# Why are doctors and lawyers still seen at the top of the occupation prestige rankings? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 2, 2013, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-doctors-and-lawyers-still-seen-at-the-top-of-the-occupation-prestige-rankings/667837 "2013-09-02T22:52:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Do\_Not\_Taunt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/do_not_taunt/32/2968_2.png) [@Do\_Not\_Taunt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Do_Not_Taunt)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2013, 2:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-doctors-and-lawyers-still-seen-at-the-top-of-the-occupation-prestige-rankings/667837/41 "2013-09-04T02:02:32Z")
> [@Princhester](#): > > My point is that in terms of average Joe and how he is going to see lawyers and other professionals, every medium (and up) city is going to have a substantial - not majority, far from it, but substantial - bunch of top lawyers earning big money (mid to upper six or even into seven figures). That is going to create a certain impression. And such people are going to be perceived _as lawyers_: if you are introduced to one they are going to say they are a lawyer, if their name is in the paper they are going to be described as a lawyer. Is this really true, though? How are you defining medium city? Or to phrase another way, how many medium (and up) cities are there in the US? > [@](#): > > Contrastingly, outside certain highly rarified and unrepresentative locations like Silicon Valley, most medium (and up) cities are not going to have a bunch of professionals (such as IT professionals) earning that sort of money. And if someone is an IT professional earning that sort of money it’s probably because that person has crossed the line into business owner/entrepreneur, and that is how they will be described and perceived. This is an interesting point. I’ve never worked professionally outside of Seattle, but maybe the fact that the top companies and their top employees are clustered in a few places really does impact this perception. > [@](#): > > I’m not, you understand, saying that lawyer _should_ have such prestige as they may have, but I think it might well be how they get the prestige they get. Understood. > [@Princhester](#): > > And as I said above, yes, sure software architects and engineers at the top of their field who are working for top companies might be pulling down $1M a year (though **Do Not Taunt’s** cite gives no support to that contention) but such people are few and far between . However, what is a your average successful 20 year experienced software architect or engineer working in your average middle American city firm pulling down? $150k? _They_ are what people base their perception on. Not the tiny percentage of architects or engineers who hit the biggest of bigtime. Right, my cite didn’t say that, but it’s probably still true. The glassdoor cite is going to show job titles where there’s enough user volunteered data. If you’re one of a couple Distinguished Engineers at your company, you probably don’t have anyone you can really be compared against, so a site like glassdoor has limited value to you, so you’re not providing them any data either. So the cites I provided are a step down from the top. > [@GreasyJack](#): > > Are those guys actually going to be slinging much code, though? Usually when you get something like “lead” or “senior” added to your job description, you’re now a manager supervising a group of people who do the thing you used to do. Most top-end software companies offer two tracks for software engineers - the “individual contributor” track and the manager track. The jobs I cited are individual contributor jobs, not manager jobs - these people will not be directly supervising groups of people, nor running divisions. But that doesn’t mean they’re ‘slinging code’ either. Typically someone in one of these roles has unique insight into how to build a very large-scale, enterprise class system that is highly reliable. This isn’t the guy adding a new feature to Word, it’s the guy who’s figuring out how to search the entire internet in half a second. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2013, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-doctors-and-lawyers-still-seen-at-the-top-of-the-occupation-prestige-rankings/667837/42 "2013-09-04T02:29:22Z")
> [@Do\_Not\_Taunt](#): > > Is this really true, though? How are you defining medium city? Or to phrase another way, how many medium (and up) cities are there in the US? I know about Brisbane city law firm partner earnings because I am one and because in that role I know what I make and where I fit, and I know (from recruitment/merger discussions and industry surveys) what other people make. Brisbane is a medium small state capital. I really doubt that partners in city law firms in comparable cities in the US do worse than those in Brisbane. ---
**Author:** ![Do\_Not\_Taunt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/do_not_taunt/32/2968_2.png) [@Do\_Not\_Taunt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Do_Not_Taunt)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2013, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-doctors-and-lawyers-still-seen-at-the-top-of-the-occupation-prestige-rankings/667837/43 "2013-09-04T02:36:44Z")
> [@Princhester](#): > > I know about Brisbane city law firm partner earnings because I am one and because in that role I know what I make and where I fit, and I know (from recruitment/merger discussions and industry surveys) what other people make. > > Brisbane is a medium small state capital. I really doubt that partners in city law firms in comparable cities in the US do worse than those in Brisbane. At 2.1 MM, Brisbane is actually a pretty large city by US standards. I couldn’t quickly find any data about it - is that the entire metropolitan area, or are there suburbs, too? ---
