It depends on which firm and which company.
On base pay alone, the government data favors in-house: lawyers in corporate head offices — BLS's closest proxy for in-house work — had a median annual wage of $223,560 in May 2025, against $157,870 in legal services, the industry where law firms sit.
But in-house vs law firm salary is more than base: bonus, equity and hours change the answer.
Base pay compared
Base salary is where the two tracks are easiest to see, because one federal survey cuts both ways.
In BLS's Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics release for May 2025 — the latest — lawyers in the Legal Services industry (law firms, NAICS 5411) had a median annual wage of $157,870.
Lawyers in Management of Companies and Enterprises, the corporate head-office sector that is the closest in-house proxy BLS publishes, had a median of $223,560.
Both figures are for SOC 23-1011, lawyers, and both are medians across every level of seniority in the industry — not a pay scale by class year — so neither number prices any one seat in it.
Industry medians for lawyers in the same release:
| Industry (lawyers, SOC 23-1011) | Median annual wage, May 2025 |
|---|---|
| National, all industries | $159,670 |
| Management of Companies and Enterprises (corporate head offices — closest in-house proxy) | $223,560 |
| Federal executive branch | $178,380 |
| Legal Services (law firms, NAICS 5411) | $157,870 |
| Local government (excluding schools and hospitals) | $131,350 |
| State government (excluding schools and hospitals) | $115,330 |
Three blind spots matter before you read the head-office figure as an in-house premium.
OEWS excludes self-employed lawyers — so the legal-services median describes employed firm lawyers, not equity partners, whose earnings the survey does not measure.
A median is the mid-point of a wide spread, not a pay scale: neither number promises what any single employer pays.
And BLS's sector medians are context, not role series — the local-government number alone mixes prosecutors, public defenders and city attorneys — so every row describes a sector, not one job.
For the firm side's top end, NALP's 2025 Associate Salary Survey — a different series, a firm survey conducted as of January 1, 2025, before the July 2026 raise — found a median first-year base of $200,000 overall and $215,000 at firms of more than 700 lawyers.
Since July 1, 2026, the reported market scale starts first-years at $235,000; the full ladder by class year is on our BigLaw pay scale page.
For the in-house side by state and percentile where BLS publishes it, see our in-house counsel salary page.
Three series, three meanings
Bonus and equity
At large firms, bonuses are the documented half of the deal, because firms announce them in memos that legal press reports.
Cravath's reported year-end bonuses for 2025 ran from $15,000 for the newest class (prorated) to $115,000 for the most senior, plus special bonuses of $6,000 to $25,000 — totals of $21,000 to $140,000 per associate.
That year-end scale had been unchanged since 2021, according to Law360's reporting.
In 2026, Milbank reportedly announced special summer bonuses of $6,000 to $25,000 on July 27, 2026, payable August 31, 2026, with no minimum-hours condition; the 2026 year-end amounts had not been announced as of the sources we read on October 2, 2026.
Bonus terms can carry hours strings: Cadwalader reportedly paid 120% of the year-end bonus to associates billing at least 2,200 hours in 2025.
In-house, the components are employer-specific as far as our sources go: our research found no in-house counsel compensation survey or report we could verify against a primary source, so no national bonus-target or equity figure appears here.
Where a company does grant equity — restricted stock units or stock options — its value rides on the company's performance and on a vesting schedule the employer sets, which makes it worth more, and less, than the same dollars of salary.
Before you compare any offer to a firm salary, get the components in writing: base, target bonus and how it is measured, and the equity grant's terms.
Hours and effective pay
Hours are the other half of effective pay.
A firm lawyer's output is metered in billable increments against client matters, and at the top of the market the scale itself can be tied to the meter: firms including Norton Rose Fulbright (1,900 hours) and McDermott and Quinn Emanuel (2,000) tied the 2026 scale to a billable expectation, per the firm memos legal press tracked, while Milbank's own memo listed none.
Our research found no verified national figure for the hours a large-firm associate actually bills; treat any single number you encounter as anecdote.
In-house, the meter changes.
A corporate legal department has no outside client to bill — the company is the client — so a billable-hour target like a firm's does not organize the in-house day.
The work still runs hot: deals close when they close and disputes land when they land, on the company's calendar rather than a timesheet's.
Below the large-firm market, the economics of firm hours look different again.
Clio's 2025 Legal Trends Report — a survey of that company's users, mostly small firms, so it does not describe BigLaw — puts average utilization at 38% of an eight-hour day spent on billable work.
Of that billable work, an average 88% gets invoiced (realization) and 93% of invoiced work gets paid (collection) — 2.6 hours invoiced and 2.4 collected per eight-hour day.
The point for effective pay is not that small-firm lawyers work short days; it is that hours worked and hours that become revenue are different quantities, and firm pay rides on both.
When going in-house cuts pay
The question is sharpest at the top of the firm market, where base pay is published by class year.
The reported market scale that took effect July 1, 2026 runs from $235,000 for first-years to $455,000 for the most senior class, with $440,000 for the class below it — base salaries set by firm memo and matched by other market-scale firms.
In-house pay has no equivalent of that published ladder in our sources: the corporate head-office median of $223,560 is a different measurement of a different group, a mid-point across every lawyer in head offices, where by definition half earn below it and half above.
The two series do not convert into each other.
Each answers its own question — the scale says what firms on the market scale offer by class year; the median says where the middle of corporate legal sits — and neither prices your move.
So when does the move actually cut pay?
When your current base sits above what the employer in front of you will pay.
That is an offer-by-offer question no national series settles, and the firm market's own spread explains why the answer varies so much: in NALP's 2025 survey, the most common first-year salary at firms of 250 or fewer lawyers was $150,000 or less (44% of offices), against a $215,000 median at firms of more than 700.
Both figures come from the same survey and describe first-years only — but the gap inside the firm market is why one in-house move raises pay and another cuts it.
Two more components can swing the comparison.
Bonus and equity, covered above, are structured differently at firms and companies.
And loan forgiveness can ride on the employer choice: Public Service Loan Forgiveness turns on the employer — U.S. government organizations at any level and 501(c)(3) nonprofits qualify, and private law firms do not — so an in-house seat at a government agency or a 501(c)(3) nonprofit can qualify where a for-profit company's legal department would not — for Direct Loan borrowers who make the equivalent of 120 qualifying monthly payments while working full time for a qualifying employer.
Ask for the whole package in writing
General counsel pay
For the top in-house seat, our research found no verified pay figure.
BLS's corporate head-office median counts lawyers at every seniority in a head office in one number, without isolating the top of the distribution, and the NALP associate salary survey covers associates.
General counsel pay figures circulate from compensation surveys, but none we could verify against a primary source, so this page does not repeat one.
What we can say: the seat is the top of the in-house ladder, its package is negotiated directly with the company, and it can combine base, bonus and equity in whatever proportion the employer sets — which makes any GC figure you encounter unverified until the employer confirms it.
What the seat covers day to day is its own subject: see what a general counsel does, or our in-house counsel career guide for the role end to end.
Career information, not legal advice. The figures on this page come from named series with their own reference dates — BLS OEWS May 2025 and NALP surveys as of January 1, 2025 — and describe groups, not offers. Confirm any employer's current pay, bonus and equity terms with the employer.