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I can't believe that lawyers are such an outlier, I though it was very close to engineering. That's an average, I wonder the mean, maybe there are many lawyer

by lelima 7y ago

I can't believe that lawyers are such an outlier, I though it was very close to engineering. That's an average, I wonder the mean, maybe there are many lawyer whales pushing up the numbers.

doytch 7y ago
Yup. Talked to several of my lawyer friends and they always say lawyer salaries are a bimodal distribution. There's an initial peak for all the regular run-of-the-mill lawyers that toil away doing most of the work, and there are a small subset that make absolute _bank_. So essentially, there's not as many lawyers making the mean salary as you would expect compared to a job like software developer.
- jimbokun 7y ago
  So what's missing is the same charts showing median instead of mean.
- paultopia 7y ago
  This is correct. (Source: me, law prof.) Lots of lawyers sling wills, work for legal aid or government, etc. and don't make very much at all---probably centering around 50k. OR you could make partner at Skadden and hit 7 figures easy.
colordrops 7y ago
I live in LA and have had a chance to meet many people that live in the amazing houses littering the hills. My estimation is that more than half have been lawyers.
Itaxpica 7y ago
Pretty much. It's kind of like tech, in which you can more or less break employers in to FAANG, non-FAANG, and small consulting shops. The big white-shoe firms (the legal equivalent of FAANG) pay enormous salaries to even their junior associates (a first-year associate's salary is almost 200k at this point), but the gap between them and the equivalent of non-FAANG companies is way, way higher than it is for tech. Like in tech, independents have a pretty wide distribution, but the ceiling is a lot higher than it is in tech for a very small number of extremely elite lawyers in niche fields.
justfor1comment 7y ago
Do lawyers get something equivalent to RSUs? I know many software folks whose salaries might be <150K but after adding the value of the stocks they receive they go beyond 150K usually.
woobar 7y ago
I can't believe it either. Why didn't they look into salary distribution of doctors? They make little during residency, but then it goes way up.

by lelima 7y ago

I can't believe that lawyers are such an outlier, I though it was very close to engineering. That's an average, I wonder the mean, maybe there are many lawyer whales pushing up the numbers.

doytch 7y ago

Yup. Talked to several of my lawyer friends and they always say lawyer salaries are a bimodal distribution. There's an initial peak for all the regular run-of-the-mill lawyers that toil away doing most of the work, and there are a small subset that make absolute _bank_. So essentially, there's not as many lawyers making the mean salary as you would expect compared to a job like software developer.

jimbokun 7y ago
So what's missing is the same charts showing median instead of mean.
paultopia 7y ago
This is correct. (Source: me, law prof.) Lots of lawyers sling wills, work for legal aid or government, etc. and don't make very much at all---probably centering around 50k. OR you could make partner at Skadden and hit 7 figures easy.

colordrops 7y ago

I live in LA and have had a chance to meet many people that live in the amazing houses littering the hills. My estimation is that more than half have been lawyers.

Itaxpica 7y ago

Pretty much. It's kind of like tech, in which you can more or less break employers in to FAANG, non-FAANG, and small consulting shops. The big white-shoe firms (the legal equivalent of FAANG) pay enormous salaries to even their junior associates (a first-year associate's salary is almost 200k at this point), but the gap between them and the equivalent of non-FAANG companies is way, way higher than it is for tech. Like in tech, independents have a pretty wide distribution, but the ceiling is a lot higher than it is in tech for a very small number of extremely elite lawyers in niche fields.

justfor1comment 7y ago

Do lawyers get something equivalent to RSUs? I know many software folks whose salaries might be <150K but after adding the value of the stocks they receive they go beyond 150K usually.

woobar 7y ago

I can't believe it either. Why didn't they look into salary distribution of doctors? They make little during residency, but then it goes way up.