How much should a law firm pay a tax attorney?

Our research holds no tax-specific wage series from BLS: its lawyer occupation (SOC 23-1011) covers the profession as a whole, so every figure in this section is that whole-profession data used as a proxy for the tax seat.

In the OEWS May 2025 release, lawyers had a national median annual wage of $159,670, with the 10th percentile at $78,360 and the 90th percentile at $351,600.

Read the top of that range as approximate: BLS flags lawyer wage values at or above $239,200 with a footnote in its published tables.

Two cuts of the same release matter for a firm doing the hiring.

Lawyers in the legal services industry — law firms, NAICS 5411 — had a median of $157,870 in May 2025, so the industry you are hiring in pays near the all-lawyer median.

Lawyers in Management of Companies and Enterprises — corporate head offices, and the closest BLS cut to in-house practice — had a median of $223,560; it is an industry median for lawyers as a whole, not a tax-department figure, but it marks the industry a corporate-legal lateral would be leaving.

And OEWS excludes self-employed workers, so the series says nothing about what a solo practitioner or equity partner earns.

The spread by state is wide: in May 2025, New York had the highest lawyer median wage ($207,860), followed by DC ($195,190) and California ($195,080), with Mississippi lowest ($91,690).

Those are all-lawyers medians too — use them as the local context your offer competes in.

The state-by-state figures sit on our tax attorney salary data page, which carries the same BLS series by jurisdiction.

Treat all of it as floor-setting, not the answer: these are medians across every practice setting, not offers for your seat.

The sharper benchmark is what firms like yours are posting — and where posting laws require disclosure, the range is public whether or not you volunteer it (the offer section covers where).

Our guide to benchmarking law firm pay turns those postings into a number you can defend.

Our research holds no dataset that splits attorney pay by practice area, and none that isolates tax: the curves below are the profession-wide ones — BLS's all-lawyers series above, and NALP's associate surveys, which document base salaries by firm size, market and class year.

Use them for the shape of the curve, then set any tax-specific premium from your own benchmarking.

Class year and firm size.

NALP's 2025 Associate Salary Survey recorded a median first-year associate base salary of $200,000 as of January 1, 2025, and $215,000 at firms of more than 700 lawyers — figures as of January 1, 2025, so they predate the July 2026 scale move described below.

The most common first-year salary overall in that survey was $225,000 as of January 1, 2025 — reported by 32% of offices, and by 45% of offices in firms of 701 or more lawyers — while among firms of 250 or fewer lawyers, the most common first-year salary was $150,000 or less, reported by 44% of offices.

That sample skews large — most of the offices surveyed were in firms of 250 or more lawyers — so read the small-firm cut as a large-firm-heavy estimate, not a figure for a two-to-twenty-lawyer firm.

Geography moves it too: outside NALP's 19 major-market cities, median first-year associate salaries in 2025 were $181,900 in the West, $170,000 in the Northeast, and $160,000 in the South and Midwest.

Two markets, not one.

NALP's Class of 2025 salary curve is bimodal: reported salaries of $60,000–$100,000 made up 50.0% of the 22,715 full-time salaries in the dataset — a dataset covering all reported full-time jobs lasting a year or more, not only law-firm positions — while $225,000 accounted for 21.5%.

Where a tax offer lands on that two-peaked map is a function of what the seat produces and who else is bidding.

At the top end, the associate base-salary scale Milbank announced on June 2, 2026 — a figure our research holds through legal-press reporting of the firm memo, not a primary dataset — took effect July 1, 2026 and runs from $235,000 for first-years (the Classes of 2026 and 2025) to $455,000 for the Class of 2018.

If you recruit against large-firm tax groups in major markets and the reported scale holds, that ladder is the experience curve you are bidding against before any bonus.

Does a tax seat pay above or below the lawyer curve?

The data we hold cannot say — it has no practice-area cut — and our research holds no verified tax-specific premium figure.

What the sources do document is the seat's credential gates, and that is where the structure decision starts.

Start from classification, because it decides what a fixed salary has to clear.

Under the federal regulation at 29 CFR 541.304, an employee holding a valid license to practice law who is actually engaged in practice is an exempt professional, and the salary requirements that apply to other white-collar exemptions do not apply to that lawyer — the Department of Labor's Fact Sheet 17D says the same for bona fide practitioners of law.

Federal law therefore imposes no minimum salary on a barred, practicing tax attorney: how you split base and variable pay is a business decision made inside the wage laws, not a classification constraint.

The full overtime rules, including the states that add their own tests, are in our separate guide.

Two limits have teeth.

