Attorney job description template: duties, requirements and pay range

An attorney posting has five working parts: duties, bar admission and qualifications, skills and software, pay and benefits, and how to apply.

Each gets its own block in the template below.

If you are still deciding what you need — the seniority, the practice fit, where to source — our guide to how to hire an attorney covers the decisions before the posting; this page is about writing it.

Core duties.

Write the legal work a candidate can picture, not adjectives: the matters they will carry, the documents your practice produces, the clients they will talk to, the staff they will direct.

Two lines earn a place in the duties block.

The first is scope: name the practice area and whether the hire owns matters end to end or supports a partner.

The second is supervision: if the attorney will direct paralegals or legal assistants, say so — ABA Model Rule 5.3(a) requires partners and lawyers with comparable managerial authority to make reasonable efforts to ensure the firm has measures giving reasonable assurance that nonlawyers' conduct is compatible with the lawyer's professional obligations, and Rule 5.3(b) puts a separate duty on any lawyer with direct supervisory authority over a nonlawyer.

The full structure is in our guide to supervising non-lawyer staff under Rule 5.3.

Duties worth a line on the posting:

• Handling [practice area] matters from intake through resolution
• Drafting pleadings, motions, contracts or the documents your matters actually produce
• Negotiating with opposing counsel and appearing in court [name the jurisdictions where the hire will be admitted]
• Managing a caseload, deadlines and direct client communication
• Supervising and reviewing the work of paralegals and legal assistants on their matters
• [Business development, if you expect it — say so rather than surprising the hire]

One boundary shapes the duties block: the legal work has to sit inside the jurisdictions where the hire is authorized to practice.

Model Rule 5.5(a) says a lawyer must not practice law in a jurisdiction in violation of its regulation of the legal profession, or assist another in doing so — so write the court appearances and filings to match where the hire's license actually runs.

If part of the role would land outside that, the fix is in the requirements block, not the duties.

Qualifications and bar admission.

The credential line does the heavy lifting on this block, because it is the one you can and should verify.

Write it as "[State] bar admission in good standing" — the state where the work happens, not a generic "licensed attorney."

Then verify it: the ABA says lawyers are licensed by a state agency in each state, that agency can confirm whether a person has a law license and may practice there, and the ABA keeps a state-by-state directory of those agencies — in New Hampshire and South Dakota, the directory says you call the bar.

A resume line is not a license check; run the check before you rely on the credential, and again before the start date.

Decide what you will accept and write exactly that.

A posting that says "admitted in any state" or "strong bar credentials" pulls applications you cannot use.

If you will consider a lawyer admitted in another U.S. jurisdiction, check with your state's admitting authority on how a licensed-out-of-state lawyer can become admitted where you practice before you write a waive-in line — the paths and their conditions are state-specific and not something a posting should promise.

If you would hire a law school graduate who has not yet been admitted, be careful twice over: states' rules on what an unadmitted graduate may do vary, and our research did not verify them, so confirm with your state's admitting authority before you post the role — and know the title rule below, because a lawyer not admitted in a jurisdiction must not hold out or represent that they are admitted there (ABA Model Rule 5.5(b)(2)).

Experience follows the same required-versus-preferred split: "[X]+ years handling [practice area] matters" if you mean it; otherwise move it to a preferred line so you do not screen out candidates whose experience transfers.

The candidate-side view of licensure and early career is in our attorney career guide.

Skills and software.

Name the systems your firm actually runs — your case management platform, e-filing setup, legal research service, document automation and time-and-billing system — and split them into must-have-on-day-one versus willing-to-train.

Beyond software, the skills that matter in a small or mid-size firm are specific: drafting that holds up without a partner rewriting it, deadline management across a full caseload, direct client communication, and comfort being the lawyer who flags a problem early rather than late.

A posting that names its real stack and its real expectations filters better than one that lists "strong legal skills."

Pay range and benefits.

Anchor the range in your market and your budget, then adjust for the duties you wrote above.

