America is one of the first countries where the Universities really starting pumping out law students, as is now happening in South Africa, and that is now resulting in salary slides.  In fact, they say one of the reasons that salaries having slid even more than they should do, is that companies are afraid of losing face if they reduce the salaries of attorneys too much. 

Other things that the companies complain about, to quote the New York Times, are “Talk to just about any partner at any major law firm, though, and they will tell you that first year associates know basically nothing when they start out.  Plus, a tiny fraction of the new grads they hire and train intensively actually stick around to become partners 7 or so years later.”  The benefit though is that those earning the top salaries in the major firms who are expected work 80 to 100 hours a week but those on the lesser salaries and new attorneys, while earning considerably less, mainly work 40 hours a week, which is considered to be the absolute minimum amount of work that a lawyer can do.  In my own experience, lawyers in South Africa typically, apart from those in the bigger firms, don’t work very much more than 40 hours, so I think most attorneys would struggle to keep up with working double that a week.  Personally, I typically work about 60 hours a week, but I guess that is expected that a company boss would work longer hours.