4 ms·

Exactly. IIRC there are about 90k law school graduates a year and just under 40 SCOTUS clerks a year. Do the math and you get that these clerks are the top .04%

by ls612 6y ago

Exactly. IIRC there are about 90k law school graduates a year and just under 40 SCOTUS clerks a year. Do the math and you get that these clerks are the top .04% of the new lawyers each year. I’ll bet the top 0.04% of engineers with a couple years experience can definitely make similar money.

unnouinceput 6y ago
The top 0.04% engineers are probably multi-millionaires. But that doesn't detract from the fact that Lawyer together with Banker is quite a good profession financially speaking.
- bialpio 6y ago
  No-one is saying they are not good, but I've read the top-level comment as implying they are better than software engineering, and after reading responses in the thread I'm not convinced that this is the case.
- s1artibartfast 6y ago
  In general, I would not say that Lawyer is a good profession due to the high degree of variance. The top 10% land big law positions starting ~180k, the bottom 10% of grad are unemployed, and most of the rest make about 50-60K/yr and have 200k of debt https://data.lawschooltransparency.com/jobs/salaries/ https://data.lawschooltransparency.com/jobs/salaries/
- b20000 6y ago
  As an engineer, to become a multi-millionaire, you need to get "lucky" by your small share of equity suddenly being worth a lot because of an acquisition or IPO. If that doesn't happen, you're not going to be a multi-millionaire. As a lawyer, you can easily become a multi-millionaire simply by doing your job at a respected law firm, and that doesn't require an acquisition or IPO event.
  - ls612 6y ago
    The top few fractions of a percent of engineers can become at least a principal engineer at a FAANG and be getting well over 500k a year in comp, similar to the numbers being thrown around for these clerks. That was mainly my point, not talking about startup exits.

4 ms·

Exactly. IIRC there are about 90k law school graduates a year and just under 40 SCOTUS clerks a year. Do the math and you get that these clerks are the top .04%

by ls612 6y ago

unnouinceput 6y ago
The top 0.04% engineers are probably multi-millionaires. But that doesn't detract from the fact that Lawyer together with Banker is quite a good profession financially speaking.
- bialpio 6y ago
  No-one is saying they are not good, but I've read the top-level comment as implying they are better than software engineering, and after reading responses in the thread I'm not convinced that this is the case.
- s1artibartfast 6y ago
  In general, I would not say that Lawyer is a good profession due to the high degree of variance. The top 10% land big law positions starting ~180k, the bottom 10% of grad are unemployed, and most of the rest make about 50-60K/yr and have 200k of debt https://data.lawschooltransparency.com/jobs/salaries/ https://data.lawschooltransparency.com/jobs/salaries/
- b20000 6y ago
  As an engineer, to become a multi-millionaire, you need to get "lucky" by your small share of equity suddenly being worth a lot because of an acquisition or IPO. If that doesn't happen, you're not going to be a multi-millionaire. As a lawyer, you can easily become a multi-millionaire simply by doing your job at a respected law firm, and that doesn't require an acquisition or IPO event.
  - ls612 6y ago
    The top few fractions of a percent of engineers can become at least a principal engineer at a FAANG and be getting well over 500k a year in comp, similar to the numbers being thrown around for these clerks. That was mainly my point, not talking about startup exits.