By MATT CHANDLER
mchandler@bizjournals.com | 716-541-1654

The International Legal Research Group released an analysis of attorney salaries that may surprise those who presume the legal profession is among the nation's top earning fields.

The report analyzed salaries in several categories and compared data collected in 2009 with research from 2000. The data is further broken down to explore salaries of legal support professionals, including paralegals, legal secretaries and office managers.

The Top 10 is a who's who of big cities, including New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles and Boston. Legal professionals in those cities earn more than the national average, but there are still plenty of attorneys in smaller cities such as Knoxville (88 percent of the national average), Lexington (84 percent) and Spokane (last in the nation at 82 percent).

Buffalo was rated the 12th lowest-paying region for a lawyer in the United States, tied with Syracuse.

So how do cities without the big pay and eye-popping bonuses attract and retain the best legal talent?

Legal veterans say it comes down to selling the quality of life, a firm's work environment and the opportunity for growth - what some call the big fish in a small pond opportunity.

Peter Marlette, managing partner of Damon Morey LLP in Buffalo, says his firm can't necessarily match the high salaries of downstate firms. (New York City, for example, leads the nation with salaries topping 141 percent of the national average; White Plains comes in second at 135 percent).

But the cost of living here and other amenities help sell Buffalo to prospective attorneys.

"I know young people who are working in New York City and earning a very good salary," he says. "But they are living out in New Jersey in little places, really struggling to make it because of the cost of living. They come here to Buffalo and see their friends doing really well."

Marlette also disagrees with the notion that top law students flock to the big cities, forcing places such as Buffalo to settle for what they can get.

"There's no question that recruiting presents a challenge for markets like ours," he says. "While we are unable to compete dollar for dollar with other cities, we are still able to attract top talent to Buffalo."

Besides Western New York's civic and cultural offerings, the proximity to Canada and an affordable cost of living, another draw is the hands-on training that Damon Morey can offer young attorneys, he says.

"We can offer that nurturing of our young attorneys that doesn't exist, or doesn't seem to exist, in the dog-eat-dog world of the big-city law firms." he says.

Buffalo has another built-in advantage when it comes to recruiting, he adds: proximity to the UB Law School.

"I think it is a huge advantage," Marlette says. "A lot of the firms have cut out their summer programs, but we have kept ours going and we see tremendous value in bringing those young professionals into the firm."

Marc Davies, meanwhile, is associate director of career services at the UB Law School. He says there are two common scenarios that keep law students in Buffalo, forgoing a potentially larger paycheck elsewhere.

"We see a lot of out-of-town students who come here for school, fall in love with the area and don't want to leave," Davies says. "Then we have the local students who come to UB and they have family and friends nearby, they complete a local internship and they naturally want to settle here."

Another recruitment factor is the fact that students graduating from a state university are carrying significantly less student-loan debt than their peers at private colleges.

"I don't think the pressure and the need to make a large income right away is a driving force in their decision-making," Davies says. "The return on the education investment is high here, and it gives graduates options."

Marlette sees another positive trend.

"There are going to be those students who have the need to pay off those high student-loan obligations, and they may have to go somewhere to pull in that bigger salary," he says.

"But as those loans are starting to be paid down and things are manageable, they start to realize they aren't having a very fulfilling career or lifestyle. And cities like Buffalo and firms like ours become more attractive to them."