A law-school graduate who has not been admitted yet is not covered by 541.304 and must meet another exemption's salary and duties tests or be paid overtime; for the professional exemptions, the federal standard salary level was $684 per week ($35,568 a year) on DOL's salary-levels page as of October 2026.

And California closes the federal gap on its own: a licensed attorney practicing law there is an exempt professional only if they also earn a salary of 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 an hour, effective January 1, 2026.

In California, a low-base, high-bonus structure has to clear that floor in fixed pay.

What an LL.M. or CPA is worth.

Our research holds no verified dollar premium for either credential, so treat any figure you hear as a benchmarking input, not a rule.

What the sources do document is what each layer buys.

Practicing before the IRS is not exclusive to lawyers: under Circular 230 (31 CFR 10.3), attorneys and CPAs not under suspension or disbarment may practice before the IRS by filing a written declaration, and enrolled agents may also practice.

Tax Court is different: the U.S. Tax Court admits attorneys on a certificate of good standing issued within 90 days of applying, while nonattorneys can be admitted only by passing the Court's nonattorney examination under Tax Court Rule 200.

An LL.M. — a graduate law degree that U.S.-trained lawyers earn after the J.D. — is a credential of a different kind from either: a degree, not one of the practice gates above.

Price the seat for the gates it actually needs: a controversy seat whose work stays before the IRS competes with candidates whose practice right comes from Circular 230 rather than a bar license; a seat that litigates in Tax Court draws on an admission route open to attorneys by certificate — nonattorneys only through the Court's own examination — so the lawyer benchmarks above are the relevant ones for that seat.

The accounting-firm comparison.

The competition is not only other law firms: the Circular 230 practice right above is not lawyer-exclusive — CPAs hold it too — so accounting-side employers can staff IRS-facing work without hiring a lawyer.

The nearest published benchmark for that side is a different BLS series: accountants and auditors earned a median of $83,680 in May 2025.

That is a different occupation, not a like-for-like comparison with the lawyer figures above — treat it as a pointer to what the accounting side's own benchmark looks like, and note in your benchmarking what a candidate's alternatives are.

Inside those constraints, the menu is: a straight salary; a salary with a production bonus tied to defined output; or a salary with origination credit where the firm tracks client development.

Whatever the variable layer rewards — returns reviewed, controversies closed, matters carried — write the definition into the offer so the number is auditable on both sides.

Bonus layers exist at the top of the market: for the 2025 year-end season, legal-press reporting carried Cravath's year-end bonuses at $15,000 to $115,000 depending on class year, plus special bonuses of $6,000 to $25,000.

If you bid against packages like that one, the base you are matching is not the whole number.

We will not invent a ranking: our research holds no survey of what tax-attorney candidates weight most in a package.

What is verifiable is that state posting laws have turned benefits disclosure from a sweetener into a requirement — Washington requires employers with 15 or more employees to disclose the wage scale or salary range and a general description of benefits in each posting, in effect since January 1, 2023; Illinois requires employers with 15 or more employees to include the pay scale and benefits in any specific job posting; Minnesota requires employers with 30 or more employees to list the starting salary range and a general description of benefits, and ranges there may not be open-ended; and Connecticut's law, effective October 1, 2026, requires the wage or wage range and a general description of benefits in every job advertisement.

So decide the package deliberately and state what is true for this seat: health coverage and whether it extends to family; retirement plan and any match; bar dues, CLE support and malpractice coverage; and the practice-specific items — research and tax-software tools, and how returns-season workload is handled.

Two more are worth pricing consciously.

Judicial clerkship bonuses: 73% of law offices in NALP's 2025 survey offered them, with amounts varying by clerkship type — a line item that comes up when your shortlist includes candidates finishing judicial clerkships.

And the Public Service Loan Forgiveness math: PSLF forgives the remaining Direct Loan balance after 120 qualifying monthly payments made while working full time for a qualifying employer, and eligibility runs on the employer — U.S. government organizations at any level and 501(c)(3) nonprofits qualify; private law firms are not on the qualifying-employer list.

A candidate leaving a government or nonprofit tax seat is giving that up, and the gap is cash your offer may have to bridge.

What benefits small firms offer — and how to structure them on a small-firm budget — is in our dedicated guide.

A posting that says what the firm actually offers survives both a strong candidate's scrutiny and the disclosure laws above; a vague "competitive benefits" survives neither.

Describe what applies to the role you are posting, and confirm the posting requirements for your state with your state labor agency.

Set the number from the benchmarks, then run the conversation by the rules that govern it.