The national benchmark: in the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) May 2025 release, lawyers (SOC 23-1011) had a median annual wage of $159,670 ($76.76 per hour), with the 10th percentile at $78,360 and the 90th percentile at $351,600 — the percentiles mark the spread of the whole profession, not a floor and a cap for your hire.

In the same release, lawyers in the Legal Services industry (law firms, NAICS 5411) had a median annual wage of $157,870.

State figures are on our attorney salary page.

A second anchor, from a different survey: NALP's 2025 Associate Salary Survey put the median first-year associate base salary at $200,000 as of January 1, 2025, and $215,000 at firms of more than 700 lawyers — but among firms of 250 or fewer lawyers, a first-year salary of $150,000 or less was the most common response (44% of offices).

NALP's sample remains large-firm-heavy and does not represent 2–20 lawyer firms well, so treat those figures as context for where the market sits, not as the number your firm must match.

Set the range from what the role you wrote actually is.

Whatever range you post should be one you believe — and in the places our research verified, the law says the pay range belongs in the posting itself: California (employers with 15 or more employees, and any third party posting for them), Washington (15 or more; wage scale or salary range plus a general description of benefits, in effect since January 1, 2023), Illinois (15 or more; pay scale and benefits, a hyperlink allowed), Minnesota (30 or more employees in the state; starting salary range and benefits description, and ranges may not be open-ended), Massachusetts (25 or more in the state; effective October 29, 2025), New York State (four or more employees), New York City (since November 1, 2022), Colorado (compensation and benefits in all postings), Connecticut (effective October 1, 2026) and Virginia (wage, salary or range in each posting).

California defines "pay scale" as a good-faith estimate of the salary or hourly range the employer reasonably expects to pay on hire, with penalties running $100 to $10,000 per violation.

Other places have their own rules we did not read, and the thresholds move — check with your state labor agency before you post.

The benefits block is where a small firm competes on honesty rather than size.

List what you actually offer — health coverage, retirement plan, paid time off, bar dues and CLE support, malpractice coverage — and state your hours expectation, including any billable target, as your firm's own number rather than leaving it to guesswork.

If the compensation includes a bonus structure tied to cases or collections, confirm the structure with your state bar's ethics counsel before you promise it in a posting.

Before yours goes live, confirm the two rules that move: pay-disclosure rules with your state labor agency, and anything touching licensure with your state bar's ethics counsel or your state's admitting authority.

Adapting the template for a small firm.

In a two-to-ten lawyer firm, the hire is the practice area, so write the breadth in honestly: the matters they will own end to end, the clients they will speak to directly, the staff they will direct.

A named supervisor matters more, not less — "reports to the managing attorney" tells a candidate who reviews their work and who they escalate to.

And write the pay range you actually budgeted rather than a number copied from a big-firm survey; a range you can stand behind saves you from renegotiating with the candidate you wanted.

Adapting for a practice area.

Rewrite the duties bullets around the work your matters produce.

A litigation hire lives in pleadings, discovery, motions and court appearances in the jurisdictions where they are admitted; a transactional hire lives in contracts, closings and entity work; a family-law hire carries sensitive client communication alongside filings and hearings; a personal-injury hire owns case development from demand through settlement.

Let the requirements block follow the same logic: ask for experience with the matters your practice generates, not "legal experience" in the abstract.

Adapting for seniority.

Say which level you are hiring, because the level changes the duties, the pay and the supervision.

An associate posting leans on the training and review you will provide — the level-by-level decisions are in our guide to how to hire an associate attorney.

A senior or of-counsel posting should say what the lawyer owns: their own clients, a book of relationships, supervision of others.

A lateral hire is a different exercise again — the diligence runs deeper than a posting, starting with our guide to lateral attorney hiring.

Adapting for remote or hybrid.

Say where the attorney will practice law, not just where they will sit.

ABA Formal Opinion 495 (Dec.

16, 2020) treats a lawyer as able to practice the law of their licensing jurisdiction while physically present in a state where they are not admitted, if that state has not deemed the conduct the unauthorized practice of law and the lawyer does not hold out as locally licensed, advertise a local office, or offer local legal services — and the opinion says local contact information on websites, letterhead or business cards would improperly establish a local office.

