Cozen O'Connor Salary 2026: Associate Scale, Bonus and Partner Pay

The 2026 Am Law 100 gross-revenue table, reprinted by the New York Law Journal on 16 April 2026, lists Cozen O'Connor 80th, from 77th, at $803,000,000, up 13.40 percent, on 846 lawyers and 199 equity partners. The revenue-per-lawyer table, reprinted on 15 April 2026, lists the firm 84th at $950,000, up 4.86 percent from the fiscal-2024 revenue per lawyer of $906,000, on that 846-lawyer base, with leverage of 3.26. Those are the fiscal-2025 rows that are public. The 2026 profits-per-equity-partner and profits-per-lawyer firm rows were not in the open reprints checked through 30 September 2026, so those dollars are omitted. The last open PEP cell is the 2025 Am Law 100 ranking, published 17 April 2025: 90th at $1,170,000, up 2.72 percent, on 197 equity partners, for fiscal 2024. The profits-per-lawyer ranking published 15 April 2025 listed the firm 77th at $295,000 on 782 lawyers. That $1,170,000 is a fiscal-2024 average. It is not a 2026 draw and not a named shareholder's W-2.

Bloomberg Law reported on 9 January 2023 that the firm does not pay out 100 percent of its profits to partners every year, and that leadership told partners anyone looking to make the most money they can is at the wrong firm. The same interview put fiscal-2021 gross revenue at $584 million, Am Law 77th that cycle, and expected about 8 to 10 percent of that year's revenue from ancillary businesses with higher margins than the law firm. The firm's 24 March 2025 recap of The American Lawyer coverage framed fiscal 2024 as expansion and practice-mix diversity plus acquiring ancillary businesses, not a PEP-maximizing year, with profit of $230.6 million, up about 3 percent. Two new ancillary businesses in 2024, a family-office service provider and a TPA focused on FMLA and ADA claims, sit in that recap as attribution, not as a fee split. The firm's 8 April 2026 recap of The American Lawyer said 2025 produced double-digit growth in both revenue and profits and did not print a PEP or net-income dollar. Law.com International, on 4 August 2026, reported that the firm has no debt and that its partners have no capital.

Title leverage is public even when pay is not. On 1 December 2025 the firm promoted six members to shareholder. On 17 March 2026 it promoted 36 attorneys to member, described as the largest promotion class to date. A general counsel reading those releases is looking at a two-tier partnership language — member versus shareholder — not at a lockstep equity machine. The Am Law top-50 PEP league, and the argument about whether PEP is pay, live on partner pay at the Am Law top 50. This page stops at this firm's published row.

Discarding the seat as a regional Am Law associate is a PEP heuristic, not a demand fact. The insurance-coverage page, accessed 11 September 2026, claims more than 160 dedicated coverage attorneys in 20 offices, acting for primary and excess insurers, reinsurers, third-party administrators, managing general agents, brokers, agents and independent adjusters. The subrogation page claims more than 100 attorneys for the largest U.S. and Canadian insurers and reinsurers plus Fortune 500 self-insureds, $940 million recovered from 2017 to 2020, and more than $2 billion recovered from 2020 to date. Construction claims more than 60 lawyers in 11 U.S. offices and a 2025 Law360 Practice Group of the Year on that page. Business claims 300 business attorneys in nearly 20 cities. Those are the desks a head of legal is buying.

Chambers USA 2026, content provided by the firm, lists 50 ranked departments. The profile's industry list — insurance, real estate and construction, health care and life sciences, retail, aviation, food and beverage, software, cryptocurrency, sports, hospitality, education, gaming, cannabis — is a buyer map, not a client roster. Named companies on that profile stay off this page. The general counsel who matches this table sits in those legal departments: a carrier, a builder, a Twin Cities headquarters, a South Florida growth company, a self-insured retailer.

On 2 February 2026 the firm added five litigators to Global Insurance from an Am Law 100 peer: one shareholder and one member in Dallas, one member in Philadelphia, two associates in Dallas. The release framed demand as underwriters and claims handlers needing counsel with industry allegiance amid natural disasters and artificial intelligence. On 16 March 2026 four commercial litigators from an Am Law 50 firm joined in West Palm Beach and Boca Raton and launched a Fraud & Recovery seat, citing corporate relocations, private equity, Latin American business, and increases in health-care, financial and insurance fraud plus ransomware. On 8 September 2026 a Miami member joined as outside general counsel to startups — the sixth new member in South Florida after the March litigation group. Client types named in the Florida litigation release include the largest U.S. property/casualty insurer, health insurers, financial institutions, self-insured retailers, managing general agents and representations-and-warranties underwriters.

The Minneapolis combination, effective 1 January 2026 and closed in the firm's 5 January 2026 announcement, adds more than 50 attorneys. The American Lawyer, on 3 November 2025, put the acquired platform at around $40 million in revenue. The close release puts Minneapolis at more than 70 lawyers, the Midwest team over 120, and real estate at nearly 100 lawyers firm-wide. The Minnesota Chamber of Commerce 2030 corporate-and-financial chapter, accessed 11 September 2026, states 18 Fortune 500 and 24 Fortune 1000 companies in 2026. A chief legal officer at a Twin Cities industrial told us they will sit a Minneapolis energy or real-estate lawyer from the combined platform on a secondment; they will not pay a New York lockstep first-year for that file.

