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The salary of a first-year lawyer reflects a split legal market. A minority of graduates reach large-firm associate pay at the market scale of $235,000. The majority earn the profession's entry median of $95,000 (the NALP Class of 2024 overall median; the mean was $125,926), which varies by city and practice area.
By Ali Unar, JD candidate at Georgetown Law and founder of Lovare Institut. Last updated August 2026. Figures on this page were verified in August 2026 or point readers to the current source.
The salary of a first-year lawyer reflects a split legal market. A minority of graduates reach large-firm associate pay at the market scale of $235,000. The majority earn the profession's entry median of $95,000 (the NALP Class of 2024 overall median; the mean was $125,926), which varies by city and practice area. Typical pay by employer type appears below.
The current ranking is best read directly from the source. See the U.S. News Best Law Schools list for the up-to-date order, and each school's ABA Standard 509 report for its median LSAT, GPA, and acceptance rate.
These ranges are structural; the exact current numbers come from the latest NALP and BLS releases.
NALP's data shows a bimodal curve, with one peak near the national median and a smaller peak at the big-firm rate. The average lands in the empty valley between them and describes few real lawyers. For any individual, the relevant number is the peak their target job sits near, not the blended mean.
Employer size, city, and practice area are the main drivers, with grades and school rank controlling access to the top-paying firms. Corporate, patent, tax, and finance roles pay more than general practice, and high-cost markets pay more than smaller ones. Confirm the current figures against see the linked source (see the linked source).
Aim at a job type rather than the average and prepare for its specific gate. Big-firm pay is won through grades, rank, and recruiting; public-service pay is sustained by loan forgiveness. Lovare's coaching helps you reach the LSAT score and school that open the higher-paying options.
First-year lawyer pay is bimodal, per NALP. A minority of graduates reach big-firm associate pay at $235,000, and the majority earn the profession's entry median of $95,000 (the NALP Class of 2024 overall median; the mean was $125,926). Very few new lawyers earn amounts in between the two peaks.
Corporate and M&A work, patent and IP, tax, and securities and finance law are generally the highest-paid legal fields, concentrated in large firms. Specialized patent attorneys with science backgrounds and elite corporate lawyers sit at the top. Exact figures follow roughly $235,000 in market-rate BigLaw regardless of practice area; BLS does not break lawyer pay out by specialty.
The Biglaw salary scale, often called the Cravath scale after the firm that historically set it, is a lockstep base-pay schedule that many large firms match by class year. First-years all start at the same market number, currently $235,000, with a set raise each year plus market bonuses.
Verified August 2026.
August 21, 2026
August 21, 2026