**Author:** ![Hakuna\_Matata](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a88e4f/32.png) [@Hakuna\_Matata](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hakuna_Matata)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2013, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-doctors-and-lawyers-still-seen-at-the-top-of-the-occupation-prestige-rankings/667837/44 "2013-09-04T02:38:05Z")
> **[Occupational prestige | List of occupations by prestige](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupational_prestige#List_of_occupations_by_prestige)** > > The list of occupations by prestige assembled by the National Opinion Research Center (NORC) in 1989 is the one most commonly used. The list includes over 800 occupations, but only the top 20 with the highest prestige scores are listed here. What no love for Architects? Most Architect make okay money, a few make very good money, but the public image of the Architect is totally driven by the entertainment industry. Most depictions show us with private secretaries and having striking homes, etc. Some of that is true (not the private secretary part) but we tend to surround ourselves with nicer designed elements rather than select the same chair, cup, etc. that the average person would select, which gives an appearance of more wealth than we actually as a profession have. But in my opinion so few people truly know what an Architect does, and few ever engage working with one, that the image is driven by outside influences rather than direct interaction with the profession. Most people go to a doctor and typically most people need to use a lawyer at some point in their life but that isn’t true for my profession. ---
**Author:** ![Princhester](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3e96dc/32.png) [@Princhester](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Princhester)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2013, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-doctors-and-lawyers-still-seen-at-the-top-of-the-occupation-prestige-rankings/667837/45 "2013-09-04T04:04:48Z")
> [@Do\_Not\_Taunt](#): > > At 2.1 MM, Brisbane is actually a pretty large city by US standards. I couldn’t quickly find any data about it - is that the entire metropolitan area, or are there suburbs, too? That’s the entire metropolitan area. If you consider that any metropolitan area down to say 1.5M is going to be about comparable, there are about [50 comparable areas](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Metropolitan_Statistical_Areas)in the US. ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2013, 11:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-doctors-and-lawyers-still-seen-at-the-top-of-the-occupation-prestige-rankings/667837/46 "2013-09-04T11:38:11Z")
> [@Hakuna\_Matata](#): > > What no love for Architects? Too little direct interaction with too few people on critical matters. ---
**Author:** ![Ken001](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/43a26b/32.png) [@Ken001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ken001)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2013, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-doctors-and-lawyers-still-seen-at-the-top-of-the-occupation-prestige-rankings/667837/47 "2013-09-04T12:00:21Z")
> [@Hakuna\_Matata](#): > > What no love for Architects? Modern architects – scum of the earth. It doesn’t matter what you ask them to design, they still come up with something that looks like an old dustbin with a bicycle sticking out of the top. With thanks to Rowan Atkinson ---
**Author:** ![Ken001](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/43a26b/32.png) [@Ken001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ken001)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2013, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-doctors-and-lawyers-still-seen-at-the-top-of-the-occupation-prestige-rankings/667837/48 "2013-09-04T12:34:02Z")
> [@Flywheel](#): > > “Physicians and lawyers are the confessors of this prosaic nineteenth century.” > -Mary Elizabeth Braddon, _Lady Audley’s Secret_ (1862) Nice. Cheers. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2013, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-doctors-and-lawyers-still-seen-at-the-top-of-the-occupation-prestige-rankings/667837/49 "2013-09-04T17:24:59Z")
> [@Hakuna\_Matata](#): > > [Occupational prestige - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupational_prestige#List_of_occupations_by_prestige) > What no love for Architects? Most Architect make okay money, a few make very good money, but the public image of the Architect is totally driven by the entertainment industry. Most depictions show us with private secretaries and having striking homes, etc. Some of that is true (not the private secretary part) but we tend to surround ourselves with nicer designed elements rather than select the same chair, cup, etc. that the average person would select, which gives an appearance of more wealth than we actually as a profession have. But in my opinion so few people truly know what an Architect does, and few ever engage working with one, that the image is driven by outside influences rather than direct interaction with the profession. Most people go to a doctor and typically most people need to use a lawyer at some point in their life but that isn’t true for my profession. Damn it. I knew I should have stuck with architecture and civil engineering. Actually I do find that people show a bit more interest when I mention that I have a degree in civil engineering. I think in general, people are more impressed by people who can design and build tangible things like skyscrapers or bridges. Probably because you can’t bullshit the laws of physics like you can bullshit the VP of Marketing. ---
