Criminal defense lawyer salary?

You seem to be confused about what the practice of law actually entails. Salary at top firms is automatic, with bonuses for billing hours, but the previous response is correct that if you don't bring in clients and bill your hours for the year, you won't be employed for long. Top firms do not do criminal defense, except for white collar. Criminal defense attorneys are almost all solos or work for small firms (unless of course they're public defenders), and most of them make very little money - maybe $40,000 per year if you're lucky. Criminal defense is not a contingency practice, for obvious reasons. Top firms generally do not take contingency cases, so that "$75 million-dollar" lawsuit you mention doesn't matter, except of course for whatever billable hours you get out of it. Top firms generally do corporate work, which means a lot of document review and negotiation and very, very few lawsuits. Money comes from billable hours, not from winning cases.