Starting Salaries Soar for Lawyers

The NYT documents escalating salaries for first year associates at larger New York based firms. It's unclear whether that increase has trickled to other large market areas as well. Seemingly there's a firm by firm decision about starting salaries and whether they should be the same firm-wide, or have premiums based on cost of living. Law firms are interesting with the publicity of the salaries. I have visited the greedyassociates.com website, just out of curiosity a few months back, and I know that to make more money I'll have to stay in a metropolitan city. Good thing that's all I've ever really chosen for myself. Hawaii is not the hotbed for lawyers. I guess the market is smaller and there are fewer large firms out there so salary takes a nose dive. I feel that the longer I am away from New York, no matter how much I miss it, I will become less interested in practicing there. San Francisco is home to a lot of larger firms as well, including a branch of my New York firm. It's time for me to really sit down and analyze what I want out of my career and if the thrill of firm life and a larger paycheck is what I want out of my education. In other news, I think I'd look amazing in that pink skirt suit.