Legal careers
Two salary curves wearing one profession's suit.
Law has the most honest salary chart in any profession: it’s bimodal. One peak sits at $225k, the lockstep first-year salary at large US firms. The other, much bigger peak sits at $60k–$75k, where most graduates actually land. Almost nobody earns the “average lawyer salary” you see quoted, because almost nobody is between the peaks.
What pays: Big Law and what follows it. The Cravath scale runs $225k for first-years to $400k+ by year seven, before bonuses; equity partners at elite firms earn $3M–$7M+. Corporate transactional work, private equity deals, and top litigation drive it. In-house counsel at large companies (the standard exit) pays $200k–$400k with humane hours. Outside the US the pattern repeats smaller: London Magic Circle firms pay well; everywhere else pays much less.
What doesn’t: most of the profession. Public defenders, small-firm associates, family law, and government roles pay $55k–$90k, often against six figures of law school debt. Paralegals sit at $60k with no realistic ladder into the first peak.
Direction of travel: AI is eating exactly the work (document review, research, first drafts) that junior lawyers were billed out for. Big Law pay keeps climbing anyway, but the junior headcount that supports it is quietly shrinking. Which peak you land on is decided before your career starts: school rank and first job determine it almost entirely.