Bankruptcy attorney job description template: duties, requirements and pay range

An attorney posting for bankruptcy work has five working parts: the caseload, the bar admission you require, the skills and systems, a good-faith pay range with benefits, and how to apply.

Each gets its own block in the template below.

If you are still deciding what the role needs — the seniority, the case mix, where to source candidates — our guide to how to hire a bankruptcy attorney covers the decisions before the posting; this page is about writing it.

Core duties.

Start with the caseload, because bankruptcy desks are not interchangeable.

U.S. bankruptcy filings rose 12.2% to 608,511 in the 12 months ending June 30, 2026 — non-business filings up 12% to 581,570 and business filings up 16.9% to 26,941 — and by chapter, the year saw 382,161 Chapter 7 filings and 215,490 Chapter 13 filings against 10,320 under Chapter 11, so consumer cases dwarf Chapter 11 restructurings in that data.

A posting written around consumer volume describes different work from one written around business or creditor-side matters, and saying which caseload the firm runs saves everyone a round of interviews.

Duties worth a line on the posting:

• [Screening] new clients: gathering the financial documents the case turns on and [applying the firm's case-acceptance standards]
• Preparing and filing [Chapter 7 and Chapter 13] petitions, schedules and supporting financial documents
• Appearing with clients at creditor meetings and on the court's hearing calendar
• [Chapter 13 plan work: proposing plans, coordinating with the Chapter 13 trustee's office, and handling plan-modification and missed-payment issues]
• [Creditor-side work: claims, motions and plan negotiation on behalf of secured and unsecured creditors]
• [Business matters: [Chapter 11] filings, committee work and plan or liquidation analysis]
• Managing a deadline-driven docket: production drafting, calendaring and client updates under the firm's [flat-fee / hourly] pricing
• Supervising the paralegals and legal assistants who prepare documents under your direct supervision

One boundary shapes the duties block.

Federal bankruptcy law (11 U.S.C.

110) defines a "bankruptcy petition preparer" as a person, other than the debtor's attorney or an employee of that attorney under the attorney's direct supervision, who prepares a document for filing for compensation — a paralegal working under a debtor's attorney sits outside that definition, and the statute puts its own obligations on preparers, including signing each document, giving the debtor an official written notice that the preparer is not an attorney and may not practice law or give legal advice, and listing an identifying number on the filing.

For the hiring decision, that line runs through your staffing structure: document preparation done by the attorney's own employee under direct supervision sits inside the attorney relationship, and debtor-side filings prepared for pay outside that relationship fall within the preparer definition.

Write who prepares what into the posting, and keep the advising, signing and court appearances on the attorney.

The boundary also has a jurisdiction side: ABA 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 — and the assist clause is the firm's exposure, not just the lawyer's.

Model Rule 5.5 is the ABA's model text — the binding version is the one in your state's own professional-conduct rules, so confirm the wording that fits with your state bar's ethics counsel.

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 "Active [State] bar admission in good standing" — the state where your clients and the bankruptcy court sit, 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 association.

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.

"Admitted in any state" or "bankruptcy experience required" pulls applications you cannot use.

If you would consider a lawyer admitted in another U.S. jurisdiction, know the model-rule boundary before you write the line: ABA Model Rule 5.5(c) lets a lawyer admitted in another U.S. jurisdiction — and not suspended or disbarred — provide legal services on a temporary basis in four listed situations, one of which is association with a locally admitted lawyer who actively participates in the matter.

How a lawyer admitted elsewhere becomes admitted in your state is up to that state's admitting authority — the same state agency the ABA directory points to — so check with yours before a posting promises anything.

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

Experience follows the required-versus-preferred split: backgrounds that transfer into a bankruptcy seat — consumer volume practice at another firm, creditor-side work, [a bankruptcy court clerkship] — belong on a preferred line unless you genuinely require them, so you do not screen out candidates whose experience fits.

The candidate-side view of the practice is in our bankruptcy attorney career guide.

Skills and software.

Name the systems your firm actually runs — case management built for [consumer bankruptcy volume], the petition-preparation and form-assembly software your firm uses, [the e-filing system your district's court runs], calendaring for the meeting and hearing dates that drive a bankruptcy docket, and [a client document portal] — and split them into must-have-on-day-one versus willing-to-train.

The non-software skills that matter on this desk are specific: production drafting under a deadline calendar, because filings and hearing dates arrive whether or not the file feels ready; precision with financial detail, because the schedules the client signs drive the case; plain-language counseling for clients under financial stress, who may be meeting a lawyer for the first time; the judgment to sort the cases your firm should take from the ones it should decline; and the supervision habit of reviewing staff-prepared documents before they go out the door.

A posting that names its real stack and real expectations filters better than one that lists "attention to detail."

Pay range and benefits.

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

The national benchmark: in the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) May 2025 release, the latest available, 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 — BLS flags lawyer values of $239,200 or more as approximate, and the spread is the whole profession rather than 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.

Our sources carry no bankruptcy-specific series — this is the all-lawyers category used as a proxy — and OEWS excludes self-employed lawyers, so it does not measure what firm owners take home.

State figures are on our bankruptcy 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 — 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), and NALP's Class of 2025 starting-salary curve shows the spread across all reported full-time jobs: $60,000 to $100,000 accounted for 50.0% of the 22,715 reported salaries, while $225,000 accounted for 21.5%.

NALP cautions that the unadjusted mean starting salary overstates the true average, because large-firm salaries are more completely reported.

Treat the figures as context for where the market sits, not as the number your firm must match; set the range from the caseload and pricing you wrote above.

Whatever range you post should be one you believe.

