Government vs private practice: neither setting wins on every measure.
In BLS pay data, federal government lawyers out-earn legal-services lawyers at the median; in NALP's Class of 2025 starting salaries, private practice paid $155,000 at the median against $81,000 in government.
Government employers qualify for PSLF loan forgiveness; private, for-profit firms do not.
This guide compares pay, hours and job security, early responsibility and moving between them.
Pay and loan forgiveness
Start with the experienced-profession picture.
BLS's Occupational Outlook Handbook, using May 2025 wage data for lawyers (SOC 23-1011), reports median annual pay of $178,380 in the federal government, $157,870 in legal services, $131,390 in local government and $115,330 in state government.
At the median, in other words, federal government lawyers out-earn lawyers employed in BLS's legal-services industry.
One caution travels with those figures: BLS excludes self-employed lawyers and owners and partners of unincorporated businesses, so the legal-services median describes employed lawyers, not firm owners.
The picture inverts at the start of a career.
NALP's Class of 2025 data, measured about ten months after graduation, put the median starting salary in private practice at $155,000 — against $81,000 in government, $75,000 in public interest and $72,533 in judicial clerkships:
| Sector (NALP, Class of 2025) | Median starting salary |
|---|---|
| Private practice | $155,000 |
| Government | $81,000 |
| Public interest | $75,000 |
| Judicial clerkships | $72,533 |
The private-practice median also hides a spread.
NALP's firm-size medians for the class ran from $84,000 at firms of 1–10 lawyers to $225,000 at firms of more than 500 (medians across the class, not a law-firm salary scale) — the small-firm end of private practice starts close to the government median, while that $225,000 large-firm median sits far above the overall private-practice median.
Compare offers at the firm-size level, not just "firm versus agency".
Loan forgiveness is the other half of the pay math.
Under the federal PSLF program, the remaining balance on eligible Direct Loans is forgiven after the equivalent of 120 qualifying monthly payments made while working full-time — an average of at least 30 hours a week — for a qualifying employer.
Qualifying employers include U.S. federal, state, local and tribal government entities (including the military), public child or family service agencies and 501(c)(3) nonprofits; certain other nonprofits that provide listed public services also qualify, including public interest law funded in whole or in part by a government.
Private, for-profit law firms are not qualifying employers — the rule's non-501(c)(3) category excludes businesses organized for profit.
One recent change: from July 1, 2026, the rule provides that payments made after the Education Department determines an employer has a "substantial illegal purpose," as the rule defines it, no longer count toward PSLF.
Our PSLF guide covers the eligible loan types, the qualifying employers and the repayment plans that count.
Confirm PSLF rules before you count on them
Hours and job security
On hours, BLS describes lawyers in general rather than by employer type: most lawyers work full time, some work more than 40 hours a week, and self-employed lawyers may have flexibility in setting their own schedules.
Our research did not turn up a verified comparison of hours between government and private practice, so treat any national figure you see as a starting point rather than an answer.
One structural difference you will meet in interviews is the billable hour.
Clio's 2025 Legal Trends Report — drawn from its users, mostly solo and small firms, so not a BigLaw figure — puts the average law-firm utilization rate at 38%.
Ask a firm role for its actual billable target and a government office how caseloads and on-call rotations run, rather than relying on any national number.
On hiring — the closest thing this page has to a security signal — NALP counted new graduates hired by the federal government (excluding clerkships) fall 37.0% in a single class, from nearly 1,100 in the Class of 2024 to about 690 in the Class of 2025.
The practical move is to ask both employers how the office or practice group you would join has hired over the last few cycles.
For the profession overall, BLS projects lawyer employment to grow 5% from 2025 to 2035, faster than the average for all occupations.
Experience and responsibility early on
The two settings hand you different first jobs.
On the government side, BLS describes titles including prosecutor, public defender and general counsel, and notes that public defense attorneys represent criminal defendants who cannot afford a private attorney.
For the full picture of that side, our government attorneys guide covers the settings and roles.
Private practice is not one thing either.
In NALP's Class of 2025 data, firms of more than 500 lawyers accounted for 33.2% of the class's law-firm jobs, while firms of 1–10 lawyers accounted for 26.4% — both ends of the size range hired large shares of the class.
When you compare offers, look at the firm's size and supervision structure, not just the public-versus-private label.
What we cannot give you is a verified statistic on which setting hands out responsibility faster — our research did not turn up one.
Treat it as an interview question: ask what first-years actually do in year one, who reviews their work, and when they first argue a motion or take a deposition in that office.
Moving from government to private (and back)
A move between the two settings runs through the same hiring process as any other legal job.
Our research found no verified data on how often lawyers switch between government and firms, so treat the move as a job search in its own right: what you can show a hiring committee is your work — the matters, the writing, the courtroom time.
The clearest mechanical difference is PSLF.
Under the rule, only payments made while you work full-time for a qualifying employer count toward the 120, so years spent at a for-profit firm do not build forgiveness credit.
Timing matters near the end, too: the rule requires you to be working full-time for a qualifying employer both when you make the 120th payment and when you apply for forgiveness.
Pay reprices when you switch sectors.
The medians earlier on this page are the reference points: whichever way you move, check any offer against the NALP starting-salary figures if you are entry-level and against the BLS experienced-profession medians otherwise, before you negotiate.
If you are carrying federal loans and want the forgiveness, sequence is the variable you control.
Qualifying payments accumulate while you hold a full-time qualifying job — government, a 501(c)(3) or another qualifying nonprofit — so public-service years build credit even while the salary is lower.
Our research did not confirm how payments you have already banked are treated after a move to a firm; the FAQ below covers what the rule does say.
Where to find attorney jobs
For scale: BLS counted about 863,700 lawyer jobs in 2025, and its breakdown of the largest employer types puts legal services at 52% of lawyers, self-employed lawyers at 11%, local government at 8%, state government at 7% and the federal government at 5%.
The private side is larger by headcount, and the government share is spread across local, state and federal employers.
Among new graduates, NALP counted 60.9% of employed Class of 2025 graduates taking private-practice jobs — the highest share since the Class of 1990 — while public-service employers took 31.0% of the class's jobs: government 12.0%, judicial clerkships 10.0% and public interest 9.0%.
Whichever side you land on, start with the job board: browse attorney jobs for current openings.
For the wider occupation — where attorneys work, the job types and how careers progress — the attorney careers guide covers the role end to end.
Career information, not legal advice — loan-forgiveness rules and pay data change. Confirm PSLF details at studentaid.gov, and compensation with the employer and the sources named above.