Salary
Average Salary: $76,840
Expected Lifetime Earnings: $3,207,916
Judge Judy makes $47,000,000 a year (or about $900,000 per day she works) as a professional arbitrator, but you probably won't see even half of that (source). Or a fourth of that. Or, uh, a tenth of that. Aw—don't get sad. You're still going to be averaging about $76,840 a year (source). It could be worse.
Then again, it could be better, too. A whole lot better. Considering that judges pull an average of $115,760 (while lawyers make about $113,530), you may be wondering why someone would choose to become an arbitrator at all (source). Especially because you usually have to be one of those higher paying things to graduate to the lower paying thing.
First of all, many arbitrators perform the function as a form of retirement. Sure, you're not technically retired if you're still listening to people argue all day, but the workload is typically far less than that of an active judge. It's less strenuous, too. We're talking about getting paid primarily for dispensing expertise and wisdom—something your mom does for free. Suddenly $76,840 a year doesn't sound so bad, does it?
If you don't want to wade through an entire other career before joining this one, your choices may be limited. Courts typically won't hire arbitrators without a decade or more of experience. In this case, those fewer options will likely mean less money and less work.
And if you don't have enough work for a full-time job, and have to take another job anyway (see where we're going here?), you may as well supplement your income with—you guessed it—being a lawyer or judge.