Lawyers Earnings Employment Types | Personal Injury Criminal Intellectual Civil Rights Immigration

A lawyer, or legal practitioner, is a person certified to give legal advice who advises clients in legal matters. Some lawyers represent clients in courts of law and in other forms of dispute resolution. The role of the lawyer varies significantly across legal jurisdictions, and therefore can be treated here in only the most general terms.

Every stream of law/lawyers is explained after the table below. To find more details about a particular stream click on relevant links in the table below.

* Corporate/Commercial Law. This is the biggest field of practice. Corporate law involves organizing businesses, mostly contracts, liability, or intellectual property.
* Tax Law generally involves assisting businesses with their taxes and advising clients and individuals about tax loopholes.
* Intellectual Property Law is the law of copyrights, trademarks, and patents. It is a budding area of law what with the internet, and with the increased use of computers and computer software.
* Family Law involves arranging for people day to day family issues, such as adoption, divorce, and wills.
* Criminal Law comes in two forms, the Crown Attorney side (prosecution) or defense lawyers, who defend people accused of crimes.
* Constitutional Law today involves mainly questions concerning individual rights violations under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, but may also involve the division of powers between the federal government and the provincial governments. A constitutional lawyer may also work with the government to ensure that laws that are drafted meet the requirements of the Charter.
* Civil Litigates deal mostly with claims involving wrongdoing: tort law, and contracts.
* International Law could mean working with multinational corporations, or working on International issues such as human rights, or with the UN. Many lawyers also become general practitioners, whereby they do a variety of tasks for individual, smaller clients: such as drawing up real estate deals, contracts, as well as family law things.

* Labour/Employment lawyers can work for the management side or the labour side. Management side labour lawyers will advise their clients (employers) on employment law such as working conditions, wrongful dismissal etc. A labour-side employment/labour lawyer could work with individuals, or unions advising members how to pursue various claims (such as pursuing workers compensation, human rights or labour code violations, or wrongful dismissal suits).
* Other types of law that one might practice are: Administrative law, municipal law, real estate law, immigration law, environmental law, entertainment law.

Earnings of Lawyers (US)

In May 2004, the median annual earnings of all lawyers were $94,930. The middle half of the occupation earned between $64,620 and $143,620. Median annual earnings in the industries employing the largest numbers of lawyers in May 2004 were as follows:

Management of companies and enterprises	$126,250
Federal Government	108,090
Legal services	99,580
Local government	73,410
State government	70,280

Median salaries of lawyers 9 months after graduation from law school in 2004 varied by type of work, as indicated in table 1.

Salaries of experienced attorneys vary widely according to the type, size, and location of their employer. Lawyers who own their own practices usually earn less than those who are partners in law firms. Lawyers starting their own practice may need to work part time in other occupations to supplement their income until their practice is well established.

Most salaried lawyers are provided health and life insurance, and contributions are made to retirement plans on their behalf. Lawyers who practice independently are covered only if they arrange and pay for such benefits themselves.

Lawyers held about 735,000 jobs in 2004. Approximately 3 out of 4 lawyers practiced privately, either as partners in law firms or in solo practices. Most salaried lawyers held positions in government or with corporations or nonprofit organizations. The greatest number of lawyers working in government were employed at the local level. In the Federal Government, lawyers work for many different agencies, but are concentrated in the Departments of Justice, Treasury, and Defense. Many salaried lawyers working outside of government are employed as house counsel by public utilities, banks, insurance companies, real estate agencies, manufacturing firms, and other business firms and nonprofit organizations. Some also have part-time independent practices, while others work part time as lawyers and full time in another occupation.

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