Federal government attorneys are paid under structured pay systems, and which system applies to a seat decides where its number comes from: the General Schedule for seats classified in it, then separate questions for assistant United States attorneys, for agencies such as the SEC and FDIC, and for military judge advocates.
This page separates the framework our research verified from the dollar layer it mostly could not — the one exception is a federal benchmark: lawyers in the federal executive branch had a median annual wage of $178,380 in May 2025 (BLS OEWS).
How the General Schedule (GS) grades federal attorney jobs
Federal attorney jobs have a classification of their own: the Office of Personnel Management classifies them in the GS-0905 General Attorney series — professional legal positions involved in preparing cases for trial and/or the trial of cases before a court or an administrative body, plus legal advice to an agency and the drafting of regulations, contracts and legislative comments.
That series code is what the GS attorney label readers search for points to.
The GS in that code stands for the General Schedule, the classification framework the series sits in.
The pay layer is a different matter: which grades agencies assign attorney seats, how steps work inside a grade, and the current dollar tables were all outside what our research captured.
Rather than quote amounts this page does not have, it names the places to check — OPM for the General Schedule tables, and the agency hiring for a seat, whose announcement is where its grade and salary would be stated.
Hiring runs differently here too: attorney positions sit in the excepted service under Schedule A, 5 CFR 213.3102(d), so agencies recruit directly rather than through competitive-service examining.
How that hiring works is the subject of our federal attorney jobs guide.
No dollar tables on this page — on purpose
Locality pay and the GS number
Locality is the second question in any GS pay search: does the same grade pay the same everywhere?
It is also the layer of that answer our research did not capture — no locality percentages, and no verification of how duty-station adjustments attach to attorney seats.
So this page carries no locality figures and no percentages of any kind.
Where to confirm it follows the system a seat sits on: OPM is the authority to ask on the GS side, and the seat's announcement is where its own duty-station range would appear.
A grade on its own is a classification rather than a salary; the number to compare across offers is whatever range the seat's own materials state.
The AUSA pay scale: how assistant United States attorneys are paid
Assistant United States attorneys are the federal prosecutors behind the searches this page owns — the assistant United States attorney salary, the federal prosecutor salary — and what the role involves is the subject of our AUSA guide.
What an AUSA is paid is the part of the question our research could not answer: it captured no AUSA pay figures and did not confirm which pay system sets them.
The current source is the agency itself: the Department of Justice's attorney careers pages and the hiring announcements of its United States attorney offices.
Take any AUSA figure from there rather than from a secondhand table.
One verified anchor sizes the employer, though it is headcount rather than pay: the Justice Department is where the greatest number of general attorneys work — nearly 13,000 in the ABA's 2024 profile (December 2023 data).
For a benchmark across prosecution settings, see our prosecutor salary page — reading it as a broad occupational series, not an AUSA pay table.
SEC, FDIC and other agency attorney pay
The GS is where the verified material on federal attorney pay ends.
The agencies readers ask about — the searches behind this page name financial regulators such as the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation — are the ones our research verified least: no pay system confirmed, no attorney ranges captured.
Each agency's own announcements and careers pages are the authority on what it pays its lawyers now.
The one verified federal benchmark is a median, not a scale: lawyers across the federal executive branch had a median annual wage of $178,380 in May 2025 (BLS OEWS).
In the same series and statistic, the national median for all lawyers was $159,670, while the closest corporate in-house proxy — Management of Companies and Enterprises, the sector that covers corporate head offices — sat at $223,560.
Read those as sector medians spanning every agency and grade, not a pay table for any seat — and note the series excludes self-employed workers, so it does not measure solo practitioners' or equity partners' income.
For the full tables see our government attorney salary page; for how the settings differ as careers, our government attorney career guide maps the landscape.
JAG and military lawyer pay
Military lawyers — judge advocates in the JAG corps — raise the pay question our research answered least: it captured no JAG pay figures and did not verify how military lawyer pay is structured.
That makes JAG pay a military-systems question more than a legal-market one, and this page will not guess at the tables behind it.
The practical place to confirm what a seat pays is the branch doing the recruiting.
For the career itself — accession, commissioning, and the Army requirements our research did verify — see our JAG officer guide.
Federal benefits and loan repayment
Pay is only part of the federal offer.
A federal attorney seat sits with an employer the loan-forgiveness program already counts as qualifying: PSLF eligibility depends on who employs you, and U.S. government organizations at any level qualify — which covers federal attorney seats — while private law firms do not.
The program forgives the remaining Direct Loan balance after the equivalent of 120 qualifying monthly payments, and full-time work means a weekly average of at least 30 hours.
Our PSLF guide for lawyers covers which legal jobs qualify and how the clock runs.
One recent change matters to newer graduates: studentaid.gov now lists the Repayment Assistance Plan (RAP) among PSLF-qualifying plans, with special payment rules for borrowers with any loan disbursed on or after July 1, 2026.
Program rules move — confirm the current rules for your loans on studentaid.gov before you build a plan around them.
A second program comes up in public-interest loan-repayment conversations: the John R. Justice award.
Our research could not confirm its current award amounts or funding, so check with the Bureau of Justice Assistance before counting on it alongside PSLF.
Beyond loan forgiveness, the benefits that come with a federal seat are a matter for its announcement and the agency's HR pages — the places to confirm what a specific offer includes.
Career information, not legal advice. Federal pay systems, pay tables and loan-forgiveness rules change; confirm current figures and rules with the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the hiring agency, the Department of Justice for AUSA pay, and studentaid.gov before you act on anything here.