Of counsel attorney job description template: duties, requirements and pay range

An of counsel posting has five working parts: the arrangement the title describes at your firm, the duties that come with it, the bar admission you require, the skills and systems, and a good-faith pay range with benefits.

Each gets its own block in the template below.

If you are still deciding whether an of counsel is the right shape for the work — or how to structure the relationship — our guide to how to hire an of counsel attorney covers the decisions before the posting; this page is about writing it.

The arrangement.

Of counsel is not a seniority level — the title describes a relationship between a lawyer and a firm, and the same title covers very different seats: a retiring or retired partner staying on for selected clients, a specialist the firm needs a few hours or days a month, a lateral with an established client base who joins other than on the partner track, a senior lawyer the firm is growing toward a bigger role.

None of those is wrong; leaving them unnamed is.

The first block of the posting should say what the title means at your firm — whose clients the hire will work on (the firm's, their own, or both), the schedule, and how new engagements get opened and conflicts-checked.

A candidate reading "of counsel" with no arrangement described has to guess what the job is.

Core duties and responsibilities.

Write the work a candidate can picture, not adjectives: the matters they will own, whose clients they serve, whether the seat is full-time or a defined slice of a week, and what the deliverables are.

An of counsel desk runs on independence, so the duties block also tells a candidate how much they will operate without daily partner oversight.

Duties worth a line on the posting:

• Handling [practice area] matters as the responsible attorney, inside the jurisdictions where you are admitted
• [Drafting, reviewing and negotiating [agreements / pleadings / trusts / regulatory filings] for the firm's matters]
• [Advising the firm's clients on [practice area] questions]
• [Continuing to serve the clients you bring to the firm, under the firm's engagement and conflicts procedures]
• [Supporting the firm's partners on [depositions / due diligence / motions / reviews] as agreed]
• [Mentoring associates and reviewing work product]
• [Business development — [speaking, writing, bar association work] — as agreed with the firm]
• Following the firm's conflicts, confidentiality, docketing and file-management procedures

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

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.

If the role includes appearances or filings, write the courts and jurisdictions to match where the hire's license actually runs, rather than a duty list a candidate elsewhere cannot lawfully perform.

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.

And if the seat is part-time, put the hours in this block rather than leaving them to the interview.

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 any courts 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.

If the candidate holds a license in a status other than active, confirm with that state's agency what the status permits before you write the duties around it — our research did not cover state license-status rules, so this is a check-with-the-agency step, not something this page can answer.

Decide what you will accept and write exactly that.

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 the arrangement expects the hire to bring or keep a client base, write that expectation as a required or preferred line: it is a real condition of the seat, and leaving it unspoken invites a mismatch in the first quarter.

Experience follows the required-versus-preferred split — name the background that genuinely transfers (matters like the ones you will hand over, practice on the other side of the table, in-house depth in your clients' industry) rather than a bare years number, so you do not screen out candidates whose experience fits.

The candidate-side view of the title is in our of counsel attorney career guide.

Skills and software.

Name the systems your firm actually runs — document management, time capture and billing, calendaring and docketing, court e-filing systems where litigation is in scope, secure remote collaboration and video conferencing, your research platforms — and split them into must-have-on-day-one versus willing-to-train.

The non-software skills that matter on this desk are specific: running matters end to end without a partner checking each step, the judgment to know what comes back to the supervising attorney, conflicts discipline when the lawyer keeps engagements outside the firm, plain-language client communication, and the review-and-mentoring eye if the seat includes associate work.

A skills block that names the real stack and the real expectations sorts applications better than a list of adjectives.

Pay range and benefits.

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

The national benchmark comes with a double caveat on this title: 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 about $351,600 — BLS footnotes lawyer values of $239,200 or more, so read the top of that range as approximate, and the spread is 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.

OEWS excludes self-employed lawyers, which matters more here than on other attorney pages: an of counsel arrangement can sit outside a firm's payroll entirely, and those lawyers are outside the series.

There is no of counsel pay series in our research, and our research found no primary-source hourly rate tables for contract-attorney work either — so set the range from your budget and the schedule, not from a figure our research could not source.

State figures are on our of counsel attorney salary page.

