How do you write a law firm job posting that gets applicants?

A job description is your internal working document: the duties, the reporting line, the supervision structure, how performance gets evaluated.

It lives past the hire — you will reuse it in onboarding, reviews and the next round of screening.

A job posting is the advertisement: a shorter document whose job is to earn the application.

The mistake to avoid is pasting the job description onto a board and calling it a posting.

A description written for internal use assumes context the reader does not have — your org chart, your matter-naming, your review cycle.

A posting written for a board has to stand alone, compete for attention beside every other listing, and answer the candidate's three questions quickly.

The split that works: the posting carries the searchable title, the pay range, the practice area and a short picture of the caseload, plus the application instruction.

The description carries the full duty list, the reporting and supervision structure, and the evaluation standard.

If the role is a paralegal hire, our paralegal job description template shows the description side in full — this page handles the advertisement side.

Writing the posting is one step in a longer process — defining the role, screening, offers, onboarding.

Our guide to hiring for your law firm covers the steps on either side of it.

Candidates find postings by searching for the title the profession uses: practice area plus role.

"Litigation paralegal," "family law associate," "legal secretary," "docketing clerk" — those are the strings candidates type.

A title written for your internal structure ("Paralegal II," "Team Lead LLP-3") or a creative one ("legal eagle," "billing ninja") simply does not match that search.

Keep the headline to the one title the hire would actually hold, and put everything else in the body.

A posting for a hybrid role is still posted under its primary title; the additional duties belong in the duty list where a candidate can weigh them, not in a compound headline that matches no search.

One caution on titles from the pay side: the Department of Labor is explicit that job titles do not determine exemption status — the specific duties and salary must meet the regulations (DOL Fact Sheet 17D).

A headline that reads "senior attorney" settles nothing about overtime classification, and neither does "office administrator."

Our exempt vs nonexempt law firm staff page covers the classification rules; make the title decision and the classification decision separately.

After the title, the details that make a candidate apply are the ones a vague posting hides: the practice area, the work this hire owns, the tools they will use, and the pay.

Name the practice area and the matters.

Say what the hire owns from day one — the intake calls, the draft motions, the ledger reconciliations, the e-filing.

Name the practice-management, docketing and document systems.

If the role carries a billable or utilization expectation, state your firm's own number rather than leaving a candidate to guess at it.

The pay range is the detail the law may require you to post.

Pay-scale posting rules are no longer a two-state curiosity — more than a dozen states plus DC now require pay in postings, and the statutes differ on employer size and coverage.

The statutes our research verified, from the statute text or the state agency, are:

• California — Labor Code 432.3: employers with 15 or more employees must include the pay scale in any job posting, and must give the pay scale to any third party that posts on their behalf.
• Washington — RCW 49.58.110: employers with 15 or more employees must disclose the wage scale or salary range (or fixed wage) and a general description of benefits in each posting; in effect since January 1, 2023.
• Illinois — 820 ILCS 112/10(b-25): employers with 15 or more employees must include pay scale and benefits in any specific job posting — a hyperlink is allowed — covering jobs performed at least partly in Illinois or reporting to an Illinois supervisor.
• Minnesota — Minn. Stat. 181.173: employers with 30 or more employees in Minnesota must list the starting salary range and a general description of benefits; ranges may not be open-ended.
• Massachusetts — G.L. c.149 s.105F, effective October 29, 2025: employers with 25 or more Massachusetts employees must disclose the pay range in job postings.
• New York State — Labor Law 194-b: businesses with four or more employees must list compensation ranges for advertised jobs, promotions and transfers.
• New York City — a good-faith pay range has been required in all job advertisements for NYC-performed work since November 1, 2022.
• Colorado — the Equal Pay for Equal Work Act requires employers to disclose compensation and benefits in all internal and public job postings and to notify employees of job opportunities; the state's page we read states no size threshold, and we did not confirm one.
• Connecticut — Public Act 26-12, effective October 1, 2026, requires disclosure of the wage or wage range and a general description of benefits in every internal or public job advertisement.
• Virginia — Va. Code 40.1-28.7:12 (2026 Acts cc. 996 and 1063) requires disclosure of the wage, salary or range in each public and internal posting; the employer-size threshold was not confirmed in our research.

Treat that list as the statutes we verified, not the whole map — other states and cities have their own posting rules we did not read, so confirm the current requirement where the job sits with your state labor agency before you post.

Note the third-party clause in the California statute: using a job board or a search firm does not move the pay-scale duty off your desk.

California's statute also defines the term the other statutes orbit: a pay scale is a good-faith estimate of the salary or hourly wage range the employer reasonably expects to pay on hire — and penalties there run $100 to $10,000 per violation.

