Inhouse counsel salary data is not easy to find or consistently reported, but we’ve collected resources to help you in your search. There are many ways to compare your inhouse counsel salary or law firm salary with those of your peers, and to help you determine if you are being compensated fairly. You may want to review some of the guides we have listed, speak to recruiters or test the waters yourself by applying for an in-house counsel law job, General Counsel job, Chief Legal Officer job, Deputy General Counsel job, Chief Compliance Officer job or better yet these days, a remote legal job! Not sure where to start? Read our How To Get An In-House Counsel Job guide!
Let us know if you find other resources as we are always looking to keep this in-house counsel salaries guide as informative as possible.
Robert Half’s 2025 Inhouse Counsel Salaries Guide
Robert Half Legal has released its latest report which contains data on inhouse counsel salaries for 2025. The report uses percentage tiers this year as a way to present in-house counsel salary data. The percentage tiers apply across the range of in-house counsel positions by years of experience, with General Counsel at the top and in-house counsel with 3 or less years of experience at the bottom. Robert Half is a market leader in what they do and they are used as a reference point by many in the employment, recruiting and staffing place. Keep up with them, as they continue to put out great content useful for lawyers and always have a ton of in-house job listings.
Using these percentage tiers, Robert Half Legal’s guide shows a salary range of $219,750 to $270,250 for a General Counsel from the 25th percentile to the 75th percentile, $155,500 to $217,500 for an in-house counsel with 10+ years experience from the 25th percentile to the 75th percentile, $106,750 to $177,250 for an in-house counsel for an in-house counsel with 4-9 years experience from the 25th percentile to the 75th percentile, and $92,500 to $133,500 for an in-house counsel with 0-3 years experience from the 25th percentile to the 75th percentile.
The Robert Half Salary Guide gives guidance on inhouse counsel salaries for positions in demand, as well as methods for adjusting the inhouse counsel salaries based on where the in-house attorney will be working. The Robert Half Legal Guide is a great resource and worth a close review by all inhouse counsel – to get access to more granular data, head over to Robert Half Legal.
Robert Half’s Legal Salary Calculator
In addition to their in-house counsel salary guide, Robert Half provides a salary calculator on their website that can help you calculate an in-house counsel salary range and midpoint salary by different levels of in-house positions and geographic location. This can help you see what potential in-house counsel compensation might be in different parts of the country.
LHH’s 2025 Legal Compensation Guide
LHH breaks down companies into small, medium and large buckets, with small companies having 1 to 100 full-time employees (FTEs), medium-sized companies having between 100 to 500 FTEs, large companies having 500 to 1,500 FTEs, and enterprise companies having more than 15,000 FTEs. From small to enterprise companies, “corporate counsel” roles for 2025 are projected to range from $152,500 to $190,900. For general counsel or chief legal counsel roles, LHH predicts a compensation range of $293,900 at small companies to $491,400 at enterprise companies. LHH also provides data for senior counsel, eDiscovery and Associate/Assistant GC positions.
LHH’s guide also indicates that the legal sector may be one of the first to be impacted by the advent of AI technology and tools that will change the delivery of legal services:
“As in other industries, AI and machine learning have been significant disruptors in the legal profession with the potential for more big changes in the near future. Digital transformation is automating, or at least augmenting, tasks like legal research and document analysis and drafting. Additionally, the legal professionals we surveyed expect AI will be used increasingly for tasks like analyzing and processing data (31%) and language translation (30%).”
Read more at LHH’s 2025 Legal Compensation Guide.
Taylor Root’s 2024-2025 In-House Legal Market Report And Salary Guide
Taylor Root provides in-depth salary data and insights across the various territories that Taylor Root operates in from 16 global offices. Taylor Root notes that the global in-house legal market is a complex and dynamic environment and is facing a myriad of challenges and opportunities. Their report addresses several factors affecting the market including macro-economic issues including the growing focus on ESG and regulatory compliance. Taylor Root also shares their comprehensive salary analysis and poll results from across the globe, allowing detailed insights into the in-house legal space, with the ability to benchmark your salary against the industry.
Taylor Root’s North America data is presented with breakdowns for a number major sectors: (a) buy-side, (b) heavy industries, (c) real estate, (d) retail, (e) sell-side, and (f) TMT. Like other studies, their data presents a range based on levels of experience from 3 years “PQE” (or post-qualification experience) all the way up to the General Counsel role. Their data contains not only base salary detail at each level, but also bonus ranges, which many will helpful in diving what total compensation packages will look like. The bonus ranges vary significantly but illustrate that just like positions in Biglaw firms, bonuses can actually drive and contain huge amounts of an in-house counsel compensation package. For example, while Taylor Root’s lowest base salary range for 3 years of experience in larger markets is $140,000 to $225,000, the lowest bonus ranges start at 10% and in many cases are far higher, even reaching 100% of base salary.
Get more data from Taylor Root’s guide – it’s a new addition this year and well worth a look.
The Larson Maddox 2025 USA Regulatory & Legal Salary Guide
Larson Maddox sees the US legal market as a bustling arena, housing the headquarters of global legal giants spanning diverse industries. In this fiercely competitive domain, Larson Maddox finds the drive for excellence is intensifying as the costs of living and conducting business soar. According to Larson Maddox, clients, regulators, and stakeholders are pressing for more, urging regulatory & legal entities to elevate performance, efficiency, and quality while adopting proactive, strategic legal approaches. With this constant change and economic flux, Larson Maddox sees the art of delivering heightened value while navigating industry shifts as having become even more critical. And at the heart of this success, Larson Maddox indicates, lies talent. Larson Maddox has witnessed a surge in inquiries surrounding the crucial question of competitive salary packages essential to attract and retain these pivotal experts.
