Ever wondered how lawyer salaries compare around the world? Thanks to an infographic provided by LLM info featuring the average salary of lawyers across 14 different countries, you can now satisfy your curiosity.
The table cross-references salary with Cost of Living (C.O.L.) using New York as the control, set to 100. The C.O.L reflects the percentage difference in cost in a given country. This way, you can analyze how far the average lawyer salary for each country would actually go.
Attorney Salaries Around the World (LLM info)
A combination of the highest average salary and low cost of living (half that of Canada) puts Chinese lawyers at the top of the table. Canadian lawyers are in a comfortable sixth position, with the fourth highest cost of living and seventh highest average salary. Canada is only one place behind the United States, though U.S. lawyers earn almost $10,000 (U.S.) more than Canadians and have a 15% lower C.O.L. The U.K. — two places below Canada — has a smaller average salary than you might expect, but as this figure is presumably representative of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, we shouldn’t be blinded by the significantly higher earnings of the big London law firms.
A few surprises around Europe include the high rankings of Germany and France, but also the enormous C.O.L. in Switzerland. This figure is almost three times that of China and over 40% higher than Canada!
The obvious shortcoming of this infographic is the lack of information on the sample countries: where the average salary data was collected and the sample size. So, this table may not be a definitive guide, but it certainly makes for interesting reading. Now it’s time to start practicing law in China…