How much money do lawyers make a year? Specifically. Is this job hard?

Question

Is this job hard? Work long hours? Good money?

Answer 1

No career is hard if you like it and are good at it. Plus compensation increases the more you love your job.

Answer 2

It's very hard to go through a good law school and then pass the bar. As for whether the job is hard, for most lawyers to do a good job, they have to work very hard. It's easy to screw up. You need many diverse skills. Does it pay well? Starting salaries vary from 30K to 140K, and it does not much have to do with how good you are. You have to be very good to be offered the top paying jobs but you may not want them. One lawyer I know who went to Harvard and had a prestigious federal clerkship chose to dedicate himself to public interest law. He never made, after ten years, more than 50K. On the other hand, if you do want the very high salaries, you have to have been at the top of you class, and literally work 80 to 90 hours a week the first fiive years. There are jobs in between those two extremes.

Answer 3

You can check on salary.com. They have various legal titles that the salary would depend on...such as "General Counsel," "Attorney I," "Attorney II," etc. There's also corporate lawyer, and other areas of law. It might depend on the specific area of law as to how much they make.

I would say that being a lawyer is very difficult. You will need to have strong analytical and logic skills. Also, you need to have undergraduate coursework that involves heavy writing. You can major in English literature, economics, political science or history. Those are the most popular pre-law undergraduate majors. But you can also have undergraduate studies in other fields, as long as there is still heavy writing and analytical skills built up along the way.

It's also said that law schools like to see applicants with undergraduate majors that are "non-typical" of pre-law...by that I mean, something other than the usual English literature, economics, political science and history. Just make sure you can tell a law school admissions council why that other field you had undergraduate studies in why it has helped prepare you for law school.

For example, if you have an undergraduate major in biology, you could say that the lab work helped in building your analytical skills. Also, some law firms want lawyers with a background in biology so that they can do environmental law. I got that from the Villanova University's Biology department website, under the Graduate and Career Opportunities link. I don't attend Villanova, but it was one of the school web sites I checked out.

If you pursue it, the 1st year of law school is intense with the workload, from what I hear. But then, the 2nd and 3rd years become more flexible. Salary.com will give you job descriptions along with the salary info.

Answer 4

I worked for a criminal defense lawyer. They make Buttloads. He threw it around like water. Very hard job, with very high stress. Very long hours... you are first and foremost a lawyer. Retainer client got nabbed for dealing at 6pm? Forget 9 to 5... you gotta be there! But there is a lot of money... but you will lose something of yourself in law... you get bitter and cynical about people.

Answer 5

depends on the lawyer but yes, they make a generous income. i don't think the job is hard. my question is how does a lawyer sleep at night. who would want a job getting people off-(defending the guilty,? makes no sense at all).

Answer 6

Anybody can do it. That's why we have so many lawyers out there. Look for the ad for law schools right next to the "You can be an artist draw me" school of art.

Answer 7

depends on what area of law you go into

Answer 8

Go to www.salary.com

Answer 9

As much as they can!