FEATURE ARTICLE: Money, Money, Money
Author: Professor Michael H. Hoeflich, PhD, Editor-in-Chief
Legal Editor: Carrie E. Parker
This article is featured in Volume 7, Number 6 of the Legal Ethics and Malpractice Reporter, published June 30, 2026.
The Rules of Professional Responsibility do not say much about lawyer compensation. Rule 1.5 requires that fees charged to clients be either reasonable or not unreasonable depending upon each jurisdiction’s wording of the Rule. Of course, fees charged to clients are intimately related to lawyers’ ultimate compensation. But the Rules don’t say anything specific about salaries.
Over the past quarter century, lawyer compensation has increased enormously. In 1979, when I began to work full time at Cravath in New York City, I earned $30,000 per year with the possibility of a small bonus (in my case, $3,000). In today’s money, that $33,000 is worth $151,000. In 1979, Cravath and the larger New York City firms generally paid lawyers more than most other firms (a few boutiques firms paid a bit more,).
The salaries for associates at the largest American law firms have recently just been announced. First year Cravath associates will now be paid a base salary of $235,000 per year. Indeed, the new big firm associate salary scale, according to Larson Maddox, is:
Big Law associate salary by year (Cravath Scale)
| Associate Year | Base Salary | Total Compensation |
| 1st Year | $235,000 | $261,000 |
| 2nd Year | $245,000 | $275,000 |
| 3rd Year | $270,000 | $342,500 |
| 4th Year | $320,000 | $415,000 |
| 5th Year | $385,000 | $500,000 |
| 6th Year | $410,000 | $540,000 |
| 7th Year | $440,000 | $580,000 |
| 8th Year | $455,000 | $595,000 |
Source: Larson Maddox Regulatory & Legal Salary Guide, 2026, updated to reflect the Milbank-led market raise first reported on 2 June 2026. Base figures reflect the reported market scale of $235,000 to $455,000, effective 1 July 2026. Total compensation assumes year-end bonuses hold at prior levels, as the raise applies to base salary only.
Partner salaries are more difficult to access unless one subscribes to expensive law business surveys, which I don’t. But law-oriented blogs like Above the Law and Bloomberg frequently discuss higher salaries, and it appears that the highest salaries range in the $5-10 million dollar annually range. Recent reporting indicates some law firms having been starting bonuses for “star” lateral hires as high as $20 million dollars.
Of course, these are not the salaries most lawyers earn. According to Zip Recruiter, the average lawyer salary nationwide is $100,626 in 2026. In Kansas, the average lawyer salary is $89,744. Doing the math, one sees that the highest paid partners at the top law firms in the United States earn in one week almost double what the average lawyer in Kansas earns each year.
That salaries at the largest firms nationally are so high (indeed, astronomical) is not unethical, at least so long as paying those salaries does not cause fees to become unreasonable. But just because such lawyer compensation is ethically justifiable under current rules does not mean that such compensation will not create a perception problem for the entire profession—or that a perception problem will not lead to new rules.
Historically, changes in lawyer ethics codes have often been initiated by public outrage over lawyer and judicial behavior. One of the primary reasons why written codes of ethics, including the 1908 ABA code, were drafted and adopted was public anger over lawyers representing railroads. In the 1970s, public outcry over the Watergate scandal and the number of lawyers involved in it led to wholesale changes in law and disciplinary rules nationally.
The large firms that now pay significant compensation to both associates and partners do not have to worry about clients’ suing them or filing disciplinary complaints against them. The clients who tend to use firms are sophisticated, many are corporations, and they know what they are being asked to pay far in advance of engaging. But these salaries may very well create problems for much smaller law firms and lawyers.
First, increasing media coverage of very high lawyer compensation may make clients who are actually paying significantly more competitive rates think that their own lawyers also are charging high fees and paying young lawyers too much. It is necessary to disabuse most clients of this notion, or to educate them that, but for very small pockets of the industry, lawyers are not generally becoming rich from their professional practices. Media coverage of what lawyers actually earn in Kansas and Missouri and other states could help. Appointment of a Bar committee to examine lawyer fees and compensation and issue a report to show that fees and salaries are reasonable could also let the public know that most lawyer income is not sky high. Indeed, when average lawyer salaries are looked at in hourly terms, they are often lower than those of master plumbers.
There is, however, another issue with the increasing lawyer salaries—how it affects young lawyers’ expectations and perceptions. According to Zip Recruiter, starting lawyer salaries in Kansas range from $41,900 to $121,600. They print a number of details about this data:
While ZipRecruiter is seeing salaries as high as $123,521 and as low as $41,917, the majority of Entry Level Lawyer salaries currently range between $70,500 (25th percentile) to $91,900 (75th percentile) with top earners (90th percentile) making $116,832 annually in Kansas. The average pay range for an Entry Level Lawyer varies greatly (by as much as $21,400), which suggests there may be many opportunities for advancement and increased pay based on skill level, location and years of experience.
Some law students are tempted by the comparative numbers. Every year, excellent law graduates from our regional law schools go off on a quest to seek fame and fortune in the big urban firms in the hope that someday they will be lawyer “rock stars” earning millions every year. Many law students come to equate high salaries with professional excellence (i.e., the higher the salary, the better the lawyer and the firm).
In the end, while only a small number of firms that pay extraordinary salaries and charge extraordinary fees, thanks to media coverage, more and more of the general public may begin to think that lawyers are increasing economic inequity in the nation. If restraint is not taken within the profession on its own terms, it may be forced by uproar resulting in new legal and ethical restrictions.
The LEMR wishes to acknowledge the assistance of Professor Stephen Sheppard in this article.
READ THE FULL ISSUE OF LEMR, Vol. 7, No. 6
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