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Lawyer help ):

I'm going to University in September to study law. I've always wanted to do Criminal law, but my University groupchat has been talking about how bad the pay is ): Its my passion but I really don't want to be struggling with money. A lot of articles I'm reading are contradicting each other, i.e. some saying Criminal Barristers would be better off at McDonalds, other saying their pay range is between £30,000-£90,0000. Does anyone have any advice?

Reply 1

teilchen

Original post by SomeInfinities

It depends a lot of criminal lawyers may be public defenders who get paid less because they arnt being paid lots by clients (they are provided free) all jobs have lower end and higher ends of the scale but criminal law is SUPER competitive when it comes to the top well paid interesting jobs in criminal law so it’s not always what people think

Reply 2

bagger288

tldr: Crime is great fun, but doesn't pay that well, especially at the beginning.

I'd say London salaries for publicly funded (legal aid) criminal defence are around:

£13-15k for a Paralegal
£15-20k for a trainee lawyer
£25-45k for a duty solicitor
£30-65k for a duty solicitor with higher rights (solicitor advocate)

You can find the salaries for CPS lawyers easily enough but IIRC they're around:

£30-40k for a crown prosecutor
£40-50k for a senior crown prosecutor
£50-70k for a crown advocate/manager/specialist prosecutor

Business crime/white collar crime & regulatory defence work is really the only way to get beyond £70k and into the six figures, but you have to be pretty smart and have a stroke of luck or two to get into those kind of roles, because there just aren't that many of them. Other than that you'd have to be a partner in a legal aid firm, or stay at the CPS for a long time and start to get into people management rather than legal work.

A young junior barrister will get from £50-£100 for a simple hearing and £80-£150 for a magistrates' court trial, and that's before tax and rent you pay to chambers so I'm not surprised some people would be better off at McD. Again, there are statistics around, but it wouldn't surprise me if some juniors starting out in crime or doing their second six pupillage would make about £15k-25k to start with. If they weren't earning £30k after a year or so (in London) and £50k after 5 years or so they'd be doing pretty badly. But it's also harder to become a criminal barrister than a criminal solicitor because there are fewer opportunities for pupillage.