There is a big difference between doctors and lawyers.

There is a big difference between doctors and lawyers.
by IAND75 (2022-05-25 12:44:17)

In reply to: That doesn't really answer the question. posted by squid

I have multiple physicians in my family and two of my boys are lawyers (large firm corporate M&A types), so I have a pretty good feel for the differences.

If you go to med school and complete a residency (and likely a fellowship) you will not be poor. You will earn anywhere from a comfortable to sizeable income. My best guess would be from $150,000 to $1,000,000. It would be a real outlier to make less or more. And it would be close to impossible to make much more than $1,000,000/yr from simply practicing medicine in any specialty.

Law is different. There is no guarantee if you get a law degree and pass the bar that you will be able to make a living practicing law. There a lot of legal jobs that pay less than $150,000/yr. So there are plenty of law school graduates that are worse off than even the lowest paid physician.

But the upper end in law is vastly different from medicine. Partners in big law can earn in the $1-4 million range routinely. There are positions in corporate law that earn in that kind of range. And of course, there is the possibility to make much much more through equity in businesses as in-house counsel.

The high end in law is much higher, and available to a much larger number, than in medicine.

Those earning in the upper ends of law, equivalent to higher paid physicians or more, have lives as demanding as docs. The hours worked and the pressure to deliver is as great, if not greater.

The complaints I hear for life in big law are very similar to the complaints I hear in medicine. The money is good, but the quality of life at work continues to degrade.

there is also a big difference in selectivity for MDs and JD

The number of lawyers accepted and churned out every year is vastly higher than the number of doctors. As such, the selectivity of the applicant pool is much higher for doctors (~15K spots in the US for <50k applications).

I suspect that if you compare the data on the top 15K lawyers in the US each year and the doctors, the competitiveness of the applicant pool would be around the same, but income would be quite skewed in favor of the lawyers.

If you compare the total law graduate pool to the total med graduate pool on a given year, I suspect that the larger bottom end who go to uncompetitive law schools (of which a med school equivalent does not exist in the US) would drag down both the income of lawyers, as well as the overall competetivenss of the applicant pool.

The reason that 150K is not assured with law school is the prevalence of lower quality law schools and a bevy of lower quality applicants. (which itself is a function of a law school being a money making proposition, whereas a med school is not - at least not nearly to the same degree - more resource intensive per student. Adding more students equals more doctor teachers in clinical years, which does not exist in law school. Just can add more students to the classroom).

$1M is very rare for doctors

I'd say the top of the field is probably orthopedic and spine/neuro surgeons, who are more realistically in the $700k range. If you own a large practice, or have significant ownership in a lucrative surgery center, or have other avenues of passive income, and are also in a highly lucrative field, sure, maybe $1M. Also, I guess, a very lucrative cash only practice like high end cosmetic surgery. But I would not say that it's in the realistic range for 90% of physicians

I agree. It is the top of the range.

Only a very small number of docs could be making that much. And most would have some other income stream besides their professional service.