# Hillary Clinton's Fortune: From Law to $120M Empire

Hillary Clinton wasn't always rich. Fresh out of Yale Law School in 1973, she was grinding as a staff attorney at the Children's Defense Fund—literally knocking on doors to fight for kids' education rights.

Fast forward to today: her net worth sits at **$120 million**, a massive jump from the $32 million estimated back in 2014.

**Where did the money come from?**

Not from politics directly. The real goldmine? **Speeches and books** after leaving office.

Between 2007-2014, Hillary and Bill Clinton hauled in nearly **$141 million from paid speaking gigs**. She was commanding around $275,000 per appearance when she stepped down from the State Department in 2013. In a single 16-month stretch in 2015, they raked in over $30 million—$25 million just from speeches.

Books were another cash cow. Hillary scored **$14 million for "Hard Choices"** (with an $8 million advance on "Living History" before that). Bill's autobiography "My Life" fetched him $15 million from Knopf back in 2004.

Their tax returns tell the story: in 2015, the couple reported $10.75 million in income and paid $3.62 million in federal taxes (34.2% rate).

**The shift:** She went from defending children's rights in Massachusetts to commanding six-figure speaker fees—a pretty lucrative career arc after the White House.