NPLA Conducts Pay Survey to Increase Pay Transparency in the Plaintiffs’ Bar

Unlike “Big Law,” pay on the plaintiffs’ bar is opaque. Indeed, many students at our member schools believe that plaintiffs’ pay resembles non-profit pay. So, when law students graduate with an average of $130,000-worth of debt, pursuing defense-side work is not only the “easy” choice, but it also appears to be the only financially pragmatic choice.

Many of us who are part of NPLA already know that plaintiffs’ work can pay well, but we have largely gathered that information from our own networks. We want to make this information accessible to any law student. We’ve seen first-hand how our efforts to publicize plaintiffs’ law as a legal career that combines righteous work with good pay has inspired so many students who previously had never heard of plaintiffs’ law.

To that end, if you are a plaintiffs’ attorney, NPLA would greatly appreciate your participation in our anonymous pay survey. Results will be aggregated by geography and practice area before publication, and no attempt will be made to connect survey data back to individual attorneys or firms. As an added incentive to participating, NPLA will only share the results of this survey with attorneys who provide data.

To learn more about why pay transparency in the plaintiffs’ bar benefits all of us, read our white paper.