Law School Grads Hitting Pay Dirt

The booming economy is resulting in a windfall for top-notch law school graduates.

For the first time, law firms operating in California are offering six-figure salaries to their first-year associates.

Robert Major, a partner in Major, Hagen & Africa, a legal recruiting firm in San Francisco, said stiff competition for young lawyers is driving up first-year pay.

Keker & Van Nest, a San Francisco law firm headed by former Iran-Contra prosecutor John W. Keker, is offering new hires $102,000, the highest starting salary at a California firm. This year, Keker plans to hire eight graduates straight out of law school.

“Rather than fight [the higher pay], we’ve decided to put ourselves in front of this race for the cream of the crop,” said Keker, who earned $14,000 in his first job after clerking for former Chief Justice Earl Warren in 1970. “This is a great time to be a young lawyer.”