The Average American Lawyer Makes $113,600 - But the Spectrum is Broad
The Chicago Tribune ran an interesting article about attorney salaries last week. Of course, the general public has a vision of attorneys as lining the walls with money--and maybe once upon a time many of us did, too. In the 1980s, law was widely rumored to have the highest starting salary of any profession, and law schools quickly filled up with future professionals eager to partake of that benefit.
The reality, however, turned out to be very different for many attorneys, and one reason for that--and for the general misperception that a law degree is a ticket to easy street--is the gap between the highest earning attorneys and everyone else.
The Tribune article cites a study indicating that the bottom 3/4 of the legal profession has been steadily losing ground since 1975. And "bottom" doesn't mean a whole heck of a lot when you're talking about 75%. That's most attorneys. Of the roughly 44,000 graduating this year, about one-fifth is projected to earn "well into six figures" at their first jobs, while most will earn less than half of that.
There's good news, though. One prevailing theory about the income gap in the law--and in many other fields--is that technology allows the "best of the best" a longer reach. The high-powered among us can serve more clients as technology allows them to work more efficiently, and can reach a broader clientele as technology allows them to get in front of more people.
And that's true for all of us.
While the average attorney won't ever see the economies of scale that increase profits at the top level of the mega-firms to levels beyond the average wage-earner's comprehension or have a private jet at the ready to make it easier to serve clients around the world, improved technology does open up possibilities for all of us.
The explosive growth of the Internet and the increasing number of average citizens who seek information and services online has opened up a new and cost-effective means of expanding your marketing reach. The ready availability of affordable case-management software , centralized sources for electronic delivery of your required documentation, and virtual assistants makes it manageable to handle a higher volume of cases.
If technology is, in fact, widening the income gap in the legal profession, perhaps it's only because the "bottom" 75% haven't fully taken advantage of those opportunities yet.
