Energy attorney salary in 2026: law firm versus in-house.

Bloomberg Law reported on 2 June 2026 that Milbank raised associate bases by $10,000 to $20,000 depending on seniority, to a scale of $235,000 through $455,000, effective 1 July 2026, and that McDermott Will & Schulte matched the same day. Above the Law published the same announcement the same date. David Lat, writing in Original Jurisdiction on 18 June 2026, said the scale had been adopted by more than a dozen firms, with more likely to follow. That is the panel-side wage a general counsel pays when the energy file sits at a scale firm. It is not an energy-practice premium. A first-year in FERC interconnection and a first-year in credit funds draw the same base.

The raise sits on a documented pre-raise ladder. Cravath’s 18 November 2025 compensation memorandum, published by Above the Law, set 2026 bases effective 1 January 2026 at $225,000 / $235,000 / $260,000 / $310,000 / $365,000 / $390,000 / $420,000 — the last full lockstep before Milbank moved. Year-end bonuses in that memo ran $15,000 for the class of 2025, $20,000 for 2024, $30,000 for 2023, $57,500 for 2022, $75,000 for 2021, $90,000 for 2020, $105,000 for 2019 and $115,000 for 2018, with special bonuses of $6,000 / $6,000 / $10,000 / $15,000 / $20,000 / $25,000 / $25,000 / $25,000 on top and a combined top of $140,000. No billable-hour gate. New York and Washington, DC paid on 12 December 2025. The June 2026 base raise did not reset that bonus table; 2026 year-end bonuses had not been announced as of the research date for this page.

NALP’s 2025 U.S. Associate Salary Survey, released 28 May 2025 from 437 law-office respondents, still put the national first-year median at $200,000 as of 1 January 2025, flat versus January 2023. Firms of 701 or more lawyers sat at a $215,000 median; firms of 250 or fewer at $150,000. $225,000 was the modal figure — 32 percent of all offices, 45 percent of 701-plus offices — but not the median. New York City, Washington, DC and Houston were already at a $225,000 city median, with Austin, Boston and San Francisco on the same city median. The July 2026 raise is a further step above a floor that had not yet become the national large-firm median. Reuters reported the same NALP medians on 28 May 2025.

In-house, the only industry-coded energy-employer series is older and narrower. The Bureau of Labor Statistics May 2023 OEWS table for NAICS 221 Utilities, SOC 23-1011 Lawyers, counted about 1,280 lawyers on utilities-establishment payrolls at an annual mean of $216,520 (median hourly $104.24). The May 2022 table counted 1,080 lawyers at a mean of $199,530. That stock excludes law-firm energy practices, oil-and-gas extraction, and holding-company legal departments coded outside NAICS 221. May 2024 and May 2025 NAICS 221 lawyer rows were not retrieved; the 2023 mean is not carried forward as if it were current.

Nationally, BLS Table 1 for May 2025 put 754,500 lawyers at a mean annual wage of $185,840. That is all practices, all covered employers, wages only. It is the floor under both columns, not an energy figure. An energy associate reading this table for a move in-house is not walking from $455,000 into $216,520 as a like-for-like cut: the lockstep figure is a class-year base plus bonus at a scale firm, the utilities figure is a 2023 establishment mean across every lawyer on a utilities payroll, and the GS-15 cap is a statutory payable maximum. The comparison a candidate can actually make is lockstep all-in versus a specific offer, not lockstep versus a NAICS mean.

Sources: Bloomberg Law and Above the Law (2 June 2026); NALP (28 May 2025); BLS OEWS May 2023 NAICS 221 and May 2025 national Table 1; OPM Salary Table 2026-DCB; American Electric Power DEF 14A (18 March 2026); NextEra Energy DEF 14A (1 April 2026). See the source list.

FERC staff’s State of the Markets 2025, dated March 2026, recorded an active generator interconnection queue of 2,130 GW at year-end 2025, down from a 2023 peak, with more than 160 GW withdrawing in 2025. Solar, stand-alone storage and hybrid storage were 74 percent of remaining queue capacity; natural gas was 55 percent of new 2025 queue entries. The same report counted 69 Order No. 2023 interconnection-compliance orders in calendar 2025, including final orders for 35 providers. Wholesale electricity prices were up 26 percent year over year; US electricity demand was up 100 TWh. Henry Hub averaged $3.54 per MMBtu, stated as a 67 percent year-over-year increase. That is the physical tape under the FERC desk, not a headcount.

Order No. 2023, issued 28 July 2023 and effective 6 November 2023, replaced serial first-come, first-served studies with a first-ready, first-served cluster study, higher deposits, and site control of 90 percent at request and 100 percent at the facilities-study agreement. FERC’s explainer cites more than 10,000 active interconnection requests and more than 2,000 GW as of year-end 2022, and notes that 68 percent of 2,179 studies completed in 2022 were late. Order No. 2023-A, 21 March 2024, reset the compliance clock; the explainer was last updated 30 January 2025. 2024 through 2026 is implementation and deviation litigation, not a closed rule. A mid-level to senior FERC interconnection lawyer is still the hire. A first-year class is not.

