Salary benchmarks · King & Spalding
King & Spalding Salary 2026: The Atlanta Commodity Price Is Wrong
The last public U.S. first-year at this firm is $225,000, effective 1 January 2024 and still posted for Fall 2027. The Atlanta metro median for lawyers is not that number. This page is for the associate who earns the figure and the general counsel who has to match it.
Four 2026 price points. Only one of them is the Atlanta metro.
A general counsel matching King & Spalding salary is matching a national lockstep, not the Atlanta metro median. Sartori maps about 12,000 lawyers in Atlanta. The 2026 firm-level table — associate cash, bonus, and partner rank — is what the commodity price gets wrong.
NALP’s 2025 U.S. Associate Salary Survey, as of 1 January 2025, found that 33.3 percent of nine Atlanta offices reporting paid a $225,000 first-year. Atlanta is not on the list of cities where at least half of offices paid that figure. That cell is the commodity. It is not this firm’s table.
Pick the price that matches the brief. The Atlanta cell is a survey share. The lockstep is a 2024 firm table still posted in 2026. The $235,000 market is someone else’s memo. The last public scale sits in section 02.
- 23rd
- 2026 Am Law 100 rank by revenueAtlanta-headquartered; 21st on the 2025 print
- Firm announcement citing The American Lawyer, 14 April 2026
- 12th
- 2026 Am Law 100 rank by profits per equity partner14th on the 2025 print; 13th on 2026 Power Rankings
- Firm announcement, 14 April 2026
- ~$2.7bn
- 2025 firmwide revenue, record yearLaw360, 5 March 2026; 2024 gross revenue $2,373,034,000
- Law360, 5 March 2026; Above the Law, 19 December 2025
- >$7m
- 2025 profits per equity partnerLegal Cheek: over $7 million, a 22 percent uplift; an average, not a draw
- Legal Cheek firm profile; Legal Business, 5 March 2026
The last public King & Spalding salary table is a 2024 lockstep
The U.S. number a general counsel can actually print is a 1 January 2024 class-year table. The 2026 confirmation is a campus posting, not a new memo.
Atlanta survey cellA market grid this firm has not printed
- Commodity Atlanta A metro wage and a NALP office share. Useful for a local hire. The wrong instrument for this letterhead.
- Last public lockstep Class-year base the firm put in its HR system on 4 January 2024, applied in every U.S. market it staffs, still posted for Fall 2027 first-years.
- Unmatched 2026 market The Milbank grid other firms confirmed. This page will not write King & Spalding onto that list.
Above the Law, on 3 January 2024, published the class-year scale King & Spalding put in its HR system the next day: class of 2023 at $225,000, then $235,000, $260,000, $310,000, $365,000, $390,000, and $420,000 for the class of 2017 and earlier. The same item records a 1,950-hour minimum-hours target and additional money for every 100 hours over that target. Those dollars are U.S. associate base, not total compensation.
The Daily Report, on 11 January 2024, recorded a King & Spalding spokesperson confirming the first-year at $225,000 (a $10,000 step from 2023) through at least $420,000 for seven-plus years (a $20,000 step), and that the scale “applies to all markets the firm operates in.” No other Atlanta-based Am Law 200 firm had then confirmed the same scale. The Atlanta commodity story was already a mismatch in January 2024. It is still a mismatch in 2026.
The Atlanta commodity price is not the King & Spalding table.
The 2026 confirmation is not a new lockstep memo. It is a campus posting. The employer’s “Opportunities for Current U.S. Law Students” page, accessed September 2026, lists two Fall 2027 New Associate openings — Finance & Restructuring in Atlanta, Dallas, Miami or New York, and Project Finance in New York — and both state: “The anticipated full-time annualized salary is $225,000.” Summer seats for the classes of 2027 and 2028 were already filled. That is a 2026 public posting of first-year cash, and it is not the June 2026 $235,000 market.
| Class year on the 2024 table | Seniority label | Base salary |
|---|---|---|
| Class of 2023 | 1st year on the 2024 table | $225,000 |
| Class of 2022 | 2nd year | $235,000 |
| Class of 2021 | 3rd year | $260,000 |
| Class of 2020 | 4th year | $310,000 |
| Class of 2019 | 5th year | $365,000 |
| Class of 2018 | 6th year | $390,000 |
| Class of 2017+ | 7th year and senior | $420,000 |
Source: Above the Law, 3 January 2024. A Daily Report spokesperson on 11 January 2024 said the scale applies in all markets the firm operates in, including Atlanta. This is not a 2026 class-year reset.
