5 Highest Paying Legal Careers
1. Trial Lawyer
Trial lawyers are among the highest paid legal professionals on earth. There are literally thousands across the globe, with the highest compensated being litigators that handle high profile, high stakes, high dollar cases.
Not all lawyers rake in incomes that are high; solo professionals and many public interest attorneys receive modest wages at best. As stated by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the median yearly salary for all lawyers is $110,590. The middle percentile earn between $74,980 and $163,320. However, millions can be earned by the nation’s top trial lawyers.
2. Chief Legal Officer
Chief legal officials, also referred to as general counsels, head corporations law sections. The bigger the corporation the bigger the salary; earnings for lawyers heading big, multi-national corporations may skyrocket to seven figures with experience. Additional to their base pay, chief legal officers additionally receive stock options and other bonuses.
More recently women are claiming more CLO positions, according to the 2011 General Counsel Compensation Survey. For the first time in history, a woman who works at (Altria Corp) topped the charts, taking in $6.5 million in compensation.
3. Judge
Judges and magistrates make a median annual salary according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics of $110,220.The highest paid judges are on the federal level, the pay decreases in order of federal, state, and local.
Besides salaries that are generous, most judges experience healthy benefits, these include expenses paid for and matched contributions to their retirement plans.
4. Law School Professor
Law school professors teach courses, publish scholarly writings, and perform research in their chosen field.
Law school professors currently rank high in America’s best-paying occupations, according to Forbes.com.
Law school professor wages vary by school and by area. According to the Society of American Law Teachers wages ranged from $113,691 to $242,500 per year.
Strong law school professor wages could be credited, in part, to growing law school tuition. Tuition increases have stayed strong above inflation for 25 years, this includes several double digit tuition hikes in the past five years. In the past ten years the United States has seen an impressive nine law schools open their doors, with five new schools awaiting future approval.
5. Litigation Support Manager
As technology continues to evolve and change the face of our planet lawyers with tech related skills are ranking higher on the pay scale. Professionals in the lower tier of litigation support bring in an average salary of $70,882, this is according to the most recent survey by Litigation Support Now, while managers and litigation support directors can earn wages of over $200,000. The highest paid will generally have law degrees or advanced degrees in finance, business or technology.
Litigation support managers handle company-wide litigation support activities, and technology resources. As the need for professionals in this field continues to accelerate, and as long as the pool of individuals capable of filling these positions remains small, their salaries will continue to rise. The shrinking variety of attorneys and the ever-increasing quantity of work driven by cloud computing, e-discovery, and file management as well as other technology needs have created a strong demand for litigation support directors, and this is forcing law firms to go the extra mile for these skilled individuals.