Starting salaries for new lawyers vary tremendously. The median salary for Class of 2012 graduates with a full-time job lasting at least a year and reporting a salary was $61,245; the mean, or average salary was about $80,800. For jobs in private practice, the overall median salary was considerably higher, $90,000, and the average was almost $100,800. However, in small firms, which account for over half of the jobs taken in law firms, salaries of $50,000-70,000 were typical. Likewise, public service jobs — those in government, public interest organizations, and as judicial clerks — continued to offer relatively low starting salaries, with medians of $52,000, $44,621, and $52,600, respectively.
Most jobs paid neither the median amount of $61,245 nor $160,000.
Although salaries of more than $75,000 accounted for almost 36% of salaries reported, they were outnumbered by salaries of $55,000 or less which accounted for 39.5% of salaries reported. Outside of private practice, most salaries were $75,000 or less. The prevalence of high salaries in large firms, in concert with the relatively stable salaries among other employers, c
ontinues to result in a salary distribution with two peaks, as shown in The NALP Salary Curve for the Class of 2012: one at $160,000 and one in the $40,000 to $65,000 range.
Moreover, because salaries were reported for about 65% of graduates reported as working full-time in a job lasting at least a year, and were disproportionately reported for those graduates working at large firms, both the median and mean salary for jobs as a whole, and in firms specifically, are biased upward. Although it is not possible to impute a salary figure to every full-time job for which a salary was not reported, it is possible to make a reasonable estimate of what an adjusted mean would be, using a procedure that takes into account the distribution of full-time jobs. For the Class of 2012, doing so results in an adjusted mean salary for full-time jobs of about $75,500 compared with almost 81,000 based on reported salaries alone. It is further possible to estimate that salaries of $160,000 account for perhaps 12% of salaries, instead of 16%, which is based on reported salaries. However, whether considering the adjusted mean, the unadjusted mean, or the median, it remains the case that few jobs pay the mean or median salary.
IMO, it just comes down to self-interest and lawyers know the law so well that they can toe the line on just about anything.
They are building a better case for privatization than I ever imagined... not sure why I didnt just sit back and let them argue it for me 
Oh really, and you basing this statement on what?
talk. Especially if the lawyer is black and defending a black man that the county/state really wants to convict to make the cac community shut the fukk up. Lawyer not gonna fukk up his career to protect one brotha.
The vast majority of cops were probably the antithesis of nerds growing up. Especially these corrupt, abusive ones. They would have been trying to bully nerds.