Attorney donors in FEC itemized giving

How large the ATTORNEY label is in the file

Among occupation strings in the LobbyVault index, ATTORNEY is a high-volume label: $862,985,671 in summed amounts, 2,417,164 line items, and 151,049 donors. Those three figures describe different slices of the same table. Dollars measure the money posted. Contributions count each itemized transaction. Donors count distinct contributor records that used this occupation text.

Dividing the dollars by the line-item count yields about $357 per contribution. Dividing by donors yields about $5,714 per donor record. Neither average is a typical gift; both are arithmetic means pulled from a long tail of small itemizations and a thinner set of large ones. The FEC file does not publish a median for this occupation field.

Repeat giving is visible in the ratio of itemizations to donors: roughly 16 contributions per donor record. That is a filing pattern, not a statement about law-firm culture. Committees itemize each transaction that meets the reporting threshold, so frequent small gifts inflate the contribution count without changing the occupation string.

What self-reported occupation does and does not mean

FEC rules ask committees to report occupation and employer using best efforts. The donor supplies the text. Filers may leave ATTORNEY, Attorney, or a longer phrase; LobbyVault groups the exact string ATTORNEY as it appears after normalization in the bulk extract. Nearby labels such as LAWYER are stored separately and are not rolled into this total.

The field is not a census of practicing attorneys. Retired lawyers, in-house counsel, lobbyists, and people who once practiced may still type ATTORNEY. People who practice law may type PARTNER, COUNSEL, or a firm title instead. Cross-walking this page to a state bar list would overstate or understate the overlap. The public record is the text on the itemization.

Reading dollars, itemizations, and donor counts together

A page that showed only $862,985,671 would hide that the money arrived in more than two million pieces. A page that showed only 151,049 donors would hide how often those records reappear. Use all three facts. High contribution counts with a moderate per-gift average usually mean many itemized gifts rather than a handful of mega-checks, but the file still contains both.

LobbyVault does not infer party, race, or motive from an occupation string. Candidate and committee pages hold the recipient side. This occupation hub is a filter on the contributor occupation column. Restated in compact millions, the occupation total is $863.0 million. That compact figure is the same headline amount as the full dollar total on this page, rounded to one decimal place in millions.

Limits of the FEC occupation column

Occupation is free text. Spelling variants, punctuation, and extra words create parallel buckets. ATTORNEY here is one bucket. Blank, N/A, and best-efforts placeholders are other buckets. A donor who listed ATTORNEY on one gift and PARTNER on another will appear in both occupation totals for the gifts that used each string.

The indexed total is the sum of amounts on matching itemizations in the bulk data LobbyVault loaded. Refunds, memo entries, and unitemized receipts follow FEC presentation in the underlying schedules. This guide cites only the three occupation-level facts: $862,985,671, 2,417,164 contributions, and 151,049 donors. Restated in compact millions, the occupation total is $863.0 million. That compact figure is the same headline amount as the full dollar total on this page, rounded to one decimal place in millions.

Where to go next in the occupation tables

The ATTORNEY occupation page lists the underlying rows and links into donor and committee records. The all-occupations index shows how this string sits next to other self-reported titles. Industry pages group employer-side categories and should not be treated as a substitute for this occupation filter. All of those views rest on the same FEC.gov itemizations.

Researchers comparing occupation keys should keep ATTORNEY on its own line with its own dollar, contribution, and donor facts. The occupations index is the inventory of neighboring strings. Industry pages remain an employer-side cut and should not be added to this occupation total. Unitemized receipts never carry an occupation code, so $863.0 million is itemized activity for this string in the loaded extract.

How researchers should cite ATTORNEY without mixing legal titles

If a brief needs a single legal-occupation figure, the honest method is to list ATTORNEY on its own and then, in a footnote, list LAWYER and PARTNER as separate keys. ATTORNEY alone is $863.0 million on 2,417,164 itemizations from 151,049 donor records. That is already the largest occupation string in this harvest. Adding LAWYER’s $105,321,940 without saying so would silently change the unit from “one FEC string” to “a homemade legal cluster.” LobbyVault does not publish that cluster. The occupations index is the place to see the neighboring rows.

The same discipline applies to employer. A law-firm name in the employer column can sit next to ATTORNEY, LAWYER, PARTNER, or ASSOCIATE. Summing occupation ATTORNEY with a legal-services industry total will count some of the same itemizations twice. For a public-record sentence, keep the filter: occupation equals ATTORNEY, dollars equal $862,985,671, contributions equal 2,417,164, donors equal 151,049. Anything else is a different query.

Questions

How much have ATTORNEY donors given in FEC records?

Itemizations that list the occupation ATTORNEY sum to $862,985,671 in the LobbyVault index of FEC bulk data. That figure is the occupation-field total, not a count of licensed attorneys and not a single election cycle unless the hub table is filtered that way.

How many attorney contributions and donors are in the file?

The ATTORNEY string is attached to 2,417,164 contributions and 151,049 donor records. Contribution count is transaction volume. Donor count is distinct contributor records that used this occupation text on at least one itemization. Occupation is self-reported free text on FEC Form 3 and Form 3X schedules. Unitemized receipts never enter this occupation total. The live hub may apply cycle filters; this packet is the harvested occupation key.

Is ATTORNEY the same as LAWYER in FEC data?

No. Occupation is self-reported free text. ATTORNEY and LAWYER are stored as separate strings. Totals on this page do not include gifts where the donor wrote LAWYER, counsel, or a firm title unless that text normalized to ATTORNEY. The matching contribution count is 2,417,164 and the matching donor-record count is 151,049. Those three numbers are occupation-string totals from FEC Form 3/3X itemizations indexed on LobbyVault, not a licensed roster and not a party split.

Does this total prove attorneys as a bloc funded a party?

No. The occupation column does not encode party. $862,985,671 is money on itemizations that happen to carry this occupation string. Recipient committees, candidates, and independent spenders are separate fields in the FEC file. The matching contribution count is 2,417,164 and the matching donor-record count is 151,049. Those three numbers are occupation-string totals from FEC Form 3/3X itemizations indexed on LobbyVault, not a licensed roster and not a party split.