Law School Graduates of 2022 Experience Record-High Salaries Amid Booming Market

Pieter Gunst03 mins

In a noteworthy trend, 2022 saw stellar financial rewards for law school graduates. Data from the National Association for Law Placement (NALP) reveals that the median starting salary reaches a new high at $85,000, a 6.3% increase from 2021’s $80,000.

The professional prospects for these graduates just took an upturn, as per the job roles. Average salaries at legal firms climbed by 14.1% to reach $150,000, soaring from the previous year’s $131,500. The public-interest jobs weren’t left behind with the median remuneration going up to $62,000, up from $58,000 the year before.

The report churned out some other outstanding statistics as well:

  1. The employment rate saw a marginal increase from 91.9% (Class of 2021) to 92.1% (Class of 2022); this is the highest recorded rate since 1987, which was slightly better at 92.2%.
  2. Graduates taking up positions that either required or were likely to require bar passage grew by 1.7 percentage points to reach 79.9%; this development claims an all-time high since 2001 when NALP commenced the practice of the present job classifications.
  3. The private practice sector observed a 1 percentage point increase in employment, accommodating 58.0% of the employed graduates, making it a 20-year high.
  4. Only 7.8% of employed graduates from the Class of 2022 were seeking job changes; this marks a record low.

However, the soaring job market and salary trend may not stick around for long. As pointed out by Nikia L. Gray, executive director of the NALP, the ongoing market conditions accelerated the Class of 2022’s outcomes, oftentimes breaking employment and salary records. Alas, these favorable times can hardly be expected to last. Gray cautioned that 2023 has already started showing signs of a contracting legal market, marked with news of associate layoffs and delayed start dates. It signifies that we might be looking at a brief market correction following the pandemic recovery, suggesting a possibly more challenging or perhaps just an average job market for future graduates.

Read the full report for additional information.