According to William Henderson, lawyer and professor at Indiana University, entry-level salaries have seen a documented decline for three years running.
Starting Salary Findings
Starting Salaries: Classes of 2009, 2010, and 2011
Source: http://www.nalp.org/classof2011_salpressrel
The median starting salary for all employed attorneys in the class of 2011 has dropped to $60,000-from $72,000 only two years earlier.
For example, NALP's press release about the median salary number came with this concluding sentence: "Salary information was reported for 65% of graduates reported to be working full-time in a position lasting at least one year."* If that means 35 percent of such workers with full-time jobs didn't report their salary information, then the published median probably overstates the actual number-perhaps by a lot.
A more detailed breakdown reveals that for the class of 2011, the $40,000 to $65,000 category accounted for 52 percent of all reported salaries.
Compare that to the class of 2009: Two years ago, starting salaries of between $40,000 and $65,000 accounted for 42 percent of reported salaries. Today, more new lawyers are working for less money, but they're still the lucky ones-law graduates who got full-time jobs.
The trend in law firm starting salaries is more dramatic: The median starting salary for law firms of all sizes dropped from $130,000 in 2009 to $85,000 in 2011.
Source: http://www.americanlawyer.com/PubArticleALD.jsp?id=1202563804450&Bad_Numbers_Revealing_.Worse_Trends&slreturn=20121119014946