Canada is a measured slice, not color. Law.com International on 4 August 2026, in a piece the firm reprinted, states that over three years the bench in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal moved from 38 lawyers to 53, six years into the expansion. The same article puts year-over-year Canadian revenue up 47 percent and billable hours up 16 percent, and counts about 28 partners, 2 counsel and 21 associates on the firm's site. Canadian operations are about 3 to 4 percent of firm-wide revenue, which the article puts at $803 million, a range the firm confirmed at about $24 million to $32 million. A U.S. associate is not automatically Canadian counsel: the National Committee on Accreditation is the nationwide process for a U.S. JD entering a common-law province, and the Law Society of Ontario licensing process typically runs 18 to 24 months. The Canadian summer is 12 weeks; the U.S. summer is 9.5 weeks, per the firm's summer FAQ accessed 11 September 2026. Those are different seats.

Cozen O'Connor Public Strategies, the wholly owned government-relations affiliate, sits next to the State Attorneys General practice. The affiliate's state-and-local lobbying page, accessed 11 September 2026, describes an Am Law 100-owned shop with a 50-state AG reach and participation in the Republican Governors Association, Democratic Governors Association, U.S. Conference of Mayors, National Conference of State Legislatures and the National Association of Attorneys General. Senate LDA filings are public. A head of government affairs matching a principal or managing director off that affiliate is not matching an associate first-year; the instrument is a lobbying hire, filed, not a lockstep memo.

Of 23 closed Philadelphia associate searches over three years, 14 were insurance-coverage, subrogation, construction or commercial-litigation seats. 9 of those 14 completed inside the 6-to-12-week window. 5 ran past 12 weeks because the first shortlist lacked a Florida bar or a coverage-opinion writing sample. The last public class-year number on the other side of the table is January 2024, and a 2026 lockstep match this firm has not announced is omitted. Counter-offer incidence on this associate line is 33 percent. Median offer-to-acceptance is 9 working days.

Sartori's quarterly survey since 2019, in the 2026 second-quarter wave of 19 Philadelphia in-house hiring managers, recorded 12 who opened the Cozen conversation by asking for a 2026 class-year grid that does not exist. We now open with the January 2024 first-year and the fiscal-2025 revenue row, and we say the fiscal-2025 PEP dollar is not public. Of 47 Philadelphia associates in the interview cohort who had declined a first conversation over an 18-month window, 22 said the opening email called the platform regional. The remaining 25 declined for hours, practice mix or a competing process.

Pennsylvania Board of Law Examiners Rule 204 requires five of the last seven years devoted a major portion of time to the practice of law for admission without the Pennsylvania exam, and the reciprocal list excludes Florida, California and Delaware. Corporate-counsel service counts as practice of law. A general counsel moving a New York or District of Columbia lawyer into a Center City in-house seat can use Rule 204; a Florida in-house seat cannot. The Law Society of Ontario licensing process, accessed 11 September 2026, still runs on barrister and solicitor examinations and an 18-to-24-month clock. Write the credential into the brief before you write the salary.

Three composite mandates, described by category only. A national property/casualty mutual hired an Associate General Counsel for coverage. The brief asked for extra-contractual writing samples and one U.S. license, not a 2026 lockstep first-year. We closed an Am Law 100 coverage associate, years 4 to 6, in 8 weeks, inside the window. A South Florida growth company hired commercial-litigation counsel into a fraud-and-recovery file after the March 2026 buildout next door had made the market visible. The first shortlist had no Florida bar. The file ran to 14 weeks, one of the 5 overruns, and closed only once an already-admitted member-level candidate was on the slate. A Twin Cities industrial hired construction counsel off the combined Minneapolis platform; the chief legal officer had already rejected a New York lockstep comparable. 10 weeks, writing sample in the first pack, no second cycle.

Summer geography is not a single Center City cohort. The firm's summer FAQ lists Philadelphia, New York, Washington, D.C., Pittsburgh, Miami, Minneapolis, Chicago, Los Angeles, Vancouver and Toronto. The firm no longer participates in on-campus interviewing. A company that wants a 2026 first-year off this platform is already too late for campus; the live channel is lateral, and the lateral page states the firm carefully avoids the boom-bust recruiting cycle. That is the supply shape. It is not a salary number.

For the general counsel writing the requisition: name the desk, the bar, and the last public first-year before you name a target cash number. If the file is coverage, the posted AGC Insurance band and the ACC Associate General Counsel median are the comparable, not a 2026 lockstep first-year. If the file is Florida fraud-and-recovery, the Florida exam is the constraint that decides the start date. If the file is Minneapolis energy or real estate, the combination effective 1 January 2026 is why the candidate exists. We will tell you when the 2026 class-year grid you want has not been published. That is the matching conversation, not a brochure.