In the four states below, the candidate's salary history is off the table:

• California. Labor Code 432.3 bars every employer — any size — from seeking an applicant's salary history, including compensation and benefits, orally or in writing, personally or through an agent, and from relying on it in deciding whether to hire or what to pay. The same statute lets you ask about salary expectations for the position, and lets you consider salary history the applicant volunteers without prompting. On reasonable request, you must provide the position's pay scale — a duty that applies at any employer size, unlike the posting duty, which starts at 15 employees.
• New York. Labor Law 194-a bars relying on an applicant's wage or salary history, and requesting it as a condition of being interviewed, considered, hired or promoted, or seeking it from a current or former employer. The one window the law opens: when an offer with compensation is made, if the applicant responds by citing prior pay to support a higher number, you may then confirm that history.
• Illinois. 820 ILCS 112 makes it unlawful to screen applicants by salary history, to request it as a condition of an interview or offer, or to seek it from a current or former employer.
• Massachusetts. G.L. c.149 §105A bars seeking a prospective employee's wage or salary history from the candidate or from a current or former employer; it may be confirmed only after the candidate volunteers it or after an offer with compensation has been made.

Connecticut bars asking about a prospective employee's wage and salary history unless the applicant volunteers it; Virginia's 2026 law bans seeking salary history alongside its posting requirements; and Nevada's bans seeking it while requiring the wage or salary range to be given to an applicant who has completed an interview.

This is not the full map, and it is not a count: many cities and states have their own salary-history and posting rules, and our research read only the jurisdictions named here.

Build the interviewer script for the jurisdictions you hire in, and confirm it with employment counsel before the first screen.

Signing bonuses and clawbacks.

If the offer includes a signing bonus to bridge a lateral move, California now polices the payback: for contracts entered into on or after January 1, 2026, Business and Professions Code 16608 makes it unlawful to require a worker to pay a penalty, fee or cost — including a quit fee — if employment ends.

A signing-bonus repayment clause survives only if it meets every listed condition: it sits in a separate agreement; the worker is told they may consult a lawyer and gets at least five business days; repayment is interest-free and prorated over a retention period of no more than two years; the worker may instead defer the bonus to the end of the period; and repayment applies only on a voluntary quit or a firing for misconduct.

A worker can sue over a prohibited term for actual damages or $5,000 per worker, whichever is greater, plus injunctive relief and attorney's fees.

Clawback rules outside California were not part of our research, so do not assume a repayment clause is enforceable — or banned — in your state; put the terms in writing and confirm them with employment counsel.

The play inside those rules: anchor the conversation on your number and the role, not on the candidate's past.

State the range plainly — where posting laws require it, it is public anyway.

California requires the pay scale in postings at 15 or more employees, New York requires compensation ranges for advertised jobs at four or more employees, New York City has required a good-faith range in job advertisements since November 1, 2022, and Colorado requires compensation and benefits disclosure in all job postings.

Price the whole package against the benchmark you set before the first interview.

The full process — sourcing, screening, conflicts — is in our guide to how to hire a tax attorney.

Our research holds no published review cadence for attorney pay, so anchor the review to the events that move the number:

• Each recruiting cycle. Re-run the posting benchmark before you post the next tax seat, not after — the benchmarking law firm pay guide is the method.
• The annual data refresh. BLS's OEWS May 2025 estimates are the latest release, and NALP's 2025 survey data is as of January 1, 2025 — each release ages, so re-pull the current one each cycle rather than reusing a number from a stale release.
• Market-scale moves. When the large-firm scale moves, a lateral number set before the move ages quickly: legal-press reporting carried a reset effective July 1, 2026 that added $10,000 for the first four class years and $20,000 for fifth- through eighth-years, on a prior scale that ran $225,000 to $435,000.
• Law changes. Connecticut's posting-range law took effect October 1, 2026, and California's minimum wage — the input to its two-times-minimum salary floor for exempt lawyers — reset to $16.90 an hour on January 1, 2026. Index a California seat's fixed salary to the state minimum wage each January.
• Stale-range risk. California defines the pay scale as a good-faith estimate of the salary or hourly range you reasonably expect to pay on hire, and its penalties run $100 to $10,000 per violation; Virginia's penalties for violating its disclosure and salary-history rules run up to $1,000 for a first violation and $5,000 for subsequent ones.

This page is employer information, not legal advice. The wage figures come from BLS's OEWS May 2025 release and NALP's 2025 survey, and the disclosure, salary-history, overtime and clawback rules come from the statutes and regulations named; they change, and states adopt their own versions. Confirm your pay structure and offer terms with employment counsel and, for posting requirements, your state labor agency.