The Practice of Law Is a Noble Profession.

Good Lawyers Do Not Publicly Condemn Their

Legal Brethren.

Book of Matthew

You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the
speck from your brother’s eye. ~Matthew 7:5
The practice of law is a noble profession.  Good lawyers are principled and ethical.  They care about
their clients and represent them well.  As a result, most new clients come to them from having been
referred from other satisfied clients.  Indeed, before these modern days of legal advertising, that was
usually how lawyers came to represent people.  The lawyers’ reputation as competent, capable and
caring for their clients was well known among clients and the clients’ families and friends.  Their
competence and reputation was also known among other lawyers, judges and even jurors who
observed them during trial.  Even today, this is still how lawyers primarily attract new clients, from
referrals or recommendations of other clients, lawyers or people who know them.
Good lawyers do not rely solely on print or on-line advertising to attract clients.  Indeed, good
lawyers do not need to advertise at all.  Good lawyers consider other lawyers as their legal brethren,
not their competitors.  Good lawyers reach out to other lawyers to share their legal knowledge and
strategies so that the quality of local legal representation improves faster than just individual lawyers
working alone.  Good lawyers do not publicly malign, criticize and condemn their legal brethren.
No one is perfect.  No lawyer is perfect.  For an imperfect lawyer seeking to attract clients on-line
while at the same time condemning fellow lawyers on-line as a means to both smear the reputation
of their “competitors” while at the same time hoping to build their own is just flat wrong and is nothing
but pure hypocrisy.  Whether that imperfect lawyer offices in a mansion or works out of their home,
their public bashing of fellow legal brethren is wrong and further diminishes the public opinion of
lawyers in general.
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In many ways, the legal industry has never been healthier, despite years of flat demand, slow growth
and erratic law school admissions. For one thing, law remains an in-demand profession that
continues to grow and pay well while making slow, but steady progress when it comes to issues like
diversity, technology adoption and employment after graduation from law school.
These and other markers are compiled in the ABA Media Relations and Strategic Communications
Division’s inaugural ABA Profile of the Legal Profession released in August at the ABA Annual
Meeting in San Francisco. The report—which contains the ABA’s own data in addition to data
provided by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. Census Bureau, the National Association
for Law Placement and other nonprofit groups—provides a snapshot of the legal industry and aims
to provide lawyers, students, journalists and others with accurate and authoritative data relating to
attorney population, wages, diversity, law school attendance, bar passage rates, pro bono hours and
more.
According to the report, there are 1,352,027 active lawyers in the United States as of Jan. 1, 2019—
a 0.7% increase over the previous year. That may seem small, but consider this: The number of
lawyers has increased by 12.4% since 2010—and the U.S. population only increased 6.3% during
that time.
Meanwhile, the report found that the number of law school applicants, after bottoming out in 2015,
has steadily increased over the past three years, hitting 60,700 in 2018. This marks the highest
number of applicants since 2012, but it remains far behind the high-water marks of 100,600 in 2004
and 87,900 in 2010.
As for wages, the average lawyer salary in 2018, according to the BLS, is $144,230—a 1.6%
increase from the previous year, which was lower than the corresponding rate of inflation (2.1%).
The report, which crunched 20 years’ worth of wage data, found that while attorney salaries are
growing at a slow rate, they have never dropped from one year to the next, and the $144,230
average in 2018 is nearly double the average in 1997, which was $72,840. (Note: BLS statistics do
not include profits for law firm partners and shareholders.)

In light of the report’s release, the ABA Journal took a deeper dive into two different areas
augmenting and supplementing the data provided in the Profile of the Legal Profession report with
original reporting and additional statistics. The first feature examines lawyer pay and includes data
from Martindale-Avvo and Major Lindsey & Africa. For the second feature, the Journal examines the
best places to practice based on different statistics and economic indicators, including cost of living,
lawyer population and home values.
See the other stories in this package:
What lawyers earn in 2019
The best places to practice in 2019