Interesting problem you have...
Before I give you any advice, I'm gonna tell you a bit about my story, so you know where I'm coming from. I figured out I wanted to go to law school the in the first semester of my senior year. It so happened that I was doing that semester over the summer interning at an embassy in Washington DC, so my final semester was also the only semester I had to apply to law school. So I read up on every Canadian law school out there to get the gist of what's going on in our country's legal education system. I worked at my applications, wrote the LSAT and was accepted to three law schools in Canada.
Now, read on if you think what I'm about to say is worth reading...
Your comments about your expected LSAT grade are striking. I hope you do as well as you say, but a 163 is not something easy. And like you said, you're going to practice, and take courses, and practice some more. It all may help and get you the score you want, and it all might be in vain. The LSAT is funny that way. My question to you is this: Are you any good at math?
I ask this because whenever someone asks me what the LSAT is like, I say a graduate level math test without any numbers. It's all patterns, and if you've never been exposed to this style of questioning before, it will bite you in the rear... LSAC will tell you that it's an excellent representation of your ability to perform in the first year of law school, and that EVERY Canadian university uses it as an objective way to evaluate candidates. This is false. Having spoken with Admissions Deans myself, the current trend is to move away from the LSAT because of the nature of Canadian post-secondary education. We stress logical reasoning, but we don't stress rapidity that borders on haste. (I'm refering the 35 minutes per section you get on each of the 5 sections of the LSAT).
The key to getting into any Canadian law school is the personal statement.
And this is particularly important in your case. Whatever your LSAT grade is, and whatever your GPA was, it's your personal statement that they really count. Your LSAT is viewed (with the exception of U of T) as nice addition to a well-prepared application, but it will not make or break you. Your GPA, even if it was poor over the first 18 months of university, is considered in a different way than you'd expect. Most schools will take your last 60 credits or two-years worth, but even that isn't written in stone. Essentially, they want to see an improvement. So if you're A- average is accurate of your later 2.5 years of university, that's what they'll consider your GPA to be. Which in most cases is about a 3.6, 3.7...
But there have been many refusals of candidates with LSATs superior to 163, and GPAs of 3.5 and above, simply because the person thought that they would get a "by" because of their grades and LSAT. It doesn't work that way. They want to know you, and they want you to distinguish yourself from the rest of the candidates (generally speaking, there are a few hundred applicants in the 160+/3.5+ pool). The only way you can do that is through the personal statement.
Now as for the US, and like I mentioned, I spent the summer in DC speaking with teachers and working lawyers at the embassy, the advice that others gave me has led me to conclude that anything short of a top-100 isn't going to make a difference in your salary. And on top of that, you need to dinstinguish yourself from your peers while you're at law school, and at a top-100 in the US, with an applicant pool approximately 10x that of Canada, you're putting yourself at a disadvantage... Not to mention the fact that if you're considering salary levels before writing your LSAT, let alone getting accepted, you're going about this all the wrong way.
Re-evaluate your priorities. If you have an interest in law, and the ambition to excel in the classroom, you'll get in, do well, and make the money later. Sky's the limit. But don't start with an interest in money. That's not what it's about.
Cheers,
Costa Ragas
p.s.
I've got a website that I made dedicated to all these topics if you care to visit:
http://www.clsaweb.com