Lawyer salary
What a lawyer actually earns, from 369 live job postings blended with the official US OEWS (Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics) wage anchor. Pick a market for its median and range, then read the seniority split, the trend, and the country comparison below. Updated 2026-07-23.
Switch the market above to see lawyer pay in the 2 countries our sources cover, each with its own cost of living. The trend, seniority, and state detail below are United States data, where the official record runs deepest.
What the number means
Lawyer pay tops this board and its unemployment sits at the bottom: a blended median near 166,000 dollars, an OEWS median of 151,160, and an unemployment rate of 0.8 percent, the lowest of any occupation we track. That combination is the credential moat in one line, the bar exam converting into scarcity and scarcity into pay and security. But the median hides the most bimodal distribution in professional work. Large-firm associates start above 200,000 while public-interest and small-practice lawyers earn a fraction of it, and the average sits in a valley few people actually occupy. So read the band, not the midpoint, and know which end you are aiming at before you count the three years of school and the exam. For a paralegal weighing the jump, the knowledge transfers and the credential does not shorten by a day; that is the whole calculation.
Open lawyer roles
Live openings tagged to this occupation, from company career pages and remote boards. Apply at the source.
- In-House Trial Attorney (Remote-Houston)Kemper · United States$99k–$164kRemoteJul 23
- Senior Counsel, Commercial (Robotics)OpenAI · San Francisco$297k–$347kJul 22
- Sr. Corporate Counsel, SecuritiesSpaceX · El Segundo, CA; Washington, DCJul 22
- Senior Family LawyerTeams Squared · United StatesRemoteJul 22
- Senior Patent & IP CounselLyten, Inc. · United States$227k–$341kRemoteJul 22
- Commercial Lawyer (Australia)Teams Squared · United StatesRemoteJul 22
By seniority
Posted-median pay by seniority signal in the title, from our corpus. Noisy at the edges where sample sizes are small.
By country
- United States$130,073 – $216,709 · median $166,982
- United Kingdom$77,300 – $110,909 · median $94,104
Top-paying US states
OEWS median by state, highest first.
- Californiamedian $197,790
- Massachusettsmedian $179,050
- New Yorkmedian $177,210
- Coloradomedian $167,970
- Connecticutmedian $159,240
- Virginiamedian $157,980
Is your offer fair?
Run a specific number through FairElephant, which weighs it against this data, your location, and remote market rates.
Move into or out of lawyer
- paralegal → lawyermeasured route
Related salaries
- Financial Analyst salary$80,442 median
- Accountant salary$72,138 median
- Project Manager salary$116,325 median
Quick answers
How much do lawyers make?
The blended US median is about 166,000 dollars, with the official BLS OEWS median at 151,160. The distribution is highly bimodal, from 130,000 at the 25th percentile to over 216,000 at the 75th.
What is the unemployment rate for lawyers?
0.8 percent, the lowest of any occupation we track. Bar admission creates scarcity, and scarcity creates both pay and security.
Can a paralegal become a lawyer?
Only through law school and bar admission; the substantive knowledge transfers but the credential is not shortened by paralegal experience. See the paralegal-to-lawyer route.
Method: bands are the 25th, 50th, and 75th percentiles of live US postings with stated pay, shrunk toward the official OEWS anchor by sample size (the “blended” figure). Trend is the OEWS annual median for SOC (Standard Occupational Classification) code 23-1011. Unemployment is the 2025 BLS (Bureau of Labor Statistics) CPS (Current Population Survey) annual-average rate for “Lawyers.” Live corpus 369 observations, 2026-07-23. Definitions in the glossary.