Last week, I blogged about the claimed oversupply of lawyers, and I asked whether the tight job market for lawyers meant that consumers would be benefitted by lower prices. Now, Karen Sloan has written this article for the National Law Journal describing a substantial drop in new lawyer salaries. She notes that, according to a July 6 report by the National Association for Law Placement, "the median salary for the class of 2010 in full-time jobs as of February was $63,000 — $9,000 less than the $72,000 median salary reported by the class of 2009. The average salary for the class of 2010 also declined, to $84,111 from $93,454."
On the specific question whether prices have dropped because of the claimed lawyer glut, I received this comment from Mark Aalam, a San Diego bankruptcy lawyer:
As a bankruptcy lawyer in San Diego I can definitely tell you that the flood of new attorneys starting their own bankruptcy practice is causing bankruptcy attorneys fees to go down. Novice attorneys, who sometimes don't know what they are getting themselves into or even what they are doing, are charging ridiculously low rates, which has the impact of forcing the more experienced lawyers to at least partially bring their rates down to close the gap created by the unreasonably (and often miscalculated) low rates.
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