Is it possible to make 300K a year as a lawyer if you graduate from Harvard?

Question

If you graduate from Harvard Law School in the top 25% of your class, what would your earning potential be? The field would most likely be personal injury.

Answer 1

It is possible in a large firm to earn that amount after a few years of practice.  Graduating from a top school is definitely a key to open the door to a big firm.  At the end of the day however you would have to bill around 4500 hours annually to warrant that compensation.

Personal injury law does generate significant profits but is not generally practiced in large firms, due to the contigency fee nature of most cases.  Note, the big class actions you hear about take a lot of capital to litigate but are very profitable as well.  If you want to earn 300k and are willing to put in the work, I would suggest corporate law.  

Answer 2

WARNING:   Jobs in the field of Law are drying up FAST!!!  This is NOT a good field to invest in right now.  Reasons:  very bad economy, many people (mistakenly) think they can do their own legal work now thanks to the WWWeb, there are WAY TOO MANY law schools in this country (USA) churning out WAY TOO MANY graduates to be supported by this country.  So IF you graduate from law school, you probably won't be able to find a job.  If you DO find a job, you will discover that a law office environment is:  very political, very competitive, typically administrators do not have the employees' best interests in mind.

Suggestion:  Go into the field of Healthcare <<< LOTS of jobs there!!!

Answer 3

Harvard graduates do not go into personal injury law if they can avoid it.  Harvard graduates go into large law firms where the starting salary is about $150,000.  $300,000 is possible after a few years.

Answer 4

Yes, you definitely can.  

Answer 5

probably but you'll work your butt off for many years until you make partner.  Not unusual for lawyers in big firms to be required to work 100+ billable hours per week