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Mar 27, 2022 · Morgan, Lewis & Bockius. Morgan Lewis employs 2,200 lawyers and was founded in 1873. 14 The firm reported 2.45 billion in revenue—putting it in eighth place. 1 The firm's headquartered in ...
Apr 10, 2018 · After her husband died in 1906, Kepley fell upon hard financial times. After numerous moves and downsizings, Ada Kepley died in 1925, a poverty-stricken charity case. 12. Myra Bradwell. Born in ...
Jan 20, 2010 · Awards: Named Lawyer of the Year in 2006 by The National Law Journal and repeatedly as one of the top 100 most influential lawyers and one of the top white-collar criminal defense lawyers in America.
20. Harish Salve: $6 million. At 59 years old, Harish Salve has worked hard to develop a reputation as one of India’s top (and most expensive) lawyers, specializing in commercial, constitutional, and tax law. Salve, who comes from a long line of lawyers and formerly served as the Solicitor General of India, currently charges clients about ...
EXPERIENCE | SALARY |
---|---|
Mid Career (5-9 Years) | $125,000 |
Experienced (10-19 Years) | $146,000 |
A 1976 graduate of the University of Mississippi School of Law and a prominent trial lawyer, Richard Scruggs is best known for his love of tobacco and asbestos cases and the fact he won more than $1 billion in judgements against various companies. He was also highly involved in 2000’s Ritalin class action lawsuits, as well as the 2003 case against Lehman Brothers for which he won a $51 million verdict. However, in 2007, he was accused of judicial bribery. In 2008, he pled guilty and eventually served six years in federal prison. Today, at the age of 70, he has completed his sentence and has retained his massive fortune.
Best known for being a no-nonsense TV judge, Judge Judy earns $47 million a year. A 1965 graduate of New York Law School, Judge Sheindlin was originally a corporate attorney, though she quickly grew tired of it and choose to become a family court prosecutor. In 1982, she was appointed as a criminal court judge, where she earned a reputation as a “tough” judge and presided over more than 20,000 cases. This, along with several books she wrote, caught the eye of TV executives and eventually led to her TV show. In addition, she is the author of seven books and has served as legal analyst on various TV shows.
A graduate of the UCLA School of Law, John Branca has had a lengthy career as an entertainment and corporate lawyer with a focus on representing rock and roll acts and independent investors. He has represented more than 30 members of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and is on pretty much every list of premier entertainment lawyers in the world. On a side note, he serves as the co-executor of Michael Jackson’s estate.
Also a criminal defense attorney (Are you noticing a trend?), Thomas Mesereau graduated from Harvard University and The University of California’s Hastings College of Law and has was named “Trial Lawyer of the Year for 2015” by the National Trial Lawyers. (He has won plenty of other awards including “Criminal Defense Lawyer of the Year.”) He is known for taking high stakes cases with impossible odds and getting extraordinary results. He was Michael Jackson’s attorney when he was acquitted of 14 child molestation charges and has won an unprecedented three federal criminal jury trials in a row. While his hourly rate is so high that it’s not published, he also does pro bono work through the Mesereau Free Legal Clinic.
We pored over the list of 72 world leaders and identified 10 individuals who are lawyers, taking a broad definition of the term “lawyer,” which Black’s Law Dictionary defines as “a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law.” We picked out people who hold a law degree, without regard to bar admissions or whether they actually practice law (or ever did).
Christine Lagarde: The only woman on the list of lawyers, Lagarde graduated from Paris West University Nanterre La Défense with degrees in English, labor law, and social law. She was the first-ever woman to serve as chair at Baker & McKenzie, and now she runs the IMF. Get it, girl!
63. Alisher Usmanov: He received a degree in international law at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations. He’s the richest man in all of Russia for his work with iron and steel, as well as one of the richest men in the world, and he’s never practiced law a day in his life. Figures.
Wichai Thongtang is a powerful corporate billionaire lawyer in Bangkok Thailand who successfully represented former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in an asset concealment case back in 2001. That case instantly catapulted this humble farm boy celebrity status throughout Thailand and abroad.
Robert Shapiro is a practicing lawyer who gained notoriety for being on the team responsible for exonerating O.J. Simpson from the murders of Simpson’s ex-wife and Ron Goldman. He has represented clients from Johnny Carson to Occidental Petroleum and Rockstar Energy Drinks.