**Author:** ![raspberry\_hunter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@raspberry\_hunter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/raspberry_hunter)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2013, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-doctors-and-lawyers-still-seen-at-the-top-of-the-occupation-prestige-rankings/667837/50 "2013-09-04T21:03:51Z")
> [@even\_sven](#): > > Because a workplace drama about programmers and accountants would be pretty boring? Yeah, I had some fun imagining a workplace drama set in my workplace. We are about the most boring people imaginable. This week: Exciting times when Stanley doesn’t find the bug in time and the software CRASHES! Interpersonal drama abounds as Rick and Sally argue but finally come to agreement about the wording for the exact deliverable specifications in the contract! Tune in next week for the drama that ensues when code profiling reveals that the code is 50% less efficient than it should be! (Spoiler: it’s not that dramatic, we just end up fixing the code) ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2013, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-doctors-and-lawyers-still-seen-at-the-top-of-the-occupation-prestige-rankings/667837/51 "2013-09-04T21:27:11Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Actually I do find that people show a bit more interest when I mention that I have a degree in civil engineering. I wonder how the status of civil engineers compared against doctors and lawyers in the 1950s? ---
**Author:** ![Fordfiveohh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/74df32/32.png) [@Fordfiveohh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fordfiveohh)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2017, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-doctors-and-lawyers-still-seen-at-the-top-of-the-occupation-prestige-rankings/667837/52 "2017-04-02T23:19:02Z")
1 . We dont wear suits or white costs 2. People dont even know what programming is. They think their iPhone does stuff because it’s an iPhone and not because someone programmed it to do that. The same simpletons can’t see that an android phone is equally capable of being programmed in rhe same way. This is why Apple can sell " perceived value" and not real value. People cant quantify or qualify real value. 3. Feedback loop… because programmers aren’t paid enough , people dont think they’re important … because people don’t think they’re important, they dont get paid enough. 4. People are lazy thinkers ans will default to what they understand instead of trying to understand a new profession. 5. Programmers dont interact 1 on 1 with society as do doctors and lawyers. As such , people won’t ever talk to programmers. To make things worse, they talk to someone from another country when they call Tech support… this also will not happen with doctors and lawyers. 6. Finally, a doctoral degree isn’t required as is with doctors and lawyers … they’re both doctors… because of this, people dont think were that smart … so wrong… ---
**Author:** ![edwardcoast](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/cab0a1/32.png) [@edwardcoast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/edwardcoast)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2017, 9:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-doctors-and-lawyers-still-seen-at-the-top-of-the-occupation-prestige-rankings/667837/53 "2017-04-03T09:40:27Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I’d really question whether lawyer is at the top of most prestige ratings. I think it’s more commonly seen as a career you get into if you want to make a good living rather than a career you enter in expectation of public approval. > > As for why these careers are more popular than other careers that offer better prospects, it’s probably a show business issue. There are lots of movies and TV shows about doctors and lawyers. There are relatively few about bankers or engineers. I know several people off the top of my head that got a law degree, and then got out of the profession entirely. I can’t think of anyone who became a medical doctor and left the profession for something else. Although I did know a dentist that did this. Are there more law schools then there use to be compared to medical schools in the US? ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2017, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-doctors-and-lawyers-still-seen-at-the-top-of-the-occupation-prestige-rankings/667837/54 "2017-04-03T14:13:48Z")
That’s not unusual. The law degree is a good general purpose degree. It’s a good prep for business, politics, and journalism, just to name a few. Some law schools report that perhaps as many as a quarter of their grads don’t plan on practising law. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2017, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-doctors-and-lawyers-still-seen-at-the-top-of-the-occupation-prestige-rankings/667837/55 "2017-04-03T15:59:44Z")
> [@edwardcoast](#): > > I can’t think of anyone who became a medical doctor and left the profession for something else. Ken Jeong and Rand Paul. ---
