Law Degree — careers, salary, and honest ROI
The bimodal salary distribution nobody warns you about — and how to end up on the right side of it.
Career fit for pre-law →The bimodal salary distribution
US law graduate salaries have a striking bimodal shape: one peak at $65-90K (government, small firm, public interest), another peak at $200-215K (Big Law, top firms). Very few end up in the middle. This is the single most important fact about a US law career.
India law paths
- Corporate law (top-tier firms) — ₹12-25 LPA entry
- Litigation (chambers) — variable, junior often ₹3-8 LPA
- In-house counsel — ₹10-20 LPA
- Judicial services — government pay scale
Frequently asked questions
Is law school worth the debt?
US: only if you land Big Law (which requires top-10 school + top-third of class), OR you have a debt-forgiveness plan (public service). Otherwise the ROI is often negative. India: 5-year integrated LLB from NLSIU/NUJS/NALSAR has much better ROI than 3-year LLB from lower-tier schools.
Careers this major opens
The US Department of Education maps Law (CIP 22.0101) to 6 Standard Occupational Classification codes. Salary and employment figures come from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics via O*NET; the AI-durability signal is our own composite score.
Sources: NCES CIP-2020 → SOC-2018 crosswalk · US Bureau of Labor Statistics (via O*NET) · WhatTNext Ai AI-durability score. Careers ranked by US employment volume.