Posted by Ben on 2/11/07

More | Report Post

Hi,

I have a feeling this question might annoy people and be
taken the wrong way. But I'm going to try anyway.

So, I've been out of law school for 7 years. I'm in a rural
state, in a city with 50k people, practicing with both of my
parents in a small (3 person) firm started by my
grandfather. Our office is a renovated home.

We do a huge amount of family law (my mother does absolutely
nothing else, and has a great reputation for it), but will
also take just about anything else that comes in (largely
criminal, used to do chapter 7's, personal injury, minor
estate planning, contracts, etc).

Here are my questions:

1. Does anyone else feel themselves increasingly
pigeonholed? There is so much runnoff from my mother in
terms of family law that it seems that's all I ever do. And
it's certainly not for a lack of wanting to try other
things. I'm worried that my chance to actually learn how to
do other things will soon be preempted by my need to
maintain the standard of living that the constant flow of
reasonably lucrative but mildly nauseating domestic cases
has helped me and my family create.

2. What do people actually earn? I suppose it doesn't
really matter, because if I'm doing well enough for myself,
I shouldn't worry about it. . .but I am curious. Am I
staying competitive, comparitively? I average between 80k
and 105k per year, and I usually work about 31-40 hours per
week. I go in about 1 - 2 hours extra every other week --
more, obviously, if there's a large trial or brief or
something.

Anyway, since I've never worked anywhere else, I don't know
how this compares. I'm fairly confident I work fewer hours
than most attorneys who have similar experience, but don't
know if the return for those bigger workloads is
commensurate. I suppose I'm just trying to see if breaking
off at this relatively late point to start in a bigger town
would mean a dramatic loss of pay and/or increase in work.

Thanks.

Question about income, 2/11/07, by Ben.

Attorney Chatboard

LATEST POSTS | BY TOPICS | SUBMIT A POST