Build the range from the number you would actually offer, not from a spread wide enough to cover every outcome; Minnesota bars open-ended ranges outright.

Even where no law requires a range, a posting without pay competes against postings that show one.

Caseload works the same way — "busy litigation practice" tells a candidate nothing, while "you will own this practice area's docket end to end" lets them self-select.

Specifics are what a candidate uses to decide the posting is real.

Two bodies of rules sit over posting wording: the employment-discrimination rules the EEOC administers, and the professional-conduct rules adopted in your state.

Both punish the same drafting habit — describing the person you imagine instead of the work you need done.

Discrimination risk.

The EEOC states that it is illegal to publish a job advertisement that shows a preference for, or discourages applicants because of, race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age (40 or older), disability or genetic information — and the agency's own example is an ad seeking "recent college graduates," which may discourage people over 40.

The EEOC also publishes separate guidance on pre-employment inquiries about race, height and weight, financial information, unemployed status, religious affiliation, citizenship, and marital status or number of children.

The nuance worth keeping straight: federal law does not clearly forbid every pre-employment question that touches race, sex, national origin, religion or age, but such questions can be used as evidence of intent to discriminate unless justified by a business purpose — so treat them as risky rather than routine unless a specific statute governs them.

The EEOC's own framing points to the safe harbor: limit pre-employment questions to what is essential to decide whether a person is qualified.

In a posting that means describing the work, the tools and the qualifications the job requires — not the energy, stage of life or background of the person you picture doing it.

UPL and bar status.

The ABA's Model Rule 5.5(b)(2) says a lawyer not admitted in a jurisdiction must not "hold out to the public or otherwise represent that the lawyer is admitted to practice law in this jurisdiction" — and title and bio wording in a posting is exactly where a firm can end up holding an out-of-state hire or an unadmitted graduate out as local counsel.

Model Rule 5.5(a) adds the employer's exposure: a lawyer must not practice law in violation of a jurisdiction's regulation of the profession, or assist another in doing so — the "assist" clause is the employer's exposure when a posting or title sets a nonlawyer or an unadmitted hire up to appear as practicing law.

The Model Rules are a model; your state's adopted version governs, so confirm title and bar-status wording with your state bar's ethics counsel.

Our research did not confirm guidance on which titles are appropriate for unadmitted graduates — that is a check-with-the-bar item, not something to improvise in a headline.

Salary history is its own wording trap.

A line asking applicants to "include compensation history" is unlawful to request in some of the same states that require pay ranges: California's Labor Code 432.3 bars seeking an applicant's salary history, though an employer may ask what a candidate expects to earn and may consider history the candidate volunteers unprompted.

Connecticut bars asking a prospective employee's wage and salary history unless the applicant volunteers it.

Virginia's 2026 posting law bans seeking salary history alongside its posting requirement.

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

The skeleton below carries everything this page has covered: a searchable title, a pay line, concrete work, precise credential wording and one application instruction.

Fill the brackets, delete what does not apply, and keep the order — it is the order a candidate reads in.

[Title candidates search for] — [City, State] ([On-site / Hybrid / Remote])

[Firm name] is a [practice area] firm in [city or region]. We are hiring a
[role] to [one sentence: the work this hire will own].

What you will do
- [Own: the matters, filings or clients this hire runs end to end]
- [Support: the drafting, filing and client communication behind them]
- [Tools: your practice-management, docketing and e-filing systems]

What we are looking for
- [Attorney roles: [State] bar admission in good standing]
- [Staff roles: experience, software and certifications — mark each
  required or preferred]

Pay and benefits
- [Pay range — see the list above for the states that require one]
- [Benefits: health coverage, retirement plan, training or CLE budget,
  paid time off]

Hours and location
- [On-site, hybrid or remote, and the schedule]
- [Any billable or utilization expectation — stated as the firm's own
  number, or omitted]

How to apply
- [What to send, to whom, and any deadline]

Two wording checks before it goes live.

For attorney roles, the bar line names the state and says "in good standing" — precise enough that an out-of-state or unadmitted reader is not misled about what the title carries.

For staff roles, mark each credential required or preferred rather than stacking them all as gates.

Once the draft is done, the next decision is where to post it — the channels differ by role and practice area, and the posting is only as good as the audience it reaches.

Employer information, not legal advice. The rules described here — pay-posting statutes, EEOC guidance, Model Rule 5.5 as adopted in your state — change and vary by jurisdiction; confirm the current requirements with your state labor agency, employment counsel or your state bar's ethics counsel before you post.