I didn’t wan’t to hijack Pepper Bear’s thread, but just what is the best area of the law for someone who’s in it for the money?
I’m going to go out on a limb and say Patent.
But you have to have a scientific or engineering degree as well or they won’t consider you.
For normal plebes, probably white-collar criminal defense.
I don’t know about the US, but over here? Is to laugh. Crime doesn’t pay. Forget it if you want to maximise returns. Sure, if you get a monstrous trial for a super rich individual you might make a fair bit. But the market for that sort of thing is so small it’s not a road to rely on.
To make very big money you’ve got to stand next to the biggest stream of cash you can find and then get those in control of it to let you skim some off. I don’t mean illegally. I just mean that you’ve got to get into a field where there is so much cash flowing around that your exorbitant fees will be waved through. Something to do with merchant banking, or other very large corporations. At least in Australia, M & A is considered a lucrative field.
You’ve also got to bear in mind that there are only so many hours in the day, and only so much you can bill per hour. So to get into really, really serious money you’ve either got to command a large team (which means being in control of work, ie being a great rainmaker and/or client pleaser) so you can live off other people’s hours, or you’ve got to do work where the fees are lump sum, not hourly (which probably means being entrepreneurial).
Anecdote: my brother is a patent litigator. He has made enough that he was able to retire by the age of 40.
Personal injury attorney. Selling your soul is pretty lucrative.
People always say crap like this until THEY get hurt. No I am not a PI attorney, but still …
If you are in it for the money and you are good at what you do most areas of law can be lucrative.
Randy. I’m SURE you meant to post this in another Fora. Perhaps you forgot you are in General Questions. ??
samclem GQ moderator
I am not a lawyer but I did go to college with some people with the same goal as yours and eventually made it. I don’t think the real money is going to be found with the individual or even government based lawyering stuff. You want the corporate world. Corporate tax law would be one example but the real money will come from being the best expert there is in some obscure subspecialty that still involves lots of money. I can’t tell you exactly what that is but it could be federal banking regulations or maritime law within the nation’s busiest ports.
What you have to avoid is any popular specialty that your peers are going into and avoid the individual aspect altogether. You want some obscure subspecialty that everyone things is boring or odd yet has tremendous money flowing through it. That applies to the same question for all careers actually.
The most financially, er, comfortable lawyers I know do corporate stuff–mergers & acquisitions, securities, bonds.
But the happiest lawyer I know spends about 30 hours a week in the office, does whatever comes through the door (although he has a transportation specialty, that is for bus companies & things), makes $70K which is enough to pay the mortgage, and spends the rest of the time doing whatever he wants (i.e., playing his guitar, coaching his son’s soccer team, etc.).
Specialize in legal problems of the rich.
They can afford to pay you more than poor people.
Absolutely correct, and apologies all around. I came into the thread through the “New Posts” button, and was thrown off by the IMHO nature of the OP. Of course, the OP deserves a GQ answer if s/he posts in GQ.
Allow me to rephrase.
Personal injury/medical malpractice law is a specialty with gigantic earning potential, if one is willing to work hard for it. The average malpractice settlement is upwards of $200k in this country. A typical personal injury attorney charges a 33% fee – well above the national average around 20%. A hard-working personal injury attorney can get dozens of settlements a year. The cashflow isn’t as consistent as corporate law, but it has potential to spike much higher. The payouts aren’t as big as class-action attorneys, but a typical class-action attorney will be lucky to get one case per year.
However, due to the nature of this particular branch of law, even the best-intentioned personal injury attorneys can occasionally victimize innocent people. It is the tradeoff for people interested in this specialty.
Plaintiffs’ side is more lucrative than defense side – that is, if you’re a top plaintiffs’ lawyer (like Randy said) you can skim 33-40% off the top. And if you’re a plaintiffs’ class action lawyer, you can make millions. One good case…
Defense work is solid money, but working as a defense lawyer you’re never going to clear more than $2-4 million a year (and that’s after working your tail off for 20 years to make partner at a large defense firm, and then working your way up the ranks to be an equity partner). But a plaintiffs’ lawyer can make 50 times that in a good year.
But there are a ton of lawyers that make nowhere near that. So – the risky but better money is plaintiffs’ side; the steadier but less amount of money is defense side.
I’m not trying to imply anything about any part of the legal profession here, but I have a genuine question. My impression as an outsider has always been the personal injury lawyers were generally regarded as the lower end of the legal profession. I always figured the guys who were metaphorically chasing ambulances were the ones who couldn’t get into the more prestigious legal areas like corporate law or such. But if Randy’s figures are correct, the personal injury lawyers are the ones making the biggest money. And being as law practice is a business, you’d think it would attract lawyers from the higher end of the profession if that’s where the money is.
I definitely agree with class action. I have a friend who made a gazillion on one case. More than enough for a rich guy to retire on.
No. Trust me on this 
I was going to pop in here and say Plaintiff’s lawyer, personal injury. You only need one case to retire on, if you’re lucky. It’s a grind otherwise, but if you have a good grasp of billing and keep costs low, then you it’s not so bad work. Otherwise, making an equity partner at a large law firm (500+ lawyers) is the best way to go, but be prepared to work 100 hr weeks.
Plaintiff’s contingency fee work in general.
Agreed.
But . . . if you are a money oriented person, and you want to get as rich as possible, it’s probably better to skip law school alltogether and go into business, banking etc.
For example, if you are an equity partner at a big M & A firm, you are obviously making a ton of money. But your clients may be making a lot more.
How about wills and trusts? It is possible to make a ton of money as executor of a substantial estate. In fact the attorney who drew up the will for one of the Johnson and Johnson heirs was ultimately paid $1.8 million for drawing the will and administering the estate for a relatively short period of time.
That sounds exceptional. The average wills and trusts lawyer is at the lowest rung of earnings for lawyers IME.
Just had to add that in law school, the relevant course was known as “stiffs and gifts.”
Yeah, for big bucks, it would be tough to beat a successful class action litigator, or some of the bigger Plaintiffs’ PI lawyers. Patent law is generally presented as one of the highest paying specialties on average. (Actually, other than patent, maritime, and maybe 1-2 others, no lawyer is a specialist.)
I’m often surprised when you hear what the big-big name attorneys at big firms make. I mean, they may make a million a year - maybe 2, which is admittedly nice coin, but these guys are the rockstars and pro-atheletes of their profession.
But it sounds to me that the guy HNS describes is the one who is winning at this profession.
As a general rule, I feel you can place private firm lawyers, coroporate in-house counsel, and gov’t attys on a continuum in that order.
Private firms generally pay the most, but their lawyers work the longest hours with the most stress. Plus, no guarantee that you will make partner after 7 years.
At the other extreme, government employees make a decent wage, and generally have more reasonable and predictable schedules and job security.
Corporate practice is somewhere in the middle. Closer to 9-5 than private firms, but better paid than gov’t.
Small sole practitioners can be hit-or-miss. Essentially you need a couple of good, regular, income-producing accounts. But there are thousands of lawyers out there chasing the same bucks. And when your only real asset is your time, any time you are not working is essentially lost income. Can be mighty tough when you are sitting there waiting for next month’s rent to walk in the door.