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March 2, 2011
From What American Lawyers Earn in Major Metro Areas to BigLaw's $1,000-Plus Hourly Billing Rate Club
ABAJ's first installment of a periodic series is reporting on the geography of lawyer salaries, "showing where the jobs are and what they pay." This not some cursory journalistic exercise. The data being reported was producted by William Henderson of the Center for the Global Legal Profession at Indiana University’s Maurer School of Law. It is based on Bureau of Labor Statistics on employed lawyers—such as associates, government attorneys and corporate counsel current through mid-2009, along with additional government statistics on potential income influencers like population growth and the locations of Fortune 1000 company headquarters to provide an empirical snapshot of geographic-specific legal landscapes. Do note that "[l]ike any statistics, these salary figures often vary from anecdotal experience. And because they represent payroll data, they don't include equity partners or solos."
At ABAJ's What America’s Lawyers Earn, check out the geographic-based graphic representations for
- Average Lawyer Salaries
- Where Law Firm Payrolls Are Largest
- Where Lawyers Earn the Most (which identifies the number of law schools in the identified geographic area)
You can also search attorney earnings by county and read the ABAJ's 10 Surprising Legal Markets: Here are smaller legal markets that pay big-city bucks.
Speaking of big-city bucks, you might want to check out two recent Wall Street Journal features, listed below, and WSJ's list of top billers which starts at an hourly rate of $1,250.
[JH]
March 2, 2011 in Law Firm News and Views | Permalink