Order No. 1920’s compliance calendar, published by FERC on 16 June 2025, puts NYISO’s first filing on 29 June 2026. Other regions have their own dates; those calendars belong to those markets. For a New York general counsel the live date is NYISO. DOE’s 23 October 2025 section 403 letter directed FERC to consider an ANOPR on timely interconnection of large loads generally above 20 MW. On 16 April 2026 the Commission said it would act on docket RM26-4-000 by June 2026; staff had reviewed more than 3,500 pages of comments. The release says the Commission will take action. It does not say which instrument. Between the ANOPR and that statement FERC issued the December 2025 PJM co-location order and approved SPP’s High Impact Large Load initiative in January 2026.

PJM’s 23 February 2026 compliance filing in ER26-1479-000 cites 193 FERC ¶ 61,217 (18 December 2025), the co-location order that found PJM’s tariff unjust and unreasonable as to co-located load and directed three new transmission services. That is mid-to-senior PJM and FERC tariff work through 2026, for generators and large-load customers in the thirteen-state footprint plus the District of Columbia.

Public Law 119-21, enacted 4 July 2025, terminates the clean-electricity production and investment credits for wind and solar applicable facilities placed in service after 31 December 2027, and applies those termination amendments to facilities the construction of which begins after 4 July 2026. Storage placed in service at an applicable facility is excepted from that wind-and-solar termination paragraph. Transferability and direct pay were largely retained. The near-term pull is tax-equity and begin-construction opinions through mid-2026; the later pull, if projects miss both gates, is a reduction in new wind and solar development counsel. That is a cyclical driver, not a reason to staff a first-year energy associate class.

The September 2025 EEI chart put 2024 actual capex at $178.2 billion and 2025 projected at $207.9 billion; that is the vintage behind the functional split above. EEI’s May 2026 update, reported in Electric Perspectives, put 2025 actual capex at $204.1 billion and 2026 projected at $238.8 billion, up 17 percent, with $1.4 trillion for 2026 through 2030. The same May vintage cites a running snapshot of $900 billion of data-center and large-customer investments supported by members, representing more than 55 GW of connected load. Those two vintages are not averaged here. Combined with FERC staff’s load figures, they are the budget that keeps in-house utility legal departments and FERC panels employed even if tax-credit work slows.

NextEra Energy and Dominion Energy announced an all-stock combination on 18 May 2026: Dominion shareholders receive 0.8138 NextEra shares plus a $360 million one-time cash payment at close; pro forma ownership 74.5 percent / 25.5 percent; about 10 million utility customer accounts; 110 GW of generation; combined rate base $138 billion. Approvals named: HSR, FERC FPA §203 (docket EC26-131 filed 15 July 2026), NRC, Virginia State Corporation Commission, North Carolina Utilities Commission, and the Public Service Commission of South Carolina. Houlihan Lokey’s Q2 2026 update, as of 30 June 2026, assigned a ~$67 billion total transaction value. The companies named Kirkland & Ellis for NextEra and McGuire Woods for Dominion. That is senior FERC M&A, nuclear, and state-commission work for 18 to 24 months, not a volume hire of first-years.

The New York associate line carries a 37 percent counter-offer incidence and a median of 11 working days from offer to signature. Energy-regulatory files inside that book behave like the rest of the line on the clock and unlike the rest of the line on the first shortlist. When the requisition says energy attorney and the general counsel means FERC interconnection, the first list is a restart. When the requisition names the docket, the list is a list. On a FERC or utility in-house brief we test, in order: which RTO the lawyer has actually appeared in; whether the file was interconnection, MBR, enforcement, or FPA 203; whether the candidate has drafted an independent-entity variation or only commented on one; and whether a counter-offer from a scale firm is likely, given the 37 percent line rate. A general counsel who has not answered those four questions is still buying a slogan.

Two anonymized composites from that book, described by category only. A NYSE-listed multi-state investor-owned utility opened a Federal Regulatory Affairs counsel seat after an Order 2023 compliance wave landed on the operating companies. The first shortlist, assembled against an “energy attorney” brief, came back as oil-and-gas transactional lawyers. The search was restated against FERC interconnection and MBR. Time-to-fill landed at 11 weeks, the long end of the 6-to-12-week band. The offer drew a firm-side counter; signature came in 11 working days. The company kept the FERC boutique on a narrowed panel for cluster-study appeals while the new hire ramped.

An independent power producer opened an in-house FERC counsel seat to cut a standing boutique retainer. The candidate was a mid-level associate at an Am Law energy-regulatory group. The company matched the then-current lockstep base rather than invent an in-house grid. The firm countered. The candidate accepted in 11 working days. The general counsel’s comparison was not lockstep versus a BLS mean. It was lockstep versus another year of $1,000-band panel hours on a standing docket.

Credential gate, for private practitioners appearing at FERC, is ordinary: JD plus any US bar. Energy Bar Association membership is a map of the three buyer classes, not a license. A company that needs a cleared lawyer is on a different page. A company that needs an oil-and-gas regulatory lawyer is on a different page. A company that needs to know whether the energy-transition desk is still hiring is on the 2026 energy-transition hiring map. This page prices the seat. It does not staff the slogan.

For the full class-year lockstep, including the bonus ladder Cravath set on 18 November 2025 — year-end from $15,000 for the class of 2025 to $115,000 for the class of 2018, special bonuses on top, combined top $140,000, no billable-hour gate — see the 2026 BigLaw associate salary scale. For the in-house hire itself, the service is in-house and general counsel recruiting. A general counsel who wants the desk named before the search opens should start with the brief, not the salary line.