In these jurisdictions (each verified from statute or the state agency), the law requires pay information in the posting itself: California (employers with 15 or more employees, which must also give the pay scale to any third party that posts 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 in the posting, a hyperlink allowed, for jobs performed at least partly in Illinois or reporting to an Illinois supervisor), Minnesota (30 or more employees in the state; starting salary range and a benefits description, and ranges may not be open-ended), Massachusetts (25 or more employees in the state; effective October 29, 2025), New York State (businesses with four or more employees), New York City (a good-faith range in job advertisements since November 1, 2022), Colorado (compensation and benefits in all internal and public postings), Connecticut (effective October 1, 2026) and Virginia (the wage, salary or range in each public and internal posting).

Nevada works the other way: the wage or salary range goes to an applicant who has completed an interview, not into the posting.

California also requires the pay scale on an applicant's reasonable request regardless of employer size, and it 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.

More than a dozen states plus DC have some form of these rules, each with its own coverage conditions, 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 evening client meetings and any billable target, as your firm's own numbers.

Classification is the last thing to check before the pay line goes final.

Under federal law (29 CFR 541.304), a lawyer who holds a valid license and is actually engaged in the practice of law is an exempt professional, and the federal salary-level and salary-basis requirements do not apply.

California has no such carve-out: it exempts a practicing attorney only if they also earn at least two times the state minimum wage for full-time work, which works out to $70,304 a year ($1,352 a week) at the 2026 minimum wage of $16.90.

Confirm classification with employment counsel in your state before you set the posting's pay line.

Adapting the template for a small firm.

In a small bankruptcy practice, the hire is the practice area, so write the breadth in honestly: the clients they will meet, the filings they will own from first consultation to the closing letter, the staff they will supervise, and the court calendar they will carry.

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

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

Adapting for a caseload.

Rewrite the duties bullets around the work your firm actually wins.

A consumer-volume practice hires for production drafting, financial-document precision and plain-language client work — and the staffing line matters, because the statute's preparer definition turns on documents being prepared by the attorney's employee under direct supervision, so say what your staff prepare and what the attorney reviews.

A creditor-side seat hires for motion practice and negotiation.

A business or [Chapter 11] docket hires for plan and liquidation analysis and longer-horizon matters.

And a firm that bills consumer filings flat-fee should say so in the posting, because pricing changes the job: managing a matter to a budget is a skill worth a line of its own, not an assumption.

Let the requirements block follow the same logic: ask for experience with the caseload your firm runs, not "bankruptcy experience" in the abstract.

Adapting for hybrid or remote days.

Petition drafting and client calls can happen anywhere; the license question is what travels.

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.

Confirm the arrangement with your state bar's ethics counsel before you publish a hybrid line.

Six wordings sink otherwise good bankruptcy 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 posting line that reads as licensed-in-your-state for a hire who is not is the trap, and the firm shares the exposure: Model Rule 5.5(a) bars a lawyer from practicing law in violation of a jurisdiction's regulation of the profession, or assisting another in doing so.

Whether a hire who is not admitted in your state may handle a given matter is up to that state's own rules, not the model text.

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.

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 the 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 intent to discriminate unless justified by a business purpose.

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

3. Salary-history questions.

The state laws we read restrict them.

California (Labor Code 432.3) bars all employers from seeking an applicant's salary history and from relying on it in hiring or pay decisions; New York (Labor Law 194-a) bars requesting it as a condition of being interviewed, considered, hired or promoted, and seeking it from a current or former employer; Illinois (820 ILCS 112) bars screening by it, requiring it for an interview or offer, and seeking it from employers; Massachusetts (G.L. c.149 §105A) bars seeking it from the candidate or their employers, though it may be confirmed only after the applicant volunteers it or after an offer with compensation has been made.

Virginia's posting law also bans seeking salary history, Nevada pairs its after-interview range disclosure with the same ban, and Connecticut bars asking about a prospective employee's wage and salary history unless the applicant volunteers it.

Ask for expectations instead — California's law expressly allows an employer to ask about salary expectations for the position, and an applicant who volunteers history without prompting may have it considered.

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

4. Conviction-history questions too early.

A law firm is an employer first: fair-chance timing rules apply to its own hiring like anyone else's.

California's Fair Chance Act (employers with five or more employees) bars asking about or considering conviction history until after a conditional offer of employment, and New York City's Fair Chance Act makes it unlawful for most employers to ask about or consider criminal history before a conditional offer.

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. Duties that hand the attorney's job to staff.

Model Rule 5.5(a) bars a lawyer from assisting another in practicing law in violation of a jurisdiction's regulation of the profession, so posting lines that hand staff the advising — "advise" clients, "develop case strategy" — put the firm's exposure in writing; where a given task crosses the line is for your state's own rules, not the model text.

Keep the role inside the attorney-employee relationship, too: outside it, on the debtor's side, a person who prepares filings for pay is a bankruptcy petition preparer under 11 U.S.C.

110 and must give the debtor the statute's written notice that a preparer is not an attorney and may not practice law or give legal advice.

The template above draws the line the other way: staff prepare documents under the attorney's direct supervision, and the advising, signing and appearances sit with the attorney.

6. Vague everything.

"Bankruptcy attorney wanted," with no caseload, no consumer-versus-creditor split, 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 caseload, who prepares the documents, the seniority, and a range you believe.

For the posting mechanics themselves — structure, length, where the range goes — our guide to writing a law firm job posting walks through them.

If you test for drafting skill.

A petition-drafting exercise is a fair way to see the work, with two limits.

The EEOC requires that a test be necessary and related to the job and not exclude people of a protected group or people with disabilities.

And under the FLSA's definition of "employ" — to suffer or permit to work — a candidate doing real, usable work for the firm may be an employee owed wages, so a short exercise on a mock file is the safer design than a live filing.

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 bankruptcy 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.