Do law firm job postings have to show a salary range?

Pay-range posting requirements are state and city law, and they differ on employer size, on which postings are covered and on what has to be shown.

The statutes in the table below are the ones our research verified from the statute text or the state agency — treat them as the confirmed map, and the tracker-reported states further down as leads to check rather than law you can rely on.

Nevada is the near-miss to know about: NRS 613.133 requires the wage or salary range to go to an applicant who has completed an interview for the position — it is not a posting requirement, and the same section bans seeking salary history.

Connecticut's new law deserves a second look from small firms: it covers positions performed in Connecticut or reporting to a Connecticut supervisor, at any firm size.

Illinois adds a second duty in the same act — promotion opportunities must be announced to all current employees no later than 14 calendar days after the external posting goes up.

Trackers we read also report posting rules in Maryland (October 1, 2024, all employers), Washington D.C. (June 30, 2024, all employers), New Jersey (June 1, 2025, 10 or more employees), Vermont (July 1, 2025, five or more employees), Hawaii (January 1, 2024, 50 or more employees) and Cleveland, Ohio (October 27, 2025, 15 or more employees), an on-request rule rather than a posting rule in Rhode Island — plus Maine from July 29, 2026 (10 or more employees) and Delaware from September 26, 2027 (26 or more employees).

We could not confirm those from the primary sources before publishing: the pages we pulled for Maryland, New Jersey, Vermont and D.C. failed or returned other sections, the Maine statute was not yet online when we looked, and Delaware's bill exists in our research only as search summaries — one tracker still shows Delaware as having no law at all, which is one more reason to check the primary source.

Treat every date in this paragraph as reported, not verified, and confirm with the state labor department before you rely on it.

One Hawaii caution: HRS 378-2.4, which surfaces in searches about Hawaii pay transparency, is Hawaii's salary-history ban — not its pay-range posting rule.

The posting provision itself was not verifiable from the sources we read, so check with the Hawaii labor department for the current requirement.

Taken together, the confirmed statutes plus the reported ones put posting rules in more than a dozen states plus DC — and cities write their own rules on top.

New York City's ordinance is the city rule we verified; other cities have requirements we did not survey for this page.

Several of these states pair the posting duty with a salary-history ban, which is its own posting-wording trap.

California bars employers of any size from seeking an applicant's salary history; Connecticut bars asking about a prospective employee's wage and salary history unless the applicant volunteers it; and Virginia's posting law bans seeking salary history in the same section that requires the range.

States and cities we did not read have their own rules, so keep the salary-history request out of your postings and application forms unless you have confirmed your state allows it.

On their face, the verified scope language keys to where the work happens and where the employees sit, not to where the firm is incorporated: Illinois covers jobs performed at least partly in Illinois or reporting to an Illinois supervisor; Connecticut's new law covers positions performed in Connecticut or reporting to a Connecticut supervisor; and New York City's rule covers advertisements for NYC-performed work.

The headcount thresholds are counted in-state where the statute says so: Minnesota's 30-employee threshold counts employees in Minnesota, and Massachusetts' 25-employee threshold counts Massachusetts employees.

A firm headquartered in Dallas with 30 employees in Boston is over the Massachusetts threshold on the statute's own counting, even though its headquarters and most of its headcount sit in Texas.

For a law firm, that makes remote roles the exposure point.

On the statute's own scope language, a fully remote docketing job performed from Illinois, or a remote associate reporting to a partner in the firm's Chicago office, sits inside Illinois' coverage at a firm with 15 or more employees, even if the partnership sits elsewhere.

The statutes differ on how far they reach into fully remote and multi-state arrangements, and the reach described above is the reach the verified scope language states.

For anything past that — a posting that will run in more than one state at once, a hybrid arrangement with the seat undefined — check the state labor agency's guidance for each state the role touches, and take multi-state remote hiring to employment counsel.

Our guide to hiring remote legal staff covers the operational side of those hires.

