Comments on: What Solos Earn

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 22 May 2007 19:16:50 +0000

I noticed that solos have a higher hourly rate than firms in general, according to those charts.
Could the lower reported salaries for solos have anything to do with the fact that solos have significant control over their taxable income? I’m not saying that solos are tax cheats……but there are opportunities to run a few expenses here and there through the business.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 22 May 2007 19:16:00 +0000

By: Phil

Phil — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 09:21:48 +0000

Just to respond to an earlier comment about solos competing with large firms. I am not a solo, but I live in the Philadelphia area. Recently the PA State Senator Fumo was indicted for a list of corruption charges. One part of the indictment detailed Fumo’s relationship with Dilworth Paxon (I think, or another large firm). Fumo was paid over 1 million dollars a year as “of counsel” to the firm. In return Fumo would leverage corporations that needed favorable treatment in the Senate to hire Dilworth to do millions of dollars worth of legal work. You can’t compete with that, and trust me, all of the large firms have similiar arrangements to get the lucrative corporate work.

By: Phil

Phil — Fri, 09 Feb 2007 09:21:00 +0000

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 14:30:20 +0000

Well, that’s a pretty depressing set of numbers. Many undergraduate degrees apparently lead to higher pay than a JD. Solos need to stop being such bottom feeders and try to find a way to challenge large firms directly. There must be a way for the small fry to get a piece of the highly compensated action.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 14:30:00 +0000

By: Keith Finch

Keith Finch — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 00:58:04 +0000

I agree that the survey is perhaps not that scientific, but here’s a much more authoritative survey for 2005 by the Texas State Bar (PDF link):
http://tinyurl.com/2hlb2r
Note in particular page 10, which has the following median income figures for solos based on years of experience:
2 or fewer: $48K
3 to 6: $71K
7 to 10: $65K
11 to 15: $90K
16 to 20: $146K
21 to 25: $85K
Over 25: $94K
The survey included 407 solos. Also, from adding up the numbers in the first column on page 9, you can see that although 12% of solos earned less than $30K, 15% or so earned more than $200K.

By: Keith Finch

Keith Finch — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 00:58:00 +0000

By: Carolyn Elefant

Carolyn Elefant — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 09:34:11 +0000

I did hesitate to put up the chart, as there’s no attribution, data sources, etc…But this is a question that many do have about solo practice. I welcome other information on solo salaries from other sources.

By: Carolyn Elefant

Carolyn Elefant — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 09:34:00 +0000