Qualifications

• Those who wish to practice professionally as an attorney in the state of New Jersey must obtain accredited education, which includes pre-law coursework resulting in a bachelor's degree, and the completion of law school. Education typically lasts a total of seven years. Attorneys must pass the New Jersey state bar examination to obtain a license to practice professionally.
  
  

Salary

• Approximately 20,260 attorneys were working in New Jersey as of May 2009, with annual median wages of $110,840. The 25th percentile of lawyers in New Jersey earned up to $77,000, and the 75th percentile earned $159,870 or more.
  
  

Hourly Wages

• The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that approximately 26 percent of attorneys in the U.S. are self-employed or a partner of a firm. Some attorneys in New Jersey earned hourly wages because many law firms charge clients in hourly rate. Hourly median wages were $53.29 . The 25th percentile earned up to $37.02 per hour and the 75th percentile earned $76.86 per hour or more.
  
  

Geography

• The largest concentration of attorneys in New Jersey was in the Newark-Union metropolitan area, where 7,320 attorneys worked in May 2009. Annual median wages in this area were $118,520, which represented the highest wages in New Jersey of any metropolitan area. In the Trenton area, annual median wages were $112,430, and in the Atlantic City area, they were $102,440.