Where the statutes we verified state a standard for the range, it is good faith — New York City's ordinance requires a good-faith pay range in all job advertisements for NYC-performed work, and California's is the one to read closely because it defines the term: a pay scale is a good-faith estimate of the salary or hourly wage range that the employer reasonably expects to pay for the position upon hire.

That definition ties the range to what the firm actually expects to pay at hire for that specific seat — not to the widest spread the partnership could defend.

What the other states accept as the range's derivation is not spelled out in the sources we read, so check each state's agency guidance.

Two details matter for a firm's roster.

First, California's definition covers hourly pay, so the legal assistants, docketing clerks and intake staff on hourly wages sit inside the same definition as associates.

Second, these statutes attach to job postings generally — "any job posting" in California, "each posting for each job opening" in Minnesota — so an associate opening and a legal-secretary opening carry the same disclosure duty where the law applies; none of the duties we verified singles out attorneys.

The shape rules differ.

Minnesota requires the starting salary range and bars open-ended ranges outright.

Washington accepts a fixed wage in place of a wage scale or salary range.

How a single flat number sits with the other statutes is a question for each state's labor agency — in Minnesota the statute's own wording is a range, so check before you post one number.

Practically, build the range from the band you would actually offer at hire for the seat the posting describes: the budget line for that level, given the experience you are asking for.

Whether a range was a good-faith estimate is judged against what the firm reasonably expected to pay on hire where the statute defines the term that way — a question for the state agency or a court, not something the posting itself can settle — so treat deliberately wide ranges as the risk they are and confirm your bands with employment counsel.

Where the numbers should come from, our salary benchmarking for law firms page works through the market data; and the range is one line of the ad — the title, duties and credential wording around it are covered in our guide to writing job postings.

California sets civil penalties of $100 to $10,000 per violation under the same statute that defines the pay scale.

Virginia's law puts enforcement with the Attorney General, with penalties up to $1,000 for a first violation and up to $5,000 for subsequent ones.

Washington's statute builds in a cure window: for postings from July 27, 2025 through July 27, 2027, an employer gets five business days after written notice to correct a noncompliant posting before a job applicant may seek remedies.

For the other jurisdictions in the table above we verified the posting duty itself but not a penalty figure — the enforcement terms sit in each statute and its agency's rules, so check the state labor department, and for Virginia the Attorney General's office, before relying on any number.

Penalties are also only part of the math: a corrected posting re-enters the market late, against firms whose range was up from day one.

Whether a specific posting complies is a question for the agency or a court, and a firm unsure of its footing should confirm with employment counsel.

We will not invent a statistic here: our research holds no applicant-flow study on pay ranges, so the case below is practical rather than data-backed.

The mechanical case is that a posted range filters the funnel before the interview: a candidate who can see the band and knows it will not work for them can opt out before applying, rather than discovering the number at offer stage.

For staff hires — paralegals, legal assistants, docketing and intake — the range answers the pay question before a candidate has to ask it.

Where ranges are required, the comparison is already running without you: candidates in New York or California can put two firm postings side by side, and a "competitive salary" line sitting next to a rival's actual band does not read as a neutral omission.

Posting the range deliberately, set from your real band, beats posting it as a compliance afterthought.

The work is in setting the bands, not in the posting.

Whatever tiering your firm uses for associates and staff, naming a band per seat once is what makes every future posting's pay line a ten-second decision.

Once the range is set, the channel matters too — our guide to where to post law firm jobs covers the boards and associations by role and practice area, and the full sequence from role definition to offer is in our guide to hiring for your law firm.

Employer information, not legal advice. The posting rules above are the statutes and state agency pages we read as of October 2026 — several take effect on dates through 2027, and each state's thresholds, scope and penalties are its own. Confirm your postings with each state's labor department (for Virginia, the Attorney General's office), or with employment counsel, before you rely on any threshold, date or figure here.