What does an of counsel attorney do at your firm, and what level do you need?
At your firm, of counsel is a title for an affiliation, not a level: a lawyer connected to the firm who is neither an associate on its ladder nor one of its partners.
What the lawyer actually does is set by the arrangement you and the lawyer agree on — which is why the first hiring decision is not "who" but "which arrangement".
Underneath the title, the arrangements a firm can put it to include:
- A retired or semi-retired partner who stays close to the firm's clients and institutional knowledge after leaving the partner tier.
- A part-time specialist who adds depth in one practice area without a full-time seat.
- A rainmaker with a book of business who brings clients and matters with them and runs them under your firm's roof.
- A senior lawyer off the partner track — experienced bench capacity without a partner seat.
The arrangement decides the level of hire and, with it, which checks lead.
A client-facing rainmaker brings their own clients, so conflicts, fee structure and client communication lead the checklist; an internal specialist mostly needs a license, a supervision line and a defined scope.
Write down which clients the lawyer will touch, which matters they carry, and what the firm expects on hours and business before you post the role — every later decision in this guide keys off that page.
Two boundary points on the title itself.
The rules of professional conduct reach it directly: under Ohio Rule 7.5(d), a lawyer may state or imply that they practice in a partnership only when that is true, which is why an of counsel line on letterhead — or anywhere else the firm states or implies the relationship — has to reflect the actual relationship.
That is Ohio's adopted rule, and your state's adopted version is the one that binds your firm.
And our research plan for this title points to ABA Formal Opinion 90-357 as an ABA ethics opinion on the of counsel designation; the opinion's text was not among the sources we verified, so this page does not paraphrase it — what the designation requires where your firm practices is a question for your state bar's ethics counsel.
The candidate's-side picture — the day-to-day work behind the title and who holds it — sits in our career guide to what an of counsel attorney does.
And the role-by-role basics for every hire a firm makes are collected in our guide to hiring for your law firm.
Looking to hire? Post your of counsel role on LawFirmHires and reach people who already work in law firms.
Post an Of Counsel Job →What license or credentials must an of counsel attorney have?
An of counsel hire is an attorney hire, and one verification carries it: an active law license where the person will practice, confirmed at the source rather than from the resume or the bio.
Lawyers are licensed by a state agency in each state, and that agency can confirm whether a person has a law license and may practice there; the ABA keeps a state-by-state directory of those agencies, which is where a multi-state check starts.
Confirm the admission, the current status and good standing before the arrangement letter goes out.
Our research found no separate license or certification for the of counsel title — it marks an affiliation with a firm, not a qualification — so what you verify is the license underneath it.
Our guide that shows you how to verify bar status before hiring walks the lookup step by step.
Two model-rule boundaries matter when your candidate is admitted somewhere else.
ABA Model Rule 5.5(b)(2) bars a lawyer not admitted in a jurisdiction from holding out or representing that they are admitted there — the reason an of counsel bio and title line deserve the same scrutiny as the license check itself.
And ABA Model Rule 5.5(c) allows a lawyer admitted in another U.S. jurisdiction, and not suspended or disbarred, to 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, the situation to examine when your of counsel is admitted elsewhere and will provide services in your state.
Our guide to hiring attorneys licensed in another state takes that shape in depth.
Rules change, and the model rules are models.
The rule texts above are the ABA's model versions; the rules that bind your firm are the versions your state adopted, and states' adopted versions may differ.
Confirm the lawyer's license and standing with the state's licensing agency, and the title and temporary-practice questions with your state bar's ethics counsel, before the arrangement is signed.
Where do you find of counsel attorney candidates?
The candidate pool for this hire is senior: retired and semi-retired partners your firm already knows, specialists who have stepped back from full-time practice, and senior lawyers leaving other firms.
Start with the lawyers your firm has worked with and would work with again — and with your state and local bar associations, if yours runs a career center or referral channel for members; whether it does is the bar's own question.
The wider channel map — the practice-area association job boards our research confirmed, recruiters and their tradeoffs, which pool fits which seat — is the attorney-wide one our guide to where firms recruit attorneys walks, so we will not repeat it here.
One shape is specific to this title: a candidate with their own book of business arrives as a negotiation about clients, credit and conflicts, not just an application — budget time for that negotiation before you post.
Post the role where senior attorneys look.
Of counsel jobs on this board is the role's listing page — and this board is built only for legal jobs, which is exactly the audience this hire needs.
How much should you pay an of counsel attorney?
Pay follows the arrangement you picked in the first section, and the honest starting point is a gap: our research found no primary source that publishes of-counsel-specific pay.
The federal wage series measures lawyers as one occupation and as employees, and both limits matter for this title, which spans arrangements from part-time W-2 work to a lawyer engaged through their own firm.
The series is still the benchmark to start from.
In the BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) May 2025 release, Lawyers (SOC 23-1011) had a national median annual wage of $159,670, or $76.76 an hour.
Lawyers working in the Legal Services industry — law firms, NAICS 5411 — had a median annual wage of $157,870 in the same release.
The band in the banner above, $102,990 to $221,370, is the same series' national 25th-to-75th-percentile range.
Read all of it as the lawyer occupation's employee wages, not an of counsel rate card: OEWS excludes the self-employed, so it does not measure a self-employed lawyer's income.
The same series, state by state, sits on our of counsel salary page.
If the arrangement is that the lawyer keeps their own clients and the firm shares in the work, the pay conversation is about how the fee is divided.
Here our research found no standard origination-credit percentage — the share is set firm by firm.
What the ethics rules do fix is the case where the of counsel is in a different firm from yours: ABA Model Rule 1.5(e) allows a division of a fee between lawyers who are not in the same firm only if it is proportional to the services each lawyer provided (or each lawyer assumes joint responsibility for the representation), the client agrees to the arrangement, including the share each lawyer will receive, and the agreement is confirmed in writing, and the total fee is reasonable.
Those are the model texts; your state's adopted version controls, so put the split past your state bar's ethics counsel before you paper it.
If the of counsel is on your payroll instead — part-time or full-time W-2 — the overtime-classification question that applies to attorney employees is the one our guide to exempt vs nonexempt law firm staff covers, and employment counsel should confirm the classification for the specific arrangement.
How do you screen and interview an of counsel attorney?
Screen against the arrangement you wrote down, not the resume.
Before interviews open, put on one page what the role has to produce — the practice area and jurisdiction, the clients or matters the lawyer will touch, the hours or business the firm expects, who supervises what — and score every candidate against that sheet.
Two checks come before any substance changes hands.
Verify the license at the source with the state's licensing agency — the section above gives you the path; do not take it from a certificate PDF.
And run the conflicts check before the first conversation about any client or matter: an of counsel who brings their own clients puts conflicts on the table from the first conversation, and a conflict found after documents move is one you could only have avoided earlier.
Our guide to conflicts checks before hiring a lateral attorney walks the process and its paper trail.
Interview on the work.
Which matters did the candidate personally carry — the drafting, the appearances, the client conversations — and which did they supervise or inherit?
For a book-of-business candidate the diligence questions are their own: whose clients are they, what documents show origination and current responsibility, are the clients portable, and who keeps them if the arrangement ends.
Our guide to vetting a lateral partner and their book of business covers that ground.
Make the practical terms explicit in the interview rather than assuming them: the availability you need, which clients the lawyer keeps elsewhere, who signs filings and appearances, and how the firm's name may be used.
Keep every question on the job — anything touching protected traits goes to your employment counsel before the loop, not during it.
What are the red flags when hiring an of counsel attorney?
A red flag is a question to resolve before the arrangement letter, not a verdict.
The ones worth slowing down for on an of counsel hire:
- A license the agency cannot confirm. The resume says active; the state agency says lapsed, inactive or unknown — resolve it with the agency before anything else, because every other check assumes it.
- A title that outruns the relationship. A candidate who presents themselves as a partner, or whose letterhead line implies the firm's partnership, is claiming a relationship that Ohio Rule 7.5(d) permits stating only when it is true; your state's adopted version of the rule is what binds your firm.
- Holding out where not admitted. A bio or signature block that lists your state while the agency shows no admission there is the fact pattern Model Rule 5.5(b)(2)'s bar on holding out addresses — treat the mismatch as disqualifying until it is explained.
- A fee arrangement the rules will not support. Expecting the firm's share of fees from matters run through the lawyer's own firm, without the client's confirmed written agreement to the split, fails Model Rule 1.5(e)'s conditions.
- A book that cannot be documented. Vagueness about which clients are theirs, who brought them and who is responsible today is a diligence problem no reference call fixes after the start date.
- Discipline nobody raised. Ask the candidate directly about any grievance or discipline, and verify what you can with the state's licensing agency. How disciplinary records travel between states is not something our research confirmed — put the question to the agency rather than to guesswork.
- Conflicts discovered late. A check that starts after client conversations has already lost; a candidate who resists naming current clients early is the flag.
How do you onboard and keep an of counsel attorney?
Paper the arrangement before day one.
The letter should state the scope — which clients and matters the lawyer touches — the compensation structure and any fee-split mechanics, who supervises the lawyer and what that covers, how the firm's name, letterhead and the of counsel title may be used, the confidentiality terms, the conflicts clearance, and what happens to each matter and each client relationship when the arrangement ends.
An of counsel who starts on a handshake has none of those answers in writing — and neither does your firm.
The supervision duty starts on day one too.
ABA Model Rule 5.1(b) requires a lawyer with direct supervisory authority over another lawyer to make reasonable efforts to ensure that the lawyer conforms to the professional rules — name the supervising lawyer in the letter, put the of counsel into the conflicts system before the first client conversation, and define which decisions are theirs versus the firm's.
Our guide to what Model Rule 5.1 requires when you supervise a lawyer covers the structure in depth.
Keeping a good of counsel is mostly keeping the arrangement honest: an annual review of the hours, the clients and the fee flows against what the letter says, prompt and predictable pay, and a title that keeps describing reality on the letterhead.
When the arrangement wants to grow into something permanent — a partnership conversation, or a full lateral move with the book — those are different processes, and the considerations in our guide to hiring lateral attorneys are the ones that apply.
Employer information, not legal advice. The ethics rules described here are ABA model rules and, where named, one state's adopted rule; your state's adopted versions control. Confirm licensure with the state's licensing agency described above, the title and fee-split questions with your state bar's ethics counsel, and the employment questions with employment counsel, before you act.