ATTORNEY

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.

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.