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If the government reports that the median annual salary for lawyers is over $100,000, is it really so unreasonable to expect a mid career annual six figure salary?

edit: heres the link

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Came here for Black Label Society.

This has been discussed a million times. But there's a bi-modal salary distribution, so the median isn't all that useful.

Ya of course graduating from any lawl school with a JD guarantees you a six-figure paycheck and official baller $tatu$.

Napt wrote:Ya of course graduating from any lawl school with a JD guarantees you a six-figure paycheck and official baller $tatu$.

i think you could make the argument that reaching six figures isnt exactly baller status nowadays.

cinephile wrote:This has been discussed a million times. But there's a bi-modal salary distribution, so the median isn't all that useful.

i have heard that before so i did a quick google search of it. according to this person,the bimodal distribution does not mean anything. since the median annual salary is $113,000, this still means that 50% of lawyers make this much or more. is he lying?

http://volokh.com/2010/07/25/the-bimoda ... awyer-pay/

"quote:

"Thus, claims that most lawyers can expect to earn “somewhere between $30,000 and $60,000 a year” are misleading at best.

Second, the data for the Class of 2009 are taken from a year that saw the worst economic downturn in some 30 years. In such a period, employment prospects and salaries tend to be down in almost every profession. The relevant time horizon for lawyers, however, is the entire 30 to 40 year period of their expected career. On that score, it is difficult to make any precise forecasts. Still, the continued growth in the scope and complexity of law suggest that the demand for legal services is likely to rise. The demand for lawyers is inevitably closely tied to the growth of government and law."

i would not be surprised if a decent portion of "shitlawyers" eventually climb over 100k especially if they are business-savvy and sales-y. For example, real estate attorney closing costs can be over $1,000. Pop out a few of those per week and you are probably looking at 100k already.

That bimodal chart shows ENTRY level statistics does it not? OP was referring to mid-career. If after 15-20 years of practing law you still can only drum up $40,000 worth of business then that's another thing entirely. Stop worrying about entry level stats. Worry instead about MINIMIZING DEBT as much as possible.

It's not like, at the lower end of the biomodal spectrum, you graduate and the market "says" here's 40,000 dollars you may never make any more. Obviously, in the long run, it can depend on tons of factors. I think it's pretty hard to generalize lawyer pay long term.

there are so many of these "shit law" firms around where I live. it seems like every time I leave my house I find a small 5-15 person firm that I didn't know was there before. it would be surprising to find out that the majority of them are paying their experienced associates in the 30,000 - 60,000 range.

If you think about it, the lawyers who make money are more likely to stay in the profession and not switch to something else than the ones making $20,000 a year, so the career statistics could be skewed toward the high earners.

and i also think that these firms would have a lot less of the "t14 or bust" mentality that this forum has towards getting biglaw. instead, they probably care a lot more about individual experience, personality, fit, etc...

I always LOL when I hear the term "shitlaw." the only type of law I see as shitlaw is contract doc review really. Otherwise, people need lawyers. Think people charged with a DUI and the like don't need or really want a lawyer? Having been charged with one before, having such counsel for me was very helpful and I GUARANTEE that your "shitlaw" client will not view his or her case as "shit" and not worth working on. OMG if I'm not working on a merger or gigantic corporate transaction then the work is worthless!! I'd venture to say most saying these sorts of things never had any sort of job before law school.

RedBirds2011 wrote:I always LOL when I here the term "shitlaw." the only type of law I see as shitlaw is contract doc review really. Otherwise, people need lawyers. Think people charged with a DUI and the like don't need or really want a lawyer? Having been charged with one before, having such counsel for me was very helpful and I GUARANTEE that your "shitlaw" client will not view his or her case as "shit" and not worth working on. OMG if I'm not working on a merger or gigantic corporate transaction then the work is worthless!! I'd venture to say most saying these sorts of things never had any sort of job before law school.

Because there is nothing that signifies prestige more than saying you represent drunk drivers. Not to mention people like that generally aren't the most wealthy and able to pay.

Anonymous User wrote:That bimodal chart shows ENTRY level statistics does it not? OP was referring to mid-career. If after 15-20 years of practing law you still can only drum up $40,000 worth of business then that's another thing entirely. Stop worrying about entry level stats. Worry instead about MINIMIZING DEBT as much as possible.

It's not like, at the lower end of the biomodal spectrum, you graduate and the market "says" here's 40,000 dollars you may never make any more. Obviously, in the long run, it can depend on tons of factors. I think it's pretty hard to generalize lawyer pay long term.

I did not mean for this to be anonymous. Sorry

on average there are 1,396,888 DUI arrests yearly. they all need an attorney. from what i read, attorneys charge anywhere from $1,000 - 5,000 to handle a DUI case.

Because there is nothing that signifies prestige more than saying you represent drunk drivers. Not to mention people like that generally aren't the most wealthy and able to pay.[/quote]

Your client doesn't care whether you think his case is "prestigious" or not. If youre after prestige then fine. Nothing wrong with that. Me, i could give a rats ass about "prestige." I'm just interested in working and helping individual people. That's not to say I would not be interested at all in taking more "prestigious" work. I would say most work is not prestigious. It's just work like anything else.

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rad lulz wrote:

Tom Joad wrote:If you think about it, the lawyers who make money are more likely to stay in the profession and not switch to something else than the ones making $20,000 a year, so the career statistics could be skewed toward the high earners.

This is why.

Also only 58% of new grads get full time jobs requiring bar passage, so yeah there's that.

Credited

Not to mention people like that generally aren't the most wealthy and able to pay.[/quote]


This could be a wild guess, but I think generally a lot of rich kids get DUIs and parents typically will pay for it. I didn't know poor people would be more likely to get one. Lol But that's why you get payment upfront.

RedBirds2011 wrote:Because there is nothing that signifies prestige more than saying you represent drunk drivers. Not to mention people like that generally aren't the most wealthy and able to pay.

Your client doesn't care whether you think his case is "prestigious" or not. If youre after prestige then fine. Nothing wrong with that. Me, i could give a rats ass about "prestige." I'm just interested in working and helping individual people. That's not to say I would not be interested at all in taking more "prestigious" work. I would say most work is not prestigious. It's just work like anything else.[/quote]

You are interested in helping drunk drivers return to the road as fast as possible?

RedBirds2011 wrote:Not to mention people like that generally aren't the most wealthy and able to pay.

This could be a wild guess, but I think generally a lot of rich kids get DUIs and parents typically will pay for it. I didn't know poor people would be more likely to get one. Lol But that's why you get payment upfront.[/quote]

Not enough to make more than a living doing it. most of these people find their lawyers because the lawyers comb the police records and then blanket the arrestees with advertisements for their services.

You are interested in helping drunk drivers return to the road as fast as possible?[/quote]

No, I am interested in providing legal representation, which is the right of each and every individual in a free society. It is how the united states justice system works.

RedBirds2011 wrote:You are interested in helping drunk drivers return to the road as fast as possible?

No, I am interested in providing legal representation, which is the right of each and every individual in a free society. It is how the united states justice system works.[/quote]

And I'm not limiting myself to DUIs, I was just giving that as an example. I have an interest in a lot of work involving individual people including divorces, family matters, probate, etc etc. I want to help people during their hard times. A lot of it stems from my own experience with it.