taxguy

Southpasdena, the folks who make 100K+ to start as lawyers are from top schools who do among the very best in their schools. Thus, you are talking about ther top 1-2% of the law school graduates. In addition, most lawyers who work for top firms and receive 100k++ are working like animals. Many usually hate their jobs and find more stable jobs with less stress.

Also, you can't compare law to accounting. Accounting is generally an undergraduate major, although you can get a masters in accounting ,which would satisfy the CPA requirements. Law is a graduate degree.

They also do somewhat different work. If you go into accounting, you have close to a 100% chance for a job ( as long as you have some personality at the interview) and should make a good living. Lawyers are having a hard time finding any job. When they do, most don't make any significant money for quite a while. Yes, you hear about the few who started out making $120,000++ or who won a huge law suit in the millions,but these are the small exceptionswhen compared to the large number of students graduating from law schools.

You have to compare accountant salaries and job opportunities to other undergraduate majors and maybe MBA Candidates. Even with this ,an accountant, with an MBA or MS in a specialized field, might make a lot more money with a consulting firm or the consulting department of an accounting firm.

Bottom line, as one CPA noted, accountants can make a LOT of money and also have a life. In fact, they can make more than most other fields of endeavor. They just keep quiet about it so their profession seems to "be under the radar" among college students. In addition, even if they don't make partner or have their own practice, a good CPA is pretty well guaranteed a decent career for life! How many fields of employment,whether it be math, economics, english, history, management, MBA grads etc., can say that?

Finally, I should note that if you want to be in big demand forover and make big bucks, you eventually want to be competant in some speciality,whether it be tax, financial statement preparation and auditing, banking, auditing of tax exempt organizations, computer controlls, forensics etc. A good specialist is hard to find, and they make great money because of it.