About 70k dollars. I do German lessons with a German girl who's about to leave her 7 years or so of law school and take her second and final bar exam.

She wants to be a judge, which is one of the German legal jobs (along with prosecutor and biglaw attorney) which requires the best law school grades and (more importantly) bar exam scores.

She mentioned that there's currently a hiring freeze for judges in her German state (Nordrhein Westfalen) so she might have to do biglaw for a year or two. She said in Germany big firm lawyers start around 140k, and she mentioned that was a lot more than judges earn in Germany.

But, with a typical German mindset, she would rather work 9-5 for less money doing a job with a decent lifestyle. This girl is 180 but sadly has a fiancee.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5541307&forum_id=2/#47749939)