Three years after considering the credentials of the lawyers littering Forbes’ annual list of America’s 400 richest people, The Am Law Daily decided to revisit the magazine’s wealth rankings and examine the legal lineage of both holdovers from 2010 and several who made their way into the upper echelon since the last time we looked.
For the purposes of this exercise, we focused on members of the Forbes list with law degrees, even if not all of them went on to formally practice. It should be noted that—with the exception of Joe Jamail Jr., the infamous King of Torts—the individuals mentioned here and in our 2010 article did not make their fortunes practicing law. Some, such as Jamail, have credited their legal training with being critical to their future business success.
