I just saw that lawyers in Japan on average make 35% percent more than electrical and mechanical engineers. Same thing can be said when we compare them with software engineers. Same situation is in Korea.
I can’t believe that both countries became so developed thanks to elect/mech engineers but still they appreciate lawyers so much more. Software engineering is job of the future but salary is so much lower than what lawyers make.
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Just a guess, but maybe because in Japan, lawyers are limited. The bar pass rate is only 20%, compared to over 60% in the US.
In addition there’s no “bar” equivalent in those other industries, so entry level positions can have very low pay.
Supplies and demands. There are a lot of software engineers from China, India, SEA… coming to Japan these days. Lawyers, on the other hand, no where near that.
Japan is facing a crisis of a lack of workers with STEM expertise in many fields. The Ministry of Education strongly encourages universities to establish more STEM related departments and especially fields related to data science.
BUT industry pays poorly for engineers and other technical jobs. Starting pay for a college graduate with an engineering degree is less than half of pay in other highly developed countries.
If Japanese companies want more workers with those specializations, they need to start paying a competitive rates.
Currently the system discourages young people from going into those fields unless they just have a passion for the technology.
It’s much, much harder to become a lawyer in Japan than to become an engineer. But the pay and prestige is certainly far better for lawyers.
Have you seen the price of shark food recently?
Lawyer slam your girl? Seems like a weird thing to worry about. Lawyers make good money everywhere. Focus on your own pockets.
Because barrier to entry is high, requires post grad education, and when you need a lawyer you will pay for that lawyer…and occasionally they can save you a lot of money. (Or lose you a lot)
Are you a bitter engineer with a lawyer friend?lawyers are scarce and most positions need local education and excellent language skills, even compared to a normal native speaker. Plus more general supply and demand as others said.
In Europe and North America most mechanical and electrical engineers make less than lawyers too. I think the difference is much higher than 35% actually. The only unique thing about Japan is that the average software engineering salary is similar to mechanical and electrical. In Europe it’s a bit higher and in North America, especially USA, it’s much higher.
> I can’t believe that both countries became so developed thanks to elect/mech engineers but still they appreciate lawyers so much more.
Goes for any job really. Childcare workers are so essential to our society and yet they get paid peanuts. Engineers have it easy compared to them. But seriously imagine a world without lawyers.
In most developed countries, lawyers are always going to make more bank than electrical and mechanical engineers. Level of education, working for a prestigious firm, possibility of private practice and industry standards for salaries are a few things to mention. In general, the ceiling is just higher for lawyers. The same goes for doctors and pilots.
High barrier to entry (7 years of higher education, a year of apprenticeship, 1-2 bar exams, depending on jurisdiction) and extremely specialized technical knowledge, for starters. Canada’s tax code is over 3200 pages long, for example.
Lawyers also have significant fiduciary responsibilities that entail considerable expense. Practice insurance and bar fees, but also things like operating trust accounts (the rules of which require separate accounting procedures) and records storage.
>>I can’t believe that both countries became so developed thanks to elect/mech engineers
lol. lmao even.
lawyers, doctors make lots every where, especially corporate one.
Where are you from
What makes you think that Japanese lawyers make so much? What do you think they earn?
Ultimately, it is a supply/demand issue as well as the health of the industries. There are a lot of engineers in Japan, they often work in manufacturing where there are very slim profit margins and hence pressure to keep costs low.
Lawyers/legal is a totally different animal. The means of earning (contingency fees, retainer fees, salary) are different. The product is different. And for some they are connected to matters that are either highly technical (IP law) or involve huge sums (M&A).
You really can’t compare the two professions.
How do you imagine this world of ours works?
Nobody tell this guy how little Japanese lawyers make relative to American lawyers…
Lawyers and doctors in Japan make much more than average, but they aren’t super wealthy like in the US.
It’s easier to become a software engineer than a licensed professional.
Don’t worry. I’m a lawyer in Japan and I’m miserable, so you’re still winning.
my student’s a well- known lawyer and he says there are a lot of struggling lawyers now .. and a surplus..
Lawyers get paid well in most countries?
one of the more fascinating complaints I’ve read. this is truly the STEM mind at work.
Lawyers in Japan make an average of 9 million yen per year. NY state lawyers make 160,000 USD on average. Swiss lawyers make the equivalent of 230,000 USD and mostly go home at 5 or 6 PM.
Tell me how unfair Japanese lawyer pay is again.
Don’t worry with AI tech we won’t need to pay lawyers that much anymore soon
The disconnect is that although the market forces and labor market has been made more fluid since SONY and NISSAN showed other companies that you can easily fire people in Japan (madogiwa and early retirement schemes…), the labor still believe (and HR let them think so) that Japan is a lifetime employment country.
It is definitely not anymore but the compensation have not budged and people are still given compensation that look like lifetime employment compensation: you don’t earn so much, but you will do that all your life: ain’t you glad?!
They don’t make nearly as much as they used to and many struggle to maintain mid to lower-middle class lifestyles.
The most reliable source of business for lawyers is criminal defense work over which they have both a monopoly, and which their involvement is mandatory for any serious offense (there is no right to represent yourself). But the state rates are terrible – a few hundred thousand yen for a death penalty case and so forth.
So if you average the income of top performing lawyers into the ones struggling to get by you can probably get a high average.
The one thing lawyers do have if they run their own form is the ability to expense a lot of things (just like any other business) so the income comparatives may not be very meaningful anyways…
PhDs are more difficult to get than any of these degrees but we are paid less than any of them.
r/japanlife users getting divorced so often, business is good
I’m neither a lawyer nor an engineer but does it not require more studying / degrees/ licenses / whatever to become the former? Though I guess you could argue that any very specialized field should result in higher pay
How many biochemists consistently make life-saving drugs? Those that do patent and are doing quite well.
Barriers to entry. There’s no additional qualification to becoming a software engineer. It’s hardly a highly skilled job to be a coder.