ATTORNEY as an FEC occupation string: $677.3M

A professional title used as an 'industry' key

Many lawyers write ATTORNEY in the occupation box and repeat it in employer, or they write a firm in employer and ATTORNEY in occupation. LobbyVault's industry harvest keys this row on the ATTORNEY label. That is why a licensed profession appears beside banks and status words in the same ranking.

The $677.3M figure is not the American Bar Association's membership giving, and it is not 'the legal industry' in NAICS 5411. It is the sum of itemized lines whose grouped label is ATTORNEY. People who wrote LAWYER, COUNSEL, or a firm-only employer are elsewhere.

Donor pool versus receipt volume

42,760 donors produced 1,435,882 ATTORNEY contribution lines. That is a smaller unique-donor set than the RETIRED or NOT EMPLOYED clusters, with a still-large receipt count. Repeat giving by a stable professional list can look like that.

LobbyVault does not publish a party split on this industry total. Partner-level gifts, PAC checks from law-firm committees, and bundled events may appear on other pages; this row is the individual ATTORNEY string.

ATTORNEY versus LAWYER on the same forms

LAWYER is a separate LobbyVault industry row with its own dollar total. FEC software does not synonymize the two. If you need 'people who practice law,' you are doing extra classification work the file does not do.

Employer fields that name a specific firm will often outrank the generic ATTORNEY label for those receipts. Occupation breakdowns help when the title is ATTORNEY but the employer is a corporation, a union, or a government office. Bar directories and FEC employer fields disagree by design. A licensed attorney who typed a firm name is missing from the 42,760 ATTORNEY donors. A person who typed ATTORNEY without a license still appears. LobbyVault reports the string, not a character-and-fitness roster. The $677.3M total follows that rule.

How to use the donor table

The ATTORNEY donor table is a public list of names and amounts tied to this string. A large gift is a disclosed contribution. It is not a finding that a case, a client, or a bill was 'bought.' LobbyVault does not infer motive from the title.

Name collisions (common surnames, Jr./Sr.) are a known FEC matching problem. Use contribution dates and committees, not the industry total, to tell two people apart. Leadership PACs and law-firm committees sit on other schedules. Individual receipts under ATTORNEY can flow to those committees, but the industry headline is not a PAC disbursement figure. Open named committees from the 1,435,882 contribution lines rather than reading $677.3M as a firm budget.

Source

FEC.gov itemized individual aggregates via LobbyVault: $677.3M, 1,435,882 contributions, 42,760 donors, top employer string ATTORNEY. Unitemized and non-federal activity are omitted.

Read recipient committees on their own pages for where the money was reported as received. In-house counsel who typed a corporation as employer usually leave this row. Occupation pages are the recovery path: occupation ATTORNEY, employer a company. Those mixed lines may still be absent from the ATTORNEY industry key depending on harvest grouping.

Firm names, PACs, and what $677.3M does not cover

Many practicing lawyers never appear in the ATTORNEY industry row because they typed a partnership, a city law department, or GENERAL COUNSEL. Those receipts harvested elsewhere. The 42,760 donor count and 1,435,882 contribution lines are only the ATTORNEY string. Law-firm PACs and trade-association committees are other FEC schedules. Unitemized gifts and state-bar-related state races are omitted. LobbyVault does not certify bar membership from this label.

LAWYER remains a smaller sibling row. Adding the two is a recode you must document; it is not this $677.3M figure. Occupation pages show title-versus-employer splits when occupation is ATTORNEY and employer is a corporation. Open the ATTORNEY donor table for disclosed names and committees. The credential is self-reported FEC text, not NAICS 5411, sourced from FEC.gov via LobbyVault. The LAWYER row is not a remainder set subtracted from ATTORNEY. They are a parallel spelling. Cite $677.3M only for ATTORNEY. Cite FEC.gov via LobbyVault. Leave NAICS 5411 out of the sentence. Keep $677.3M attached to ATTORNEY as a filing label. The 42,760 donors and 1,435,882 lines are large enough that people assume the row equals the legal profession. It does not. Partnership letterheads, government law offices, and GENERAL COUNSEL spellings siphon practicing lawyers every cycle. The LAWYER row is not a leftover; they are a parallel English word. A complete legal-title recode would list ATTORNEY, LAWYER, and named firms, and would still miss people who typed COUNSEL. This page does not perform that recode. Open the ATTORNEY donor table for disclosed names and committees, then use occupation pages when occupation is ATTORNEY and employer is a company. Unitemized gifts and state-bar-related state races remain omitted. The source is FEC.gov via LobbyVault. The string is still not NAICS 5411.

Questions

How much have ATTORNEY donors given in federal elections?

LobbyVault's FEC.gov rollup attributes $677.3M to the ATTORNEY string, from 1,435,882 contributions and 42,760 donors. LAWYER is a different label with a different total. Neither is a NAICS legal-services sector. Figures on this answer are limited to that FEC string as indexed on LobbyVault; unitemized gifts and non-federal filings are omitted.

Does this include law-firm PACs?

This page totals itemized individual receipts grouped under ATTORNEY. Committee-to-committee PAC activity is a different FEC schedule. Firm-named employer rows are also separate if the donor typed the firm instead of ATTORNEY. Figures on this answer are limited to that FEC string as indexed on LobbyVault; unitemized gifts and non-federal filings are omitted.

Why isn't LAWYER included in the $677.3M?

FEC employer and occupation fields store literal text. ATTORNEY and LAWYER do not match, so LobbyVault keeps two rows. Merging them is a research choice, not the public file. Figures on this answer are limited to that FEC string as indexed on LobbyVault; unitemized gifts and non-federal filings are omitted.

How many unique attorney donors are in the data?

The ATTORNEY label has 42,760 donors and 1,435,882 contribution lines. Repeat gifts raise the receipt count. The donor figure is not a count of all licensed attorneys in the United States. Figures on this answer are limited to that FEC string as indexed on LobbyVault; unitemized gifts and non-federal filings are omitted.