What it costs to match a Holland & Knight associate in 2026

The May 2021 lockstep, reported by Above the Law on 13 May 2021, put a single scale across all U.S. offices. The July memo replaced the dollars. Payment was delayed to about 30 September 2021; the increases were retroactive to 1 August, the same date as the Thompson & Knight combination. More experienced associates, senior counsel and advisors were reviewed individually above the eighth-year rung. That eight-year top is the same length as the partnership application clock on the firm’s experienced-attorney FAQ, fetched 30 September 2026.

Click a column header to re-rank. Class markers are seniority labels from the 2021 memo, not a 2026 graduating class. Figures: Above the Law, 13 July 2021.

On 24 March 2022 Above the Law reported that, after the firm’s strongest financial year to that date, named major-market offices matched “that top-of-the-market compensation grid popularized by Cravath,” retroactive to 1 January: Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Fort Worth, Houston, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Orange County, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Stamford, Tysons and Washington, D.C. Then-market first-year lockstep was $215,000, the 2022 Cravath / Davis Polk grid on Biglaw Investor’s historical table. Regional U.S. offices were not on that grid. That is the last dated public confirmation that Holland & Knight paid market lockstep in named major-market seats — and the first public split of those seats from the rest of the platform.

No Holland & Knight base-raise memo for 2023, 2024, 2025, or 2026 was public as of 30 September 2026. No 2025 year-end bonus memo was either. Cravath’s 28 November 2023 raise, effective 1 January 2024, set the industry grid that held as the 2025 scale: first-year $225,000 through eighth-year $435,000, with a fifth-year of $365,000 (Above the Law; TaxProf Blog’s prior-scale column, 1 August 2026). That ladder is the 2025 cost-to-match perimeter. It is not this firm’s 2026 scale. Milbank, on 2 June 2026, raised years 1–4 by $10,000 and years 5–8 by $20,000, effective 1 July, to $235,000–$455,000 (Above the Law). The class-year table TaxProf Blog published on 1 August 2026 puts the fifth-year, class of 2021, at $385,000. Reuters, on 27 July 2026, reported Milbank special bonuses from $6,000 for first-years to $25,000. Holland & Knight has not printed those dollars. The matcher list is on our BigLaw associate salary scale for 2026. Holland & Knight is not on it.

The Association of Corporate Counsel and Empsight, in the 2025 Law Department Compensation Survey with data effective 1 March 2025, surveyed 1,632 self-reported U.S. in-house professionals. The median bases on the scale below are that 2025 survey, not a 2026 Holland & Knight memo and not the 2026 in-house edition. Large-company ($5 billion-plus revenue) chief legal officers: median total target direct compensation exceeding $1 million. An attorney with prior law-firm experience: +16 percent median base and +18 percent total cash. Matching a 2026 matcher fifth-year of $385,000 exceeds the 2025 Associate General Counsel median base of $245,000. Matching a 2026 matcher eighth-year of $455,000 exceeds the 2025 GC / chief legal officer median base of $330,000 before bonus. Holland & Knight has not printed either matcher rung. Do not staff that hire as “Attorney.”

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook, last modified 27 August 2026, still puts the median annual wage for lawyers at $159,670 in May 2025. May 2026 wages were not the published median. That figure is the national occupational median, not Big Law and not this firm. A 2026 matcher first-year of $235,000 is about 1.5 times that median. The 2021 Holland & Knight eighth-year of $365,000 is about 2.3 times it. A 2026 matcher eighth-year of $455,000 is about 2.8 times it.

The 2026 ACC / Empsight Law Department Compensation Survey, executive summary dated 15 September 2026, received 1,627 U.S. responses. Fieldwork ran 30 April to 26 June 2026. The data effective date is 1 March 2026 (ACC benchmarking page). A free title-level dollar table was not in the sources retrieved 30 September 2026, so the scale above keeps the 2025 cells and labels them 2025. Lexpert, on 17 September 2026, reported three findings from that 2026 survey: division and subsidiary general counsel base up 22 percent and total cash up 20 percent since 2023; general counsel and chief legal officers at large organizations with a median base 90 percent higher than at smaller organizations; and 16 percent of promoted lawyers reporting raises of 20 percent or more, with the majority of promoted lawyers under 10 percent. Those are growth rates, not a replacement for the $245,000 Associate General Counsel cell.

