Law by the Numbers
How much money can you make in different practice areas?
Chart by Stephen Ravenscraft
This summer the ABA, along with Glassdoor, Salary.com, LawyerEdu.org and the National Association for Law Placement published statistics about attorney salaries by practice area. And the makers of Practice Panther law practice management software combined the data to create this list. They suggest it might be useful to law students debating which practice area to choose. (It can also bring joy or jealousy to those already in a certain areas.)
| Practice area | Average salary |
|---|---|
| Intellectual property | $155,037 |
| Health Care | 146,590 |
| Real estate | 118,000 |
| Bankruptcy | 113,000 |
| Corporate | 98,244 |
| Criminal defense | 78,500 |
| Personal Injury | 73,000 |
| Family and divorce | 71,336 |
| Civil Rights | 69,000 |
| Immigration | 62,500 |
Find links to more data and other practice stats at abajournal.com/lawbythenumbers.
This article originally appeared in the September 2016 issue of the ABA Journal with this headline: “Practice Makes Profit: Where you hang a shingle can affect the jingle.”
