66.3% of legal job listings on LawFirmHires state a pay rate or range: 4,825 of 7,274 active listings on October 6, 2026.
It varies widely by state, from 93.2% in Washington to 23.2% in Louisiana among states with at least 40 listings.
14 states plus DC required a pay range in job postings on October 6, 2026.
Laws verified against statute text or state labor departments on September 24 and October 6, 2026.
In states whose law requires a pay range in the posting, 89.1% of legal listings state pay (3,307 of 3,710).
Everywhere else it is 42% (1,447 of 3,447).
Listings count toward the state where the job is located.
| State | Law | In effect | Covers | Listings stating pay |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Colorado | C.R.S. § 8-5-201 | January 1, 2021 | 1+ employee in Colorado | 85% of 147 |
| California | Cal. Lab. Code § 432.3 | January 1, 2023 | 15+ employees | 93.1% of 1,301 |
| Washington | RCW 49.58.110 | January 1, 2023 | 15+ employees | 93.2% of 148 |
| New York | N.Y. Labor Law § 194-b | September 17, 2023 | 4+ employees | 93% of 724 |
| Hawaii | Act 203 (SLH 2023) | January 1, 2024 | 50+ employees | 100% of 9 |
| District of Columbia | D.C. Code § 32-1453.01 | June 30, 2024 | 1+ employee in DC | 89.6% of 288 |
| Maryland | Md. Lab. & Empl. § 3-304.2 | October 1, 2024 | All employers | 88.9% of 90 |
| Illinois | 820 ILCS 112/10(b-25) | January 1, 2025 | 15+ employees | 83.3% of 323 |
| Minnesota | Minn. Stat. § 181.173 | January 1, 2025 | 30+ employees in Minnesota | 87.7% of 65 |
| New Jersey | N.J.S.A. 34:6B-23 | June 1, 2025 | 10+ employees | 87.1% of 171 |
| Vermont | 21 V.S.A. § 495p | July 1, 2025 | 5+ employees | 0% of 1 |
| Massachusetts | M.G.L. c. 149 § 105F | October 29, 2025 | 25+ employees in Massachusetts | 77.5% of 160 |
| Virginia | Va. Code § 40.1-28.7:12 | July 1, 2026 | All employers | 74.9% of 215 |
| Maine | 26 M.R.S. § 622-A | July 29, 2026 | 10+ employees | 90% of 10 |
| Connecticut | Conn. Gen. Stat. § 31-40z (P.A. 26-12) | October 1, 2026 | 1+ employee | 75.9% of 58 |
Some national firms post pay everywhere, and some employers in law states still omit it.
This compares listing rates; it is not a measure of legal compliance.
Share of listings stating pay, for roles with at least 50 active listings from 10 or more employers.
Share of listings stating pay, for states with at least 40 active listings from 10 or more employers.
All figures come from the 7,274 active job listings on LawFirmHires on October 6, 2026, posted by 1,784 employers.
We removed 196 exact duplicates (same employer, title, city, state and pay range) first.
Posted pay is the midpoint of the range an employer advertises, or its single figure.
Hourly and annual postings are analyzed separately and never converted into each other.
Values below $5 or above $500 an hour, or below $15,000 or above $1,000,000 a year, are treated as data errors and dropped.
Employer medianis our headline: we take each employer’s own median, then the median across employers, so a firm posting hundreds of openings counts once.
The plain listing median is shown alongside.
We suppress any figure built on fewer than 30 listings or 10 employers, and flag anything under 100 listings as a small sample.
Pay medians use only listings whose pay we can read as a number from a structured field; listings that give pay only in the description count toward the “states pay” shares but not toward medians.
A listing states pay when it carries a usable hourly or annual figure after the checks above, or when its description gives a dollar wage, salary or pay range.
Dollar figures tied to bonuses, stipends, relocation or other benefits do not count, and listings that describe pay only in words (“competitive”, “DOE”) count as not stating pay.
34.9% of listings carry pay in a structured field; the rest of the listings that state pay give it only in the description text.
These are advertised rates, not earnings.
They exclude bonuses and other incentive pay unless an employer folds them into the posted range, and listings on a job board are not a random sample of all legal jobs.
Figures are frozen for the Q4 2026 release and refreshed quarterly; earlier releases are not revised.
Corrected October 6, 2026: A listing now also counts as stating pay when its description gives a dollar wage, salary or pay range.
The first version of this release (October 6, 2026) counted structured pay fields only and reported that 34.9% of listings stated pay (94.2% for government attorney listings), an undercount, because many employers put the range only in the description text.
Pay medians were and remain based on structured pay fields only.
LawFirmHires, “Legal Pay Transparency: Q4 2026 Job Listing Data,” Q4 2026 data release, listings snapshot of October 6, 2026. https://www.lawfirmhires.com/research/data/legal-pay-transparency/
More first-party data: Paralegal Pay in Job Listings · Legal Assistant Pay in Job Listings · Associate Attorney Pay in Job Listings · Litigation Attorney Pay in Job Listings.
All research: LawFirmHires Research.