ABA Model Rule 5.5(b)(1) separately bars a lawyer not admitted in a jurisdiction from establishing an office or other systematic and continuous presence for practicing law there, except as the Rules or other law authorize.

For a posting, that means the remote line should describe work for your firm's clients under the hire's existing license, and the arrangement itself is worth confirming with your state bar's ethics counsel before you publish it.

Five wordings sink otherwise good attorney postings.

Each is fixable before you hit publish.

1. Bar-admission wording that invites practice where the hire is not admitted.

A lawyer not admitted in a jurisdiction must not hold out to the public or otherwise represent that they are admitted to practice law there (ABA Model Rule 5.5(b)(2)) — so a title, bio or posting line that reads as licensed-in-your-state for a hire who is not is the trap, and it is the firm's problem as much as the lawyer's: Model Rule 5.5(a) says a lawyer must not practice law in a jurisdiction in violation of its regulation of the profession, or assist another in doing so.

Write the admission requirement as the state where the work happens, and treat any role for an out-of-state or unadmitted lawyer as a confirm-with-the-admitting-authority question before the posting goes up — these are the ABA's model rules, not your state's law, and your state bar's ethics counsel can confirm the wording that fits your jurisdiction.

2. Preference wording that screens by who people are.

The EEOC says it is illegal to publish a job advertisement that shows a preference for, or discourages applications from, people because of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age (40 or older), disability or genetic information — its own example is an ad seeking "recent college graduates," which may discourage people over 40 from applying.

Write about the work, not the person: cut "young," "digital native" and "recent grad" from an attorney posting the same as any other.

Keep application questions to what is essential to decide whether a person is qualified — the EEOC treats questions about race, sex, national origin, age or religion as irrelevant to that decision — and treat the borderline ones as risky rather than harmless, because federal law does not clearly forbid every such question but the answers can be used as evidence of discriminatory intent unless justified by a business purpose.

Keep the process accessible, too: an employer must provide an accommodation a disabled applicant needs in order to apply, unless it causes significant difficulty or expense.

3. Salary-history questions.

Several of the state laws we read restrict them.

California (Labor Code 432.3, all employers) and Massachusetts (G.L. c.149 §105A) bar seeking an applicant's salary history; New York (Labor Law 194-a) and Illinois (820 ILCS 112) bar requiring it as a condition of being interviewed or considered, and seeking it from a current or former employer.

Ask for expectations instead — California's law expressly allows an employer to ask an applicant about their salary expectation for the position.

Other states and cities have rules we did not read, so check yours before the interview stage.

4. Conviction-history questions too early.

California's Fair Chance Act (employers with five or more employees) and New York City's Fair Chance Act (most employers) bar asking about or considering conviction history (criminal history, in New York City's act) until after a conditional offer of employment.

If your application form asks about criminal record, check your state and city law before you post — other states and cities have fair-chance rules this page does not cover.

5. Vague everything.

"Attorney wanted," "wear many hats," no practice area, no seniority, no range — an umbrella posting pulls applications across every level of experience and saves you none of the sorting.

The fix is the template above: name the practice area, the seniority, the duties a lawyer will actually own, and a range you believe.

If the level is associate, say associate; if the firm genuinely needs a lawyer flexible on level, say what the caseload decides.

After you post.

Set a review cadence before the posting goes live and hold to it — a slow reply reads as a closed door.

If the pay range or the duties change, update the posting rather than explaining the difference in interviews.

Prepare the interview the same way for every candidate — the same questions, the same structure, a scoring sheet — so comparisons stay fair and every question stays tied to the job.

And before yours goes up, browse the live attorney jobs on this board to see the pay framing and duty lists you are competing against.

This page is employer information, not legal advice. Posting laws, bar-admission rules and ethics rules change and vary by jurisdiction — confirm them with your state labor agency, your state's admitting authority, employment counsel and your state bar's ethics counsel before you post.