He got rich by being a capitalist, following Felix Dennis’s rule that if it flies, floats or fornicates, rent it and let your investments from your lawyer earnings grow.
Though he is still chairman of his eponymous international law firm, much of Thongtang’s wealth comes from strategic investment holdings that he has acquired throughout his career, including several hospital-related holdings and a Thai cable company.
In addition, Shapiro has also starred as himself and as a lawyer on both television and the big screen.
Clifford Chance LLP. Founded in 1987 through a merger, Clifford Chance is headquartered in London and with 29 offices. Its roster includes approximately 2,400 lawyers. According to the company's website, primary sectors include banks, healthcare, private equity, and transport and logistics.
Morgan Lewis. Morgan Lewis employs 2,200 lawyers and was founded in 1873. The firm reported 2.27 billion in revenue—putting it in ninth place. The firm's headquartered in Philadelphia, with a total of 31 offices around the world.
The firm boasts more than 10,000 lawyers in more than 70 countries. Dentons ranked number five on the list with an annual revenue of $2.9 billion. 6.
Law is a big service-based business. Business, finance, taxation, litigation, corporate affairs, conflicts, patents, copyrights, antitrust, property, labor, arbitration, as well as administration, political, and social matters all require law expertise. While there are other criteria to rank law firms—such as revenue per partner or lawyer, the number of lawyers, or year-over-year percent growth—annual revenue remains the most accurate, consistent, and easy to follow.
Law firms can have multiple practice areas, and for the world's top firms, expertise is required at both the local and global levels. The law firms listed above are successfully running their business across multiple practice areas, and have been effective in managing billion-dollar revenues consistently.
Janet Napolitano. Another woman with a massively impressive resume, Janet Napolitano may be the most accomplished woman in politics that most people have never heard about. She was the first woman attorney general for the state of Arizona before being elected Governor of Arizona from 2003 to 2009.
The second First Lady on this list chose a different path than Hillary Clinton but is in many ways no less influential as a public figure. A 1988 graduate of Harvard Law School, Michelle Obama also eschewed big law firms for more rewarding public service. Her civic involvement in the legal, non-profit, and medical communities meshed well with her husband’s political ascent, and she continued to use her unique voice to further her role as an advocate.
Trial lawyers are a special breed who think quickly on their feet, who can break down a situation and a person in real time. Of course, they only get to the breaking the witness point by first breaking down the mountains of information lurking in the background of any legal battle. The group we've gathered here are giants in the courtroom.
What Chesler told us it takes to be a great trial lawyer: The ability "to understand people," "to be sensitive to the audience and to the messages they are sending." Diligent preparation is a requirement, but "preparation without keen attention to how you relate to the particular audience you are facing will not typically work." And, when questioning witnesses, a great trial lawyer always adapts to the particular witness.
Greatest Hits: In one of his many intellectual property cases, Keker defended Google against Microsoft. Also known for prosecuting Oliver North in the Iran-Contra affair and defending scandalized financiers Frank Quattrone and Andrew Fastow.
While you may think that all lawyers are super rich, this isn’t exactly true. On average, a lawyer earns an average salary of $133, 470, which is definitely more than many people, but in the grand scheme of things, is not all that impressive. By the way, the median salary for an entry-level prosecutor (you know…the lawyers responsible for sending the bad guys to jail) is a mere $50,000 [2]. With around 11-15 years of experience, the median salary jumps to $81,500.
A 1976 graduate of the University of Mississippi School of Law and a prominent trial lawyer, Richard Scruggs is best known for his love of tobacco and asbestos cases and the fact he won more than $1 billion in judgements against various companies. He was also highly involved in 2000’s Ritalin class action lawsuits, as well as the 2003 case against Lehman Brothers for which he won a $51 million verdict. However, in 2007, he was accused of judicial bribery. In 2008, he pled guilty and eventually served six years in federal prison. Today, at the age of 70, he has completed his sentence and has retained his massive fortune.
A graduate of the UCLA School of Law, John Branca has had a lengthy career as an entertainment and corporate lawyer with a focus on representing rock and roll acts and independent investors. He has represented more than 30 members of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and is on pretty much every list of premier entertainment lawyers in the world. On a side note, he serves as the co-executor of Michael Jackson’s estate.