The fall and rise of lawyers - CNN.com

When I started out as a self-employed lawyer I pretty quickly developed a practice that enabled me to support myself, and, soon, a family.  The bread and butter was auto accidents and workers compensation.  Cars had no seat belts, manual brakes, and were heavy with steel.  Many factories were dangerous - there was smoke in the air and you couldn't make yourself understood without yelling in someone's ear.  Today the factories are gone or employ few. - gwc

The fall and rise of lawyers - CNN.com

by Benjamin Barton

(CNN)The American legal profession has faced a tsunami of bad news since 2008. White-shoe, corporate law firms have facedwaves of layoffs or even shuttered their doors. While the very top firms are rolling again, the 50 years of explosive growth that started in the 1960s are now a memory.

But at least corporate lawyers have had recent glory days. Solo practitioners, the largest single group of American lawyers and the heart and soul of the profession, have struggled for a quarter of a century.

Since the 1960s the IRS has collected and published income levels for all American lawyers filing as solo practitioners. In 1988, solo practitioners earned an inflation-adjusted $70,747. By 2012, earnings had fallen to $49,130, a 30% decrease in real income. And note, $49,130 is not the starting salary for these lawyers. It is the average earnings of all 354,000 lawyers who filed as solo practitioners that year.