Put food on the table? Are you for real? Lawyers who work at the law firms that have expertise to represent Chelsea Manning are probably in 0.1% of top earners worldwide.
I was going to quote an article about how the wealthy 0.1% is a different demographic than the top 1% because the rest of the top one percent are workers for the top 0.1%. However, I guess these top one percent US people would be 0.1% worldwide.
Rich people don't just swim in money you know. It's fairly likely they'll have far more expenses than poor people. So they might have a better pension plan, pay a gardener. Might send their kids to private school. etc etc
So someone earning $200k could well be less well off after expenses than someone earning $50k.
I agree. I'm just saying that just because someone is a lawyer, and has a reasonably high salary, doesn't necessarily follow that they're swimming in money.
When I charged $45/hour before I quit to go back to school, I was nominally making $90k a year. According to the rich list website, that puts me at 0.09% worldwide. No, I am by no means wealthy. I have loans I am not done with!
You probably should have mentioned taxes. In the US, if most of your income is employment income, the tax system is still very progressive. Not so much for investment income.
If they can't work pro bono, who can?