How to Find Lawyer Salary Information
When you are doing research to find lawyer salary information for your chosen job and industry, you should attempt to establish the salary progression opportunities, differences that may exist because of location and also be able to place a value on qualifications that you have or may decide to study for. To do this, you should seek to answer the following questions:
- What are the average lawyer starting salaries for entry level or graduate positions?
- What is the average salary after 5 to 10 years in the role?
- What is the average salary for over 10 years in this role?
- Do the average salary or starting salaries vary by geographical location?
- Does the average salary vary with typical qualifications?
Having established the types of questions that you need to ask, you can use the following resources to help you find the answers that you need. Some of this information is freely available on the Internet, although there are also premium services available, so you should aim to know exactly how much information you need at the outset.
1. General Lawyer Salary resources
You should start with general resources by visiting the following two sites where you can find information on average salaries and earnings by occupation and industry. The information in these sites is aggregated so needs to be viewed as a general starting point:
- Occupational Outlook Handbook
This is the online version of the handbook that is published by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. You can use this site to find "Earnings" and other detailed information for 250 occupations.
- Career Journal
The Salary and Hiring Data area of the Wall Street Journal's Career section provides average job salaries and profiles across industries, and you can use this to focus on the salary ranges within these industries.
2. Specific Lawyer Salary Surveys
There are a number of surveys that have been completed where you can find details of average starting salaries for lawyers and how law graduate salaries have changed over the years. Two of the most useful for your research are: -
Vault Law Career Channel - Lawyer Salary Data
This is one of the most up to date law resources available (and also has other lawyer career information available) although some of the services available are premium services. 
Salary.com
This site provides general information on salary ranges, which you can find using the
Salary Wizard
on the site. They also offer a premium Personal Salary Report that is personalized to reflect your own years of experience, performance, education and other factors that are known to influence your pay.
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