But, I figure this blog sort of screens for the more conflict sensitive folks. And this is in response to another clever lawyer slam from a commenter on Movin' Meat. [BTW, you didn't respond when I asked before do I need to call you Shadowfax here?]
RANT
There are basically two careers wherein you can go to school, do pretty well and be confident you'll make six figures right out of school. They are law and medicine. Yes, if you are an investment banker at a wall street firm you'll make more, but you can't just say I want to go into investment banking and do okay and get a job like that. There are very few of those jobs out there. I mean, if you invent the PC you'll get more too, but there is no class for being inventor of society altering tool.
Of the two professions, doctors make more money. Not by a ton, although they do starting, but by a significant amount and at every level. So where the hell to doctors get off being so self-righteous about lawyers making money? Does medical school blow so much sunshine up your ass that you honestly just assume you deserve to be compensated between 25 to 100 percent more than your peers in other professions?
/RANT
2 comments:
1. Yes, SF is preferred, just on the off chance someone comes here from the outside world. Besides, what's the fun of having a cool code name or nom de guerre if your friends don't use it.
2. It's axiomatic in the medical field that lawyers make more money. I always assumed that lawyers made more than doctors. Even having the DOL numbers in front of me showing otherwise, I still have a hard time believing it. That's a pretty universal understanding among, well, everybody in medicine. You would make people's heads' explode if you went to all the medical blogs and posted the real numbers. People still wouldn't believe you. The John Edwards millionaire trial lawyer image is too deeply ingrained for people overcome.
3. You are wrong, I think, in one minor but symbolically important point. You say that docs make more at all levels, but I think the top level is where the lawyers really pull way ahead. There's a tiny subset of docs that make a lot of money -- the elite of the elite. Neurosurgeons and cardiac surgeons make the most. But the amount of money that it is possible to generate in clinical practice for these guys tops out somewhere between 500-750K. I would assert that the capability of a physician to make over a million is essentially impossible. The elite lawyers -- a few med mal/personal injury/class action specialists do have an upper ceiling that is much higher. Since they are the most visible exemplars of a "successful" lawyer, I think they are responsible for the general myth of the super-rich lawyer.
3. Lawyers are much more politically active than docs, and the result is the ATLA PAC is way better funded, organized, and connected than the AMA's PAC. This disparity in political clout, while only tangentially related, reinforces the notion that lawyers have more money.
3. Both lawyers and docs sometimes make money in other venues -- corporate careers, pharma, etc. I was just trying to compare the professional incomes, not the "extracurricular stuff".
3. Also, we've all had an interaction or heard of one with the "star attorney" who bills at $700/hr or some such. Many people just multiply $700 x 2000 hours a year and extrapolate that the typical lawyer must be making over a million.
So, it's because doctors have been misinformed.
"Even having the DOL numbers in front of me showing otherwise, I still have a hard time believing it."
This is really funny to me. I mean, it is a number.
"You are wrong, I think, in one minor but symbolically important point."
Yes, that is a very minor point, but you are right that there are some lawyers that make more money than some doctors.
Post a Comment