What is the career path for a lawyer?

The career path for a lawyer involves jobs as a summer associate, paralegal, and associate attorney.

Lawyers start on their career path by attending and graduating from law school.

While still in law school, many prospective lawyers seek to become summer associates. And this is the first type of job you can find yourself in on the career path of a lawyer.

Here are the most common jobs on the lawyer career path:

• Summer Associate

These roles can also be referred to as summer clerks, law clerks, or interns. Individuals in these roles are law students who work with the firm during the summer months or any length of time when they might be off from law school.

Internships at smaller firms are typically unpaid, while programs at large-scale law firms can be quite competitive because they offer significant compensation for interns. A stellar summer associate may receive a permanent position offer at the law firm once they graduate from law school and pass the bar exam.

Summer associates earn an average annual wage of $35,706

• Paralegal

Paralegals are law-related professionals that assist lawyers in research in areas of business, regulations, and general law. Paralegals typically work for law firms, the legal departments of corporations, courts, or elsewhere in the private sector.

A paralegal's annual average salary is $49,930 per year.

• Associates Attorney

These are mostly young lawyers at a law firm that are hoping to one day become a partner. Large-scale law firms generally have two tiers of associates: junior associates and senior associates. These titles are given depending on the individual merit and experience level of the lawyer.

Most associates work as such for six to nine years before becoming a partner. Factors that partners weigh when considering if an associate should make a partner include the associate's legal knowledge and skills, the size of their client base, and how well they fit into the company's culture.

Associate Attorneys make an average annual salary of $124,900.

These professionals may also be referred to as shareholders in that they are joint owners and operators of the firm. Depending on the individual structure of a particular law firm, non-equity partners may or may not have voting rights pertaining to matters within the law firm.

Non-equity partners are often promoted to equity partners within a timeframe of one to three years. And they are also often asked to make a monetary contribution to the firm; in other words, they are purchasing their title of equity partner.

A law firm partner's average salary in the U.S. is $188,859 per year.

• Of Counsel Attorneys

These lawyers are not technically employees of a law firm and work as independent contractors that a law firm may call upon.

Lawyers in these positions generally have a lot of experience and have many of their own clients outside of the law firm. They also usually have stellar reputations in the legal community.

Many are semi-retired lawyers who were formerly partners of the law firm. Others are hired as necessary additions to supplement the firm's client base or because they have expert legal knowledge in a specific area of the law.

Counsel attorneys make a wide variety of different salaries and are typically not on a permanent payroll.