Have you ever wondered how much a lawyer makes a year? For most of us, the answer is yes. It is not an easy profession, and more often than not, law school is considered to be a path to success through hard work.
To answer this question and evaluate how much a lawyer in Calgary makes, we can compare the numbers on a few work-related websites.
The first, and perhaps most reliable source, is Glassdoor. Their data, updated on March 30th, 2022, shows an average of $128,857 a year.
Of course, the amount varies from the level of expertise and years of experience. We can see in the chart above that most numbers lie around the $100k mark instead of the calculated average, while the numbers for senior salaries show fewer individual data.
Moving on to Indeed.ca, which also has data updated on March 22nd, 2022, their numbers point to a $102,966 average a year.
That amount seems to be in accordance with what we saw on Glassdoor.
To have a broader view, it is also worthwhile to compare those numbers to the average salary of a lawyer in Alberta. Glassdoor and Indeed both show us a lower average than Calgary’s:
Glassdoor
Indeed.ca
Considering only both of these sources, we can estimate that a lawyer in Calgary makes around $115.912 per year, an amount slightly above average for the province, which is $104,335.
If we search further for more information, we can also find the Alberta ALIS website, which has information gathered in the year 2019. Note, however, that this collection of data is pre-pandemic, and may no longer reflect the current economic reality of Alberta.
On their website, we find a provincial average of $140,438.
Alberta ALIS
Despite seeming like a point out of the curve for the recent tendencies, what is important to notice in the table above is the extensive level of education required.
Lawyers need to complete, a post-secondary program and get a provincially regulated certification to be able to work. To be a successful lawyer, you can’t simply look at high numbers of salaries and hope for the best. There is a lot of commitment and passion involved, and you need to be sure that this is what you want to do for a living. Even after graduation, the daily life of a lawyer is constant learning and improving.
So, to answer the question: Considering those three sources, the consensus seems to be that, in Calgary, a lawyer makes a salary above average for most professions, and receives a higher compensation for their work than their peers in the rest of the province.
Sources:
(1) https://www.glassdoor.ca/Salaries/alberta-lawyer-salary-SRCH_IL.0,7_IS4074_KO8,14.htm?clickSource=searchBtn
(2) https://ca.indeed.com/career/lawyer/salaries/Alberta?from=top_sb
(3) https://alis.alberta.ca/occinfo/occupations-in-alberta/occupation-profiles/lawyer/#wage-salary