**Author:** ![gytalf2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/ac91a4/32.png) [@gytalf2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gytalf2000)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2017, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-doctors-and-lawyers-still-seen-at-the-top-of-the-occupation-prestige-rankings/667837/56 "2017-04-03T16:40:13Z")
> [@Muffin](#): > > I wonder how the status of civil engineers compared against doctors and lawyers in the 1950s? I’m wondering the same thing about scientists and professors. Both prestigious, right? ---
**Author:** ![SamuelA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@SamuelA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SamuelA)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2017, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-doctors-and-lawyers-still-seen-at-the-top-of-the-occupation-prestige-rankings/667837/57 "2017-04-03T18:54:40Z")
Here’s another factor. Look at the immense barrier to entry. To be a lawyer, you have to finish college, then 3 years of law school and a bar exam. And to be a lawyer with real job prospects, that law school has to be one of the top 14 (Columbia, Harvard, etc) which means you had better have worked your ass off since high school. Since your grades in high school determined what college you would get in to, and then your college GPA is the most important factor for a top 14 school, but also some admissions committees multiply your GPA by a “rigor” factor to adjust it. (I have personally seen them calculating it). So if you went to Harvard undergrad and have a 3.9, your odds are better than if you went to Generic State U and have the same GPA. For a doctor, what I said above is a cakewalk. You need a high GPA and MCAT score to even be considered in the rat race of med school admissions. On the other hand, basically all licensed physicians without any strikes on their record (who have finished residency) have a 6 figure job, and the lower end jobs are 150k. But it’s 4 years med school, at _least_ 3 years residency but more like 4 or 5 for the really desirable specialties, and 3 high stakes examinations where you have to get the answers right and they can be from an immense pool of knowledge. Lawyers, I have read, can bullshit their way through the bar to some extent, there’s a lot of essays and less questions about specific, verifiable knowledge… So, once you make it through that gauntlet, you are a protected class. Even a mediocre doctor, as long as they have a clear record, are going to be making as much as a AAA, highly productive employee in most other fields. As demand for medical services changes, it takes medical schools and residency programs years to respond, so there isn’t going to be a flood of competitors showing up anytime soon. With programming or software engineering, they are shipping in tens of thousands of foreigners every year, and since there is minimal licensing, they compete for jobs on (almost) equal footing. And they can try to outsource the job right to India, and will if they can. Oh, that’s another factor. Medical knowledge is relatively static. Yes, discoveries are being made, but it’s not anything like the pace where the programming languages and techniques and tools are basically being replaced completely every 5 years in the IT field. ---
**Author:** ![edwardcoast](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/cab0a1/32.png) [@edwardcoast](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/edwardcoast)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2017, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-doctors-and-lawyers-still-seen-at-the-top-of-the-occupation-prestige-rankings/667837/58 "2017-04-04T02:28:31Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Ken Jeong and Rand Paul. I’m referring to people I personally know. ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2017, 2:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-doctors-and-lawyers-still-seen-at-the-top-of-the-occupation-prestige-rankings/667837/59 "2017-04-04T02:40:14Z")
There’s also the popular culture factor. Doctors and lawyers make for good tv dramas and movies. Coders and EE, not so much. So kids grow up seeing doctors and lawyers on the tv all the time. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2017, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-doctors-and-lawyers-still-seen-at-the-top-of-the-occupation-prestige-rankings/667837/60 "2017-04-04T02:57:38Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > And yet I never seem to meet a poor lawyer. How many lawyers do you know? My wife was a practicing attorney for a while, and was pretty involved in the Dallas area legal professional associations, and while few (none?) were “poor” in the sense of actually not even working class, most of the public ones (assistant DAs, for example) and the personal injury ones, etc… were invariably not particularly flush with cash. They did ok… ISTR, that the Dallas County starting assistant DA salary was under 50k at the time. But that’s a shitty lawyer salary, when another lawyer of her acquaintance made 300k a year _as an associate._ It’s all about what firm you work for, and what you do. If you’re lucky enough to go to a good school in your area, do well in law school, and schmooze correctly when you’re looking for a job, then the world’s your oyster. But if you do mediocre at a good schoo you’ll probably end up making good, solid IT guy type money or slightly better, and if you do poorly at somewhere like Texas Southern, you’re going to be chasing ambulances and making shit money and probably wishing you’d gone into IT. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-doctors-and-lawyers-still-seen-at-the-top-of-the-occupation-prestige-rankings/667837.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-are-doctors-and-lawyers-still-seen-at-the-top-of-the-occupation-prestige-rankings/667837.md?page=4)