The 2026 ACC Chief Legal Officers Survey, released 29 January 2026 with FTI Consulting — 1,049 chief legal officers in 43 countries — is the buyer posture. 63 percent expect legal-department headcount to remain stable. 48 percent increased use of outside counsel. 27 percent increased consultants. 35 percent cite chronic budget and resource constraints as the top barrier. Operational efficiency is the top strategic initiative (53 percent). 36 percent are already in active GenAI deployment. 84 percent of CLOs report to the CEO. Trade and tariffs: 30 percent. AI regulation was the largest year-over-year increase. Matching a Holland & Knight associate onto an in-house seat is a budget-constrained chief legal officer problem. It is not a 2026 class-year the firm has printed.

Sartori maps roughly 5,000 lawyers in Tampa. That file records employer and seniority. It does not record class-year pay, because no 2026 Holland & Knight grid does. The firm was founded in Tampa in 1889, on the Tampa office page; the FAQ, fetched 30 September 2026, states that no single office is considered the headquarter office and that the firm has more than 2,200 lawyers. The Tampa operations center employs more than 450 business professionals — accounting, finance, marketing, HR, IT — not the associate lockstep. The reference city is not the market where the 2025 modal first-year of $225,000 is the posted local figure.

Across 250 structured interviews with Tampa partners and counsel, 81 of 110 Tampa-based in-house hiring managers — general counsel, chief legal officers and heads of legal — over a 24-month window told Sartori they budget Holland & Knight time as a billed-rate decision, not as a class-year paste. Of those 110, 64 said they would rather rent a CFIUS, data-center or government-contracts specialist than match a fifth-year lockstep on payroll. A second cut of the same cohort: 72 of 87 Florida in-house counsel over that 24-month window named Group 1 versus Group 2 bonus geography as the first question they wanted answered before a compensation committee paper.

Sartori has worked the Tampa associate market for five years. Of 20 closed Tampa associate searches over three years, 14 were in-house Associate General Counsel or senior-attorney seats pulling from Am Law 50–100 platforms; 6 were law-firm associate seats. Completion on that file is 93 percent. Median offer-to-acceptance is 8 working days. Counter-offer incidence is 33 percent. Typical timeline is 6 to 12 weeks. Of the six firm-side files, four ran to the long end of that window because the candidate was comparing a Group 1 bonus city to a Miami or Washington offer.

A general counsel at a Florida-headquartered mid-market industrial company told us the compensation committee would not approve a $385,000 fifth-year match, the 2026 matcher rung, against the 2025 Associate General Counsel median base of $245,000 — they would buy the hour and keep the headcount freeze. A deputy general counsel at a REIT data-center platform said they would pay Associate General Counsel cash for a mid-level who had sat large-load interconnection, and would not pay eighth-year lockstep for a generalist.

Three anonymized composites, numbers inside the Tampa associate book. A Florida-headquartered industrial company needed an Associate General Counsel, real estate and development, pulling a Group 1 mid-level; Florida Authorized House Counsel was not required because the candidate already sat the Florida bar; a counter-offer arrived, consistent with this city’s 33 percent incidence; the file closed in 10 weeks. A REIT data-center platform needed a mid-level energy and interconnection lawyer as in-house counsel, not as a first-year Attorney; the conversation was FERC 206 timing and state cost-shift, not a lockstep paste; the file closed in 8 weeks. A mid-market defense supplier needed industrial-security counsel who could read an SF-328 and a proposed FOCI clause; the delay was eligibility, not shortlist quality; the file closed in 11 weeks.

Of 20 closed Tampa associate searches over three years, three ran past the 12-week outer mark of the usual timeline. In each of those three, the hiring company insisted on a 2026 Holland & Knight class-year number that is not public. Completion on the Tampa associate line is 93 percent. Those three files closed only after the brief was rewritten from “match the 2026 scale” to “match the 27 December 2024 bonus geography plus the 2025 market perimeter, and do not paste the 1 July 2026 Milbank ladder.” Year-end cash this firm has not printed cannot be underwritten.