The Atlanta commodity price is not the King & Spalding table.
The 2025 bonus is public. The metro median is the wrong comparable.
A general counsel who copies the Atlanta lawyer median onto a King & Spalding-adjacent requisition has not named this firm's number. The bonus grid and the hours gate are what sit on top of the 2024 base.
Above the Law’s 2025 bonus tracker records King & Spalding matching on 19 December 2025: class of 2025 $15,000 year-end, prorated, and a $6,000 special, also prorated; class of 2018 and senior $115,000 year-end and a $25,000 special. Hours and payout date were undisclosed on that tracker. Alston & Bird posted the same dollar scale the same day with a 2,000-hour threshold. Year-end plus special at the senior end is $140,000 if both amounts pay; that sum is the two public endpoints added, not a third firm memo.
Bloomberg Law, on 20 August 2025, independently reported that associates are expected to contribute a minimum of 2,400 total productive hours, “which generally includes at least 2,000 billable hours,” with the remainder in non-billable practice, business development, professional development, recruiting and firm initiatives. Above the Law’s 18 August 2025 item on the same policy states the firm did not change the 1,950 billable-hour bonus-eligibility requirement. Do not treat 2,400 as the bonus gate. It is a utilization tool. The bonus gate is 1,950.
| Class | Year-end bonus | Special bonus | Bonus hours | Payout on tracker |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Class of 2025 | $15,000 (prorated) | $6,000 (prorated) | 1,950 billable (firm policy) | Undisclosed on the tracker |
| Class of 2018 and senior | $115,000 | $25,000 | 1,950 billable (firm policy) | Undisclosed on the tracker |
Sources: Above the Law bonus tracker, 19 December 2025; Bloomberg Law, 20 August 2025, for the 1,950 billable bonus gate. The 2,400 productive-hours policy is a separate instrument.
Atlanta 10th percentile
SOC 23-1011, Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Roswell, May 2025 wages via O*NET: 10th percentile $58,750.
O*NET / BLS OEWS 2025 ↗NALP’s June 2025 Bulletin and 28 May 2025 press release cover 437 offices, 87 percent of them at firms of more than 250 lawyers. Overall median first-year base as of 1 January 2025 was $200,000; firms of 701 or more lawyers, $215,000; firms of 250 or fewer, $150,000. The $225,000 figure was the modal cell: 32.0 percent of all offices and 44.7 percent of 701-plus offices. Atlanta accounted for 2.6 percent of all $225,000 salaries in the survey. Cities where at least half of offices paid $225,000 included Austin, Boston, Charlotte, Dallas, Houston, New York City, San Francisco and the Washington, D.C. area. Atlanta is not on that list. South and Midwest offices outside the 19-city set posted a median first-year of $160,000.
Profits per equity partner is a ratio. London is a different paycheck.
The partner who earns the 2026 figure does not take home the Am Law rank. The London newly qualified solicitor is not on the U.S. lockstep at all.
King & Spalding’s own 14 April 2026 announcement, citing The American Lawyer, puts the firm 23rd by revenue and 12th by profitability on the 2026 Am Law 100, and 13th on Am Law’s Power Rankings. The prior-year firm announcement, 15 April 2025, had the 2025 print at 21st by revenue and 14th by profitability. Rank moved. The associate first-year posting did not.
Law360, on 5 March 2026, reported a record year of almost $2.7 billion in firmwide revenue. Legal Business, the