By now, majority of you are already tired enough from hearing the stories of global recession. Well, you get to listen them more because recent wave of economic recession has affected almost all the countries of the world quite severely, leaving thousands (or even millions) of people jobless. This is not particular to any specific country, but almost all the countries living under the umbrella of free trade economy are affected from this phenomenon.
Firing and salary cuts are the most common consequences which had to be faced by countless people belonging to different trades all across the United States of America due to the recent upsurge of economic recession. However, to the utter surprise of many people, there is one profession that came out quite unharmed from the ill effects of economic recession, i.e. the law industry.
As a matter of fact, law industry can boast of some of the highest salaries among all trades under current circumstances. Corporate lawyer salary is undoubtedly among the most generous salaries of the whole industry, and there are many reasons behind this.
One of the reasons leading to high salary ranges of law industry also happens to be increasing crime rate all through the country. This entails hiring of more law enforcement officials to keep the law and order situation intact all across the United States. As a result, corporate lawyer salary is touching the highest marks due to increase in demand of law enforcement officials.
Though there is no doubt that law industry is offering huge salaries, but that does not come easy. One has to undergo intensive law studies for four years needed to become law graduate. That has to be followed by 3 year training as law interns and passing a tough bar examination before a person can enjoy high corporate lawyer salary.
When we go beyond surface in this domain, we find a lot of different factors responsible for high salaries of corporate lawyers. Though there are many factors that contribute in this regard, but some of the most important factors shaping up the remuneration mechanism for corporate lawyers are given below to help you better understand the whole scenario.
Relevant Experience: There is no denying the significance of
experience, not even the law itself! Yes, that is quite right. As with every other aspect of life, experience comes to play the most in determining the high corporate lawyer salary. An experienced corporate lawyer is eligible for remunerations quite higher than the rookies in the field. Despite that fact, the rate of payment for newcomers in the field of corporate law is also quite higher when compared with other trades. According to some recent surveys done in May 2010, the salary range for corporate lawyers with work experience falling short of one year lies between US $ 46,000 to US $ 70,000.
Nature of client or employer: It is also very important factor in
fixing the salary range for the lawyers. Since lawyers adopt different sectors of the industry, they are employed by different employers and clients. In this regard, private practice leads to higher remunerations than majority of government jobs, while government offers relatively higher corporate lawyer salary as compared to non-profit private setups.
Relevant educational qualifications: The level of education for a corporate lawyer also matters a lot. Most of the people consider law graduation a level enough to begin their law career, while there are also people present in the law industry that have doctorate on various disciplines of law. That simply means lawyers with doctorates on different subjects of law would be paid heftily as compared to simple graduates. It is as simple as that, the more you are equipped with relevant qualifications, the higher would be your corporate lawyer salary.
Domain of action: Law practice is basically segregated among Criminal Law and Civil Law. These two major domains also offer different remunerations to the ones joining each of them. Mostly, corporate lawyers associated with financial institutions that come under the umbrella of Civil Law practices bag heavier salaries. According to some credible research, a rookie in some financial corporate law setup gets as high as US$ 125,000 per year as his corporate lawyer salary. No doubt, this is quite high a salary for a new entrant in any trade.
Region where you are working: To many people, this might be
quite an unlikely factor, but it does not make it any less significant. In fact, states like New York, San Francisco, and Washington offer much higher corporate lawyer salary as compared to other states.
So, these are some of the considerations playing their part in determination of various levels of corporate lawyer salary and anyone really wanting to make the most of it should not undermine their impact.