Becoming a lawyer is no walk in the park. You have to do well enough in college and on the LSAT to get into law school, graduate from law school, get a job and pass the bar exam. At the end of that process, you might have racked up significant student loan debt. As most lawyers will tell you, though, the typical work week at a law firm tends to be a lot longer than 40 hours. According to data from U. New and World Report, the average salary for lawyers in the U. It follows that the average would be higher than the median, since the highest lawyer salaries are quite lucrative and therefore pull the average up. One of the biggest determinant of salary for lawyers is the type of employer they work. Lawyers who clock in and out for big corporate law firms will command a much higher salary than those who work as public defenders. Not all lawyers represent individual clients in court. Some work how much money does an average lawyer make for corporations and non-profits, some work for the gov...