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 an of counsel posting rewards honesty: list what the arrangement actually includes — health coverage, retirement plan, malpractice coverage, bar dues and CLE support — and state plainly what it does not, because a candidate comparing a part-time of counsel seat to a full-time associate offer needs the difference in writing.

State your hours expectation and any billable or matter-load target as your firm's own numbers.

Classification is the last thing to check before the pay line goes final, and the title decides none of it: the DOL says job titles do not determine exemption status — duties and salary do.

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 — so the structure of the pay itself is not what settles the question.

California law has no such carve-out: under the state's wage-order rule, a practising attorney is an exempt professional only if they also earn at least two times the state minimum wage for full-time work — $70,304 a year ($1,352 a week) at the 2026 minimum wage of $16.90.

Part-time and reduced-schedule arrangements change the analysis, so confirm classification with employment counsel in your state before you set the posting's pay line.

Adapting the template for a small firm.

For a small practice, an of counsel seat can be a way to add depth or coverage without committing to a full-time salary line — which makes the schedule and the client ownership the two things to write down first.

A named supervisor matters more, not less: "reports to the managing partner" tells a candidate who reviews the work and who they escalate to when a matter goes sideways.

If the arrangement depends on the hire's own clients, say how that works — what runs through the firm, what stays with the lawyer, and how malpractice coverage applies — and confirm the coverage question with your carrier before you post.

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 practice area.

Rewrite the duties bullets around the work the hire will actually touch.

A litigation of counsel seat hires for courtroom-adjacent depth — say whether appearances are in scope and name the courts, because under the model text Rule 5.5(c) covers only services on a temporary basis by a lawyer admitted elsewhere, and Rule 5.5(b)(1) bars an unadmitted lawyer from establishing a systematic and continuous presence for practicing law in the jurisdiction, except as the Rules or other law authorize — so a hire admitted elsewhere is a confirm-with-ethics-counsel question before the posting, not an assumption in it.

A transactional seat hires for document depth and client-handling on matters the firm's partners source.

A niche specialist — [tax, ERISA, environmental, patent work] — is hired for a defined slice of expertise, so write the matter types the firm will send rather than the whole practice area.

Let the requirements block follow the same logic: ask for experience with the kind of matters your firm takes, not "of counsel experience," which describes no work at all.

Adapting for hybrid or remote days.

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 or remote line.

Six wordings sink otherwise good of counsel 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.

Model Rule 5.5(c) covers only legal services provided on a temporary basis by a lawyer admitted in another U.S. jurisdiction — four listed situations, one of which is association with a locally admitted lawyer who actively participates in the matter — while Model Rule 5.5(b)(1) bars an unadmitted lawyer from establishing an office or other systematic and continuous presence for practicing law in the jurisdiction, except as the Rules or other law authorize.

Whether a given of counsel arrangement is permitted is up to your state's own rules, not the model text — write the admission requirement as the state where the work happens, and treat any seat for a lawyer admitted elsewhere as a confirm-with-the-admitting-authority question before the posting goes up.

2. Title wording that implies more than the arrangement.

The title is a signal to clients and other lawyers, and state rules can police it: in Ohio, for example, a lawyer may state or imply that they practice in a partnership or other organization only when that is the fact — Ohio's Rule of Professional Conduct 7.5(d), which is why titles such as of counsel and partner on a letterhead have to reflect the actual relationship.

Other states' adopted rules may differ, so confirm how yours treats firm titles with your state bar's ethics counsel before you publish — and whatever the title, define the arrangement in the posting, because an undefined "of counsel" tells a candidate nothing about seniority, schedule or client ownership.

3. 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.

4. 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 relying on it and requesting it as a condition of being interviewed, considered, hired or promoted, and bars 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.

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.

5. 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.

6. Vague everything.

"Of counsel wanted," with no arrangement, no practice area, no schedule, no range — an umbrella title pulls applications across every kind of arrangement and saves you none of the sorting.

The fix is the template above: the arrangement block, the duties inside what the hire may lawfully do, the schedule, 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.

After you post.

Set a review cadence before the posting goes live and hold to it — a slow reply reads as a closed door to a lawyer with a practice to wind down or hand over.

If the pay range or the arrangement changes, 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 of counsel attorney jobs on this board to see how other firms frame the arrangement, the schedule and the pay.

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.