If you earn 100k per year, after tax you can expect around 65-70k. Then you have expenses. Sounds good, but when I think of the nice houses in nice suburbs (I'm not even talking Double Bay/Toorak) at $1.2m or so, it'll take many years to pay that off. So in the meantime you won't really be driving that nice car or going on that many overseas holidays, because that'll really set you back.

Unless you start with a nice lump sum, interest will eat all your money for repayments so really it'll take many many years to pay your house off (5% interest at say 800k debt [assuming you have 400k equity] is 40k per year). You can always try to save more (eg save to 1m) before you buy that 1.2m house. But I'm sure by then that house is probably 3.6m.

[ekoolish]

Originally Posted by Omnidragon

Nah I don't quite like the Melbourne Model. A lot of graduates in many industries now have comm/law degrees and they don't go into law. A law degree is just like this extra 'something' to make you more likely to be employed in the financial sector etc.

Btw I agree 100k is not poor. But I still don't think it's that comfortable.

If you earn 100k per year, after tax you can expect around 65-70k. Then you have expenses. Sounds good, but when I think of the nice houses in nice suburbs (I'm not even talking Double Bay/Toorak) at $1.2m or so, it'll take many years to pay that off. So in the meantime you won't really be driving that nice car or going on that many overseas holidays, because that'll really set you back.

Unless you start with a nice lump sum, interest will eat all your money for repayments so really it'll take many many years to pay your house off (5% interest at say 800k debt [assuming you have 400k equity] is 40k per year). You can always try to save more (eg save to 1m) before you buy that 1.2m house. But I'm sure by then that house is probably 3.6m.

lol, you make life seem so morbid.

[dste6]

you shouldn't be buying $1.2m houses on a 100k salary...

[cannibal.horse]

Originally Posted by ekoolish

lol, you make life seem so morbid.

so much so that he featured in a book about fucked up lawyers

No hate omnidragon.

[cottoneye]

Originally Posted by Omnidragon

Nah I don't quite like the Melbourne Model. A lot of graduates in many industries now have comm/law degrees and they don't go into law. A law degree is just like this extra 'something' to make you more likely to be employed in the financial sector etc.

Btw I agree 100k is not poor. But I still don't think it's that comfortable.

If you earn 100k per year, after tax you can expect around 65-70k. Then you have expenses. Sounds good, but when I think of the nice houses in nice suburbs (I'm not even talking Double Bay/Toorak) at $1.2m or so, it'll take many years to pay that off. So in the meantime you won't really be driving that nice car or going on that many overseas holidays, because that'll really set you back.

Unless you start with a nice lump sum, interest will eat all your money for repayments so really it'll take many many years to pay your house off (5% interest at say 800k debt [assuming you have 400k equity] is 40k per year). You can always try to save more (eg save to 1m) before you buy that 1.2m house. But I'm sure by then that house is probably 3.6m.

If you aspire to live in a Toorak mansion you are right to say that 100k is not alot. Most people however will not earn that much money in a single year for their entire life. It is very easy to get inflated views of expected (and required) salaries off an internet board which presumably attracts students who are more concerned with their education than average.

100k is nearly double the average income in Australia (incomes listed on facebook don't count ). I doubt you would find much sympathy in the public for surviving on a six figure salary. This reminds me of the features in newspapers after every budget when they interview people from across society. Those with annual incomes of 200k+ always talk of struggling to pay the mortgage and put food on the table while the single parent with three kids of 40k talks about maybe taking a driving holiday this year.

Atm my partner and myself live on about 50k p.a. We live in a nice suburb, have a car, and go overseas every year. It just means we have to budget. Even after all uni commitments are over and our annual income doubles overnight we will still do the same things although will start saving more. You do need some money to be happy, but money can't make you happy.

[Omnidragon]

Originally Posted by cannibal.horse

so much so that he featured in a book about fucked up lawyers

No hate omnidragon.

Haha of course not. I rejected the offers from the top-tier firms and eschewed this path anyway. So just trying to help some kids, as well as validate my choices I guess.

But, comedy aside, what I said are really just the facts and figures. It's up to you what you make of them.

[Omnidragon]

Originally Posted by cottoneye

If you aspire to live in a Toorak mansion you are right to say that 100k is not alot. Most people however will not earn that much money in a single year for their entire life. It is very easy to get inflated views of expected (and required) salaries off an internet board which presumably attracts students who are more concerned with their education than average.

100k is nearly double the average income in Australia (incomes listed on facebook don't count ). I doubt you would find much sympathy in the public for surviving on a six figure salary. This reminds me of the features in newspapers after every budget when they interview people from across society. Those with annual incomes of 200k+ always talk of struggling to pay the mortgage and put food on the table while the single parent with three kids of 40k talks about maybe taking a driving holiday this year.

Atm my partner and myself live on about 50k p.a. We live in a nice suburb, have a car, and go overseas every year. It just means we have to budget. Even after all uni commitments are over and our annual income doubles overnight we will still do the same things although will start saving more. You do need some money to be happy, but money can't make you happy.

Yea well $1.2m (the price that I think a $100k salary might struggle to maintain) won't get much in Toorak, so I'm not really suggesting that we should all aspire to live in Toorak.

I guess a lot of it comes down to what you're willing to settle for too. Perhaps I'm setting the bar a bit high. That said, you are renting yea? But can you really buy in a nice suburb with 2 people living off 50k pa?

And yea life can seem morbid sometimes. Personally I'm quite content. But I must say like a lot of you, when I was in uni I was quite optimistic too, but 2 years in corporate makes you be more realistic. The only thing I base my comments on is experience over most of you and the fact that I'm at that age where these matters actually matter to me. I'm not just widly talking about having a career or buying a house.

[cottoneye]

Yes we are renting and would not be able to afford a house in an area where we would like to live at the moment. There is much to be said for renting but I do understand the motivation people have in buying their own home.

Taking this thread back on topic, there seems to be two important things to take note of in this thread (feel free to correct me).

A) Law is unlikely to make a person rich but there is the potential to earn more money in law than in most other careers, although probably not in a suburban setting.

B) You will not be a pauper working in the law, although the salary might not justify the time spent at university when a similar income can be achieved faster in other fields.

[Omnidragon]

Yea agreed with you. I think more people do law these days also because it's 'prestigious.'

[Marmalade.]

After 5-15 years in a large firm, I'm considering working for myself at home. This only occurred to me recently because my parents' lawyer works at home. But what kind of work do they do?