Real salary data
What Lawyers actually earn in 2026.
The median for Lawyer is $225,000 across 4547 real salary records (H-1B visa filings and tech job postings), updated Aug 10, 2026.
01 / By source
Real salary bands, by source.
Bands come from 4547 real records. Each source has a different bias, disclosed below.
Density curve fitted to the observed quartiles (log-normal). $142,730–$260,000 contains the middle 50% of records in the best-represented source; the shape between them is an approximation.
| Source | Records | 25th pct | Median | 75th pct |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| H-1B visa filings | 4,547 | $142,730 | $225,000 | $260,000 |
| Job postings | 14 | $131,250 | $167,500 | $177,592 |
- H-1B visa filings (DOL) — over-represents visa-eligible roles (typically high-skill, high-wage)
- Job postings that disclose salary in the ad text
Salary data updated Aug 10, 2026. Bands are percentiles, not averages; n is the number of underlying records.
02 / By city
What Lawyers earn, by city.
Real records; cities with at least 10 observations.
| City | Records | Range (p25–p75) | Median |
|---|---|---|---|
| New York, NY | 2,222 | $215,000 – $310,000 | $230,000 |
| San Francisco, CA | 202 | $190,000 – $310,000 | $225,000 |
| Washington, DC | 160 | $215,000 – $284,294 | $235,000 |
| Los Angeles, CA | 137 | $120,000 – $260,000 | $225,000 |
| Chicago, IL | 114 | $98,398 – $228,750 | $175,511 |
| Houston, TX | 86 | $140,625 – $265,000 | $225,000 |
| Palo Alto, CA | 72 | $225,000 – $310,000 | $260,000 |
| Boston, MA | 64 | $211,250 – $310,000 | $240,000 |
| Miami, FL | 62 | $112,625 – $209,000 | $155,000 |
| Brooklyn, NY | 60 | $100,000 – $225,000 | $162,500 |
| Seattle, WA | 51 | $157,600 – $206,400 | $173,992 |
| Atlanta, GA | 34 | $99,999 – $223,000 | $125,660 |
03 / By state
What Lawyers earn, by state.
| State | Records | Range (p25–p75) | Median |
|---|---|---|---|
| NY | 2,459 | $190,000 – $310,000 | $225,000 |
| CA | 834 | $140,000 – $260,000 | $215,000 |
| DC | 191 | $215,000 – $301,408 | $225,000 |
| TX | 168 | $97,760 – $235,000 | $203,918 |
| IL | 133 | $90,000 – $225,000 | $154,500 |
| FL | 114 | $101,590 – $182,325 | $132,500 |
| MA | 106 | $100,500 – $267,500 | $222,500 |
| NJ | 83 | $95,680 – $206,413 | $150,000 |
| WA | 82 | $116,250 – $199,950 | $164,590 |
| VA | 56 | $118,664 – $173,057 | $132,000 |
| GA | 53 | $90,000 – $190,000 | $125,000 |
| PA | 33 | $90,000 – $225,000 | $126,963 |
04 / Context
How Lawyers pay compares with similar roles.
| Profession | Risk | Median | Outlook |
|---|---|---|---|
| Compliance Officer | Medium | $86,778 | +3.0% (2024–34) |
| Contract Reviewer | Critical | $65,000 | +0.2% (2024–34) |
| Labor Relations Specialist | Medium | $95,420 | -0.1% (2024–34) |
| Legal Assistant | High | $65,000 | +0.2% (2024–34) |
| Paralegal | High | $65,000 | +0.2% (2024–34) |
05 / Next step
How to move up the pay band.
The skills below appear most often in higher-paid roles:
- udemyContract Drafting Masterclass – Learn from a LawyerAdvanced
- udemyHow to become a Lawyer in CanadaIntermediate
- udemyLegal English Complete: Master Legal CommunicationIntermediate
- udemyLegal English & US Law: Legal Writing, Drafting & VocabularyIntermediate
- udemyCorporate Restructuring, MBOs, M&A & Corporate ValuationIntermediate
- udemyCorporate Communication Skills : From Campus to CorporateIntermediate
- udemyLitigation (Civil)Intermediate
- udemyPublic Interest Litigation and Writ PetitionsIntermediate
06 / FAQ
Salary questions, answered.
01Why are the bands different from the BLS median?
The BLS median covers all Lawyer in the US. These bands come from real records with known biases — H-1B filings skew to visa-eligible (high-skill) roles and tech postings skew to tech employers — so they sit above the national median. We disclose the source of every band.
02How often is this data updated?
The dataset refreshes weekly from live job postings and quarterly from new H-1B disclosures.