Chefs and head cooks earn a median amount of around $50,000 a year https://www.bls.gov/ooh/food-preparation-and-serving/chefs-a...
So I'm not so sure about your point.
But that's less than 50% of lawyers, and it's voluntary.
I did the research on this when I thought I wanted to go into law myself.
What might be relevant for the discussion here is that lawyer salaries have been unimodal 25 years ago but have changed over the course of time. It has been argued here on HN [2][3] and elsewhere [4] that developer salaries are bound to suffer the same fate.
[1] https://www.biglawinvestor.com/bimodal-salary-distribution-c...
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16337434