Elizabeth Warren, the consumer- protection advocate and Democratic challenger to Republican Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts for his Senate seat, has recently faced accusations of hypocrisy following the release of new information about her earnings.

According to her campaign committee's quarterly financial disclosure report, Ms. Warren earned more than $700,000 from teaching and consulting fees in 2010 and 2011, in addition to six-figure salaries from federal government appointments and $43,938 in fees from a national insurance firm for which she acted as a consultant - putting her in the top ranks of American earners. Shortly afterward, Jim Barnett, Mr. Brown's campaign manager, branded her an “elitist hypocrite.''

According to a Jan. 14 article, Mr. Barnett told The Boston Globe that she was “firmly entrenched in the same '1 percent' she rails against, and she is more than happy to make tens of thousands of dollars defending powerful insurance companies against middle-class victims.'' According to a column by Brian McGrory published in the same newspaper a few days later, Mr. Barnett also wrote in an e-mail that “Professor Warren has a bad habit that is not uncommon among holier-thanthou- elitists, namely engaging in the same sort of behavior that they look down on others for.

Working as a special adviser to President Obama, Ms. Warren helped set up the federal consumer financial protection agency and has often spoken out against unfair lending practices and tax laws that she says favor multinational corporations over average workers. In her campaign for the Senate, she has also pushed for increasing taxes on wealthy Americans.

Some political commentators have challenged the idea that Ms. Warren, a wealthy individual with working-class roots, is a hypocrite for advocating for those less well-off. Steve Benen, a commentator at Washington Monthly magazine, wrote online on Jan. 20: “When rich people support economic policies that bolster working families, that’s admirable, but it’s not hypocrisy.