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Basically we have no problem paying a lawyer who profits from adversarial divorces $400K per year; but people blanche at scientists with PHDs getting more than

Basically we have no problem paying a lawyer who profits from adversarial divorces $400K per year; but people blanche at scientists with PHDs getting more than $100K-$150K per year. So we've ended up with more lawyers and less scientists.

danieltillett 11y ago
Lawyers make their own work - having said that junior lawyers these days are not doing so well. The problem is scientists produce something that is valuable (knowledge), but this value is near impossible for them to capture. In my experience few scientist worry about the low rate of pay, but the total uncertainty of funding. Many would trade an even lower pay rate for some certainty that they would still have a job in a couple of years time.
oldmanjay 11y ago
Are those pronouns referring to the same people? It seems like you're indicting humanity for being human.
- cousin_it 11y ago
  Blaming a collective for a collective failure is just as okay as blaming an individual for an individual failure.
cylinder 11y ago
There is no divorce lawyer making a $400k salary. If they make that much, they are entrepreneurs. There are plenty of PhD entrepreneurs who make millions a year. Compare apples to apples.
- patrickg_zill 11y ago
  I didn't actually type "salary" in my original post... I don't really know enough about how lawyer partnerships work as a legal entity, to be able to definitely say 1 way or the other. Would a large Boston firm with multiple partners, that was financially successful, pay a partner in a firm $1 million a year? Yes, easily; but is the partnership just "how lawyers do things" or "entrepreneurship"? I can't say. "According to the Boston sources whom we interview, a competent divorce litigator in Boston earns a minimum of $1 million per year. Is that sufficient compensation for a loss of illusions regarding human nature? Only you can decide!" From Philg's (Philip Greenspun, another famous LISP user) site here: https://blogs.harvard.edu/philg/2015/07/28/divorce-litigator-on-the-bill-cosby-mess/ https://blogs.harvard.edu/philg/2015/07/28/divorce-litigator... (his comment #6)
  - argonaut 11y ago
    IMO partners are closer to "legal management." So at that point the engineering equivalent would be "engineering management." Directors and VPs of engineering firms probably earn in the range of $1 million. Some very very senior engineers at FB/Microsoft/Google probably earn that much as well (principal engineer-level)
return0 11y ago
Maybe they are being paid for their usefulness, having a PhD certificate is not in itself useful.
- Retra 11y ago
  Neither is a law.
  - kgwgk 11y ago
    But a $400k/year divorce lawyer is useful for the one paying, that´s the point. Who should be paying the salaries to whoever decides to "be a scientist"?
Broken_Hippo 11y ago
The vast majority of lawyers don't make such salaries. People actually have desires to be public defenders, for example, and they definitely aren't paid well. I'm not sure prosecuting attourneys are either. I'm going to assume divorce lawyers get a bit more. Some of the better civil attorneys won't take a case that doesn't have a good enough payout, but the ones helping the cases just above the line probably aren't doing well either and are completely dependant on whether enough people that can afford their services would sue. I doubt bankruptcy attourneys get paid nearly so much either. The entire system is unfair. Amount of education or amount of work means nothing. It is basically tied not only to the field of study (teachers and engineers can have the same education, yet get wildy different monetary opportunities), but whether or not you get lucky and live in the right area.

danieltillett 11y ago

Lawyers make their own work - having said that junior lawyers these days are not doing so well. The problem is scientists produce something that is valuable (knowledge), but this value is near impossible for them to capture. In my experience few scientist worry about the low rate of pay, but the total uncertainty of funding. Many would trade an even lower pay rate for some certainty that they would still have a job in a couple of years time.

oldmanjay 11y ago

Are those pronouns referring to the same people? It seems like you're indicting humanity for being human.

cousin_it 11y ago
Blaming a collective for a collective failure is just as okay as blaming an individual for an individual failure.

cylinder 11y ago

There is no divorce lawyer making a $400k salary. If they make that much, they are entrepreneurs. There are plenty of PhD entrepreneurs who make millions a year. Compare apples to apples.

patrickg_zill 11y ago
I didn't actually type "salary" in my original post... I don't really know enough about how lawyer partnerships work as a legal entity, to be able to definitely say 1 way or the other. Would a large Boston firm with multiple partners, that was financially successful, pay a partner in a firm $1 million a year? Yes, easily; but is the partnership just "how lawyers do things" or "entrepreneurship"? I can't say. "According to the Boston sources whom we interview, a competent divorce litigator in Boston earns a minimum of $1 million per year. Is that sufficient compensation for a loss of illusions regarding human nature? Only you can decide!" From Philg's (Philip Greenspun, another famous LISP user) site here: https://blogs.harvard.edu/philg/2015/07/28/divorce-litigator-on-the-bill-cosby-mess/ https://blogs.harvard.edu/philg/2015/07/28/divorce-litigator... (his comment #6)
- argonaut 11y ago
  IMO partners are closer to "legal management." So at that point the engineering equivalent would be "engineering management." Directors and VPs of engineering firms probably earn in the range of $1 million. Some very very senior engineers at FB/Microsoft/Google probably earn that much as well (principal engineer-level)

return0 11y ago

Maybe they are being paid for their usefulness, having a PhD certificate is not in itself useful.

Retra 11y ago
Neither is a law.
- kgwgk 11y ago
  But a $400k/year divorce lawyer is useful for the one paying, that´s the point. Who should be paying the salaries to whoever decides to "be a scientist"?

Broken_Hippo 11y ago

The vast majority of lawyers don't make such salaries. People actually have desires to be public defenders, for example, and they definitely aren't paid well. I'm not sure prosecuting attourneys are either. I'm going to assume divorce lawyers get a bit more. Some of the better civil attorneys won't take a case that doesn't have a good enough payout, but the ones helping the cases just above the line probably aren't doing well either and are completely dependant on whether enough people that can afford their services would sue. I doubt bankruptcy attourneys get paid nearly so much either. The entire system is unfair. Amount of education or amount of work means nothing. It is basically tied not only to the field of study (teachers and engineers can have the same education, yet get wildy different monetary opportunities), but whether or not you get lucky and live in the right area.