What law firms post for attorneys
These law firm salary benchmarks come from real job listings, not a survey.
Our sister job board, LawFirmHires, collects law firm and legal openings from employer career sites, applicant tracking systems and job boards across the U.S.
On October 5, 2026, it had 6,670 live listings (government jobs left out) from 1,582 employers, and 32% of them stated pay.
Attorney roles are posted almost entirely as salaries, so here is the median posted salary for the consumer practice areas with enough data.
Median posted attorney salary, by practice area
The median is only half the story, so here is the middle half of posted pay (the 25th to 75th percentile) for every attorney role with enough data, with how many employers it rests on.
| Attorney role | Median | Middle half | Employers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Associate attorney | $117,500 | $95k–$146k | 96 |
| Senior associate | $200,000 | $151k–$282k | 23 |
| Attorney (general title) | $134,000 | $110.5k–$175k | 56 |
| Litigation attorney | $155,000 | $128k–$179k | 88 |
| Insurance defense attorney | $150,000 | $127k–$170k | 23 |
| Personal injury attorney | $137,500 | $115k–$179k | 28 |
| Workers' compensation attorney | $132,500 | $124k–$147k | 7 |
| Family law attorney | $121,000 | $102k–$161k | 25 |
| Criminal defense attorney | $115,000 | $100k–$125k | 10 |
| Immigration attorney | $111,000 | $104.5k–$124k | 13 |
| Estate planning attorney | $110,000 | $97.5k–$130k | 14 |
| Employment attorney | $187,500 | $167.5k–$199k | 11 |
| Real estate attorney | $184,000 | $159.5k–$196k | 12 |
| Corporate attorney | $183,000 | $159.5k–$265.5k | 19 |
| Intellectual property attorney | $210,000 | $168k–$289.5k | 10 |
| Of counsel | $177,500 | $141k–$211.5k | 35 |
A role title doesn't say how big the firm is or which side it represents, so each practice-area median mixes small firms with large ones.
Paralegals, assistants and support staff
Staff roles are posted both by the hour and as salaries, so we report the two separately.
Median posted hourly pay, staff roles
| Staff role | Median hourly | Middle half | Employers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Litigation paralegal | $35.00 | $26.50–$37.50 | 22 |
| Case manager | $31.50 | $27.50–$35.00 | 29 |
| Law clerk | $30.50 | $24.25–$33.50 | 10 |
| Personal injury paralegal | $27.75 | $24.50–$31.50 | 9 |
| Paralegal | $25.75 | $22.50–$32.00 | 67 |
| Legal secretary | $24.00 | $21.00–$27.50 | 40 |
| Legal assistant | $23.00 | $20.00–$27.50 | 101 |
| Intake specialist | $22.75 | $20.50–$26.00 | 40 |
| Receptionist | $19.00 | $17.00–$21.00 | 40 |
Here are the staff roles with enough salaried listings.
| Staff role | Median | Middle half | Employers |
|---|---|---|---|
| Law firm administrator | $132,500 | $81k–$144k | 11 |
| Corporate paralegal | $102,000 | $85.5k–$121k | 13 |
| Legal billing specialist | $88,000 | $67.5k–$97.5k | 9 |
| Litigation paralegal | $80,000 | $65k–$100k | 50 |
| Paralegal | $73,500 | $62k–$91.5k | 100 |
| Case manager | $72,500 | $60k–$102.5k | 15 |
| Personal injury paralegal | $70,000 | $63k–$73.5k | 15 |
| Legal secretary | $70,000 | $60k–$89k | 40 |
| Family law paralegal | $62,500 | $57.5k–$65k | 17 |
| Legal assistant | $60,000 | $50k–$77k | 56 |
Intake and the front desk answer your marketing
The two roles hired to answer calls from prospective clients are near the bottom of the pay table.
Intake specialists post a median $22.75 an hour, about $47,300 a year on a full-time schedule of 2,080 hours, and receptionists post $19.00, about $39,500.
That receptionist figure sits close to the published benchmark: BLS counted a median annual wage of $41,600 for receptionists and information clerks in legal services in May 2025, and it has no separate occupation code for intake specialists.
$22.75 an hour
The median posted pay for intake specialists, below paralegals ($25.75) and case managers ($31.50).
53% mention Spanish
More than half of employers hiring intake specialists mention Spanish in their listings, and 58% of those hiring case managers do.
27% mention a bonus
About a quarter of employers hiring intake specialists mention a bonus, against 10% of those hiring receptionists.
8% part-time
8% of intake specialist listings are part-time, double the paralegal share (4%).
That pay level is worth a second look if you spend money on ads or SEO.
Every call and form those campaigns produce lands with this role, and how fast and how well it gets handled decides whether it turns into a consultation and a signed case.
Spanish shows up beyond intake too, in the listings of 37% of employers hiring receptionists and 29% of those hiring personal injury attorneys.
Multi-office firms vs everyone else
We split employers into multi-office firms (111 employers hiring in five or more cities, with 61% of all listings) and everyone else (1,471 employers).
Neither group simply pays more: it depends on the role.
Multi-office firms
- Associate attorneys: $129,000 median (15 firms)
- Litigation attorneys: $160,000 median (22 firms)
- Personal injury attorneys: $179,000 median (5 firms)
- Insurance defense attorneys: $147,500 median (11 firms)
- Corporate attorneys: $175,000 median (9 firms)
- Legal assistants: $22.25/hr median (8 firms)
Everyone else
- Associate attorneys: $111,000 median (81 employers)
- Litigation attorneys: $147,500 median (66 employers)
- Personal injury attorneys: $135,000 median (23 employers)
- Insurance defense attorneys: $155,000 median (12 employers)
- Corporate attorneys: $200,000 median (10 employers)
- Legal assistants: $23.25/hr median (93 employers)
Multi-office firms posted the higher median in 8 of the 11 role comparisons with enough data on both sides, and the lower one for insurance defense attorneys, corporate attorneys and hourly legal assistants.
The associate gap has the most data behind it, at $18,000 a year.
The personal injury gap is larger, at $44,000, but only five multi-office firms posted personal injury attorney pay.
Multi-office firms are also far less likely to state pay on a given listing: 20% of their listings do, against 51% for everyone else.
Per employer the gap is smaller (52% of multi-office firms and 63% of the rest post pay on at least one listing), so much of it comes from large firms leaving pay off some offices.
Bonuses, billable hours and what listings leave out
41% of the 650 employers hiring attorneys mention a bonus somewhere in their listings, against 17% of those hiring paralegals and 13% of those hiring legal assistants.
Sign-on bonuses barely show up, at 1% of attorney employers.
Billable-hour requirements are rarely stated: only 5% of employers hiring attorneys mention a billable-hour requirement or target.
So the hours expected of an associate are almost never in the listing, and fewer than half of attorney employers mention a bonus at all.
What this means for firm owners
Check your posted pay against the middle half for the role, not the median alone.
An associate listing at $95,000 is at the bottom quarter of what candidates see, and one at $146,000 is at the top quarter.
Post pay if you don't today.
38% of employers never stated pay on any listing in the data, so a stated range already sets you apart from them.
If you pay a bonus, put the structure in the listing.
And look at intake with the same eye you give your marketing.
It's one of the lowest paid roles in the firm and the one that turns every paid call into a consultation or a lost case.
More Booked Cases doesn't staff or train intake, but its conversion work measures consultation and signed-case rates with read access to the firm's intake numbers, and the legal intake guide covers where cases leak.
Pay and staffing are also the capacity lever in how to grow a law firm.
If you want to see how well your calls and forms convert today, a free audit is the place to start.
How we did it
Source. Listings come from LawFirmHires, which collects law firm and legal openings from employer career sites, applicant tracking systems and job boards. We used every listing live on October 5, 2026, and left out 388 government listings (federal postings and government attorney and prosecutor roles), which leaves 6,670 listings from 1,582 employers in all 50 states and Washington, D.C.
Roles. Each listing is assigned a role from its title. Listings outside the roles on this page (552, such as in-house counsel and legal recruiters) are included in the overall counts but not in any role's figures.
Pay. We used the midpoint of each posted range. Each employer and range counts once per role, so a firm posting the same range at 30 offices counts once. Hourly and annual pay are kept separate, ranges outside $7.25–$300 an hour or $20,000–$500,000 a year would be dropped as parsing errors (none were, and the highest annual midpoint was $425,000), and a figure is shown only with at least 10 distinct ranges from at least 5 employers. Medians are rounded to the nearest $0.25 an hour or $500 a year.
Multi-office firms. An employer hiring in five or more cities in the data (111 employers). Employer name variants (legal suffixes, long and short firm names) are merged first.
Listing text. Bonus, Spanish and billable-hour mentions are counted per employer: an employer counts if any of its listings for that role mention it. Bonus excludes sign-on and referral bonuses.
What it can't see. Posted pay is what employers advertise, not what they end up paying, and it is mostly base pay. Listings without pay (68%) aren't in the pay figures, and employers that post pay may differ from those that don't. A small number of state and county employers remain in the staff roles. We don't report remote or hybrid shares, because the listing data doesn't record work arrangement reliably.
Data. The figures by role and segment are available as a CSV download. We don't publish individual listings or employer pay.
For journalists
You're welcome to use these figures with a link to this page.
Gabe Meierotto, founder of More Booked Cases and LawFirmHires and former Director of CRO at LaserAway (2018–2023), can talk about what the data means for law firm owners.
Reach him at [email protected].
Frequently asked questions
Where do these law firm pay figures come from?
From LawFirmHires, the law firm job board run by More Booked Cases founder Gabe Meierotto. It collects law firm and legal job listings from employer career sites, applicant tracking systems and job boards. The figures cover the 6,670 listings that were live on October 5, 2026, from 1,582 employers in all 50 states and Washington, D.C., with government listings left out.
How is the median posted pay calculated?
We take the midpoint of each posted pay range. Large firms often post the same range for many offices, so each employer and range is counted once per role, otherwise one firm would set the median. Hourly and annual pay are reported separately, and a figure is shown only when it rests on at least 10 distinct ranges from at least 5 employers.
How much should a law firm pay a paralegal?
The middle half of posted hourly paralegal pay sits between $22.50 and $32.00 an hour, with a median of $25.75 from 67 employers, and salaried paralegal listings post a median $73,500. Litigation, corporate and personal injury paralegals post their own ranges, shown on this page. Use the range as a check on what candidates see next to your listing, not as a rule.
What do law firms pay a legal intake specialist?
Hourly intake specialist listings post a median $22.75 an hour, with the middle half between $20.50 and $26.00, from 40 employers. BLS has no separate occupation code for the role, so posted listings are a useful direct source.
Can I use these numbers in an article?
Yes. Please cite More Booked Cases and link to this page. The figures by role are available as a CSV, and Gabe Meierotto is available to comment on what they mean for firm owners.