Lawyer’s aren’t rich. I still haven’t figured out why people think this.
According to the U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, the best paid professionals are doctors. They average about $200,000 per year. Yeah, yeah, I know all those years of school and residency . . . but what a great upside.
Lawyers on the other hand aren’t doing as well. The median income is about $90,000 — the average about $60,000. It’s less years of school, but no part of an attorney’s education is subsidized by the government.
For years, my clients, my friends, acquaintances, and just about everyone thinks because I’m an attorney, that I must be walking on easy street. Are they kidding?
As a lawyer, I never earned much money. In a private practice of less than fifteen attorneys (where most lawyers work), getting clients and collecting fees takes up almost as much time as practicing law. The bottom line — it’s hard to earn a lot of money. You can only work so many hours, and many clients don’t pay.
Granted, some of my friends from law school did well. They got those 100K jobs that many lust for. The rest of them, however, didn’t fair so well. Many opted for ‘permanent’ temporary work at many of the agencies that exploit these unemployed, indebted folks.
Some took jobs in the public interest which started at 36K, and still others took jobs at small firms, starting at 40K. Not exactly rich, I think. Especially when many of them had law school debts of more than 100K which have to be paid back. This is not our parent’s generation where school debts could be ignored.
The attorney’s road to riches is not helped by the fact that, as the BLS puts it, competition is keen. Every year, law schools expand their classes, and graduate more students. The ads for attorneys read like a complaint for age discrimination: “Class if 1998 graduate sought, second or third year attorney needed.” The older you get, I’m talking thirty here, the more obsolete you are. Those folks with years of temporary work under their belt — permanently marginalized.
Sure, there are those plaintiff’s lawyers who got rich off tobacco, those with their own personal airplanes — The King of Torts, by John Grisham — paints a grim picture of these folks. But getting rich comes to few — getting by is more like it. The better bet, become a teacher — same pay, less education — or go for that M.D. — for the greatest road to personal wealth from one’s own labor.