Larson Maddox’s guide is another great addition to the legal salary guide space as it uniquely presents data by a larger sub-set of industries AND also differentiates between higher cost and lower cost of living areas. They also show wide experience bands and, at each level, break down their compensation figures by low end, median and high end. For example, in the financial services sector in larger markets, an attorney with 2 to 5 years of experience could see total compensation (base plus bonus) from $200,000 at the low end all the way up to $425,000 at the high end. General Counsel in the same sector can see total compensation ranging from $350,000 at the low end up to $10,000,000+ on the high end!
Get more data from Larson Maddox – it’s another new addition to our macro guide this year and well worth a detailed look.
The ACC 2024 Law Department Compensation Survey
The Association of Corporate Counsel partners with Empsight to offer compensation data for in-house legal professionals. Their annual data collection is conducted in the spring and is published in late September. They offer benchmarking data for individuals (based on self-reported data) and benchmarking data for legal departments (based on company/HR-sourced data). The ACC present base salaries, short-term incentive amounts, long-term incentive targets, and total cash compensation across key legal job titles. In addition, they present common company benefits, remote work norms, employment trends, and key skills needed to succeed in-house. There was wide variation in responses including individuals from small and large public, private, and non-profit companies across dozens of industries, practice area specializations, and across 24 different job titles.
The ACC report breaks out base salary and short-term incentive data at the median and 90th percentile by job title, and also has a separate dataset just focusing on long term incentives. Also helpful is their data on company revenue, legal specialities, law school attended and law school graduation years. Finally, the ACC report also shines in its reporting on remote work policies, hours worked per week and total rewards and perquisites.
The level of detail in the ACC report can help both job-seekers and law departments see things from a holistic perspective, and this can help drive change to improve efficiencies and work-life balance for all in-house counsel. If you’re an in-house counsel and not a member of the ACC, you owe it to yourself to join. Not only is it cost-effective, your membership will provide you with access to resources, networking opportunities and a host of other benefits that will pay dividends in years to come.
BarkerGilmore’s 2024 In-House Counsel Compensation Report
BarkerGilmore’s In-House Counsel Compensation Report for 2024 is available online. BarkerGilmore’s report is its most recent data released on in-house counsel compensation, and has significant data for those tracking in-house salary trends. This report includes information on General Counsel compensation, broken out as a specific section of their report, which will be of interest to current and aspiring General Counsel. Some of the high-level trends in the report are summarized in their report. It is clear from the latter that the legal hiring marketplace is rapidly evolving along with the changes to the global economy.
Major, Lindsey & Africa’s 2024 Global In-House Compensation Survey
The 2024 Global In-House Counsel Compensation Survey was developed in partnership with Western Management Group and reviewed the responses from 2,100 respondents in 46 countries to gain an understanding of how in-house legal professionals are being compensated globally. MLA Global also tracks some interesting macro trends:
“Our survey found that since 2021, the change in total actual cash (TAC) compensation paid within legal departments varied between roles. TAC paid to General Counsel (GCs) and Chief Legal Officers (CLOs) in aggregate has decreased by 4% globally, whereas higher-level managing counsel (Deputy General Counsel [DGCs] and Associate General Counsel [AGCs]) saw a TAC increase of 8% collectively over the same period. On the other end of the spectrum, the most junior members of the team, Counsel, saw a 19% bump in TAC. Perhaps the clearest differences in this year’s survey are between lawyers at publicly traded companies and those at companies that are privately owned. Across the board, lawyers are receiving significantly higher compensation on average at publicly traded companies, particularly in the form of bonuses. 2024 bonus targets are 51% higher for CLOs at public companies and 53% higher for GCs.”
The study is worth a read, and can be downloaded here.
Recruiters Know Inhouse Counsel Salaries
Don’t rely solely on guides, work with legal recruiters in your area as they are often able to use their experience to estimate in-house counsel salaries for different types of positions and their general geographic region. They can also give you their thoughts on how in-house counsel salaries really compare “on the ground” based on the cost of living in different areas. If you are lucky enough to be comparing offers, it is good to know what your purchasing power will look like.
Want To Find Inhouse Counsel Salaries for Specific Jobs?
If you are looking to find in-house counsel salaries for specific jobs, you should consider testing the market yourself. There are thousands of in-house counsel jobs and even many General Counsel jobs and remote legal jobs waiting to be filled, and by getting yourself in the job hunt you’ll get yourself closer to seeing what your skills and experience are worth. You may be surprise to find that you can command a better in-house counsel compensation package at another company, especially when the market is hot. A good idea is to check keep track of the latest legal jobs in the cities and practice areas that interest you. These legal job postings may contain salary information that will help you get a sense of what the range may be for positions you are interested in.
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In addition, our newsletter features announcements of recent general counsel appointments and, with a little sleuthing and use of online tools, you may be able to find out what kinds of general counsel salaries these heavy-hitters might be taking home.
This is part of our How to Get an In-House Counsel Job series, which contains other articles that may interest you.
Check out our Inhouse Counsel Guides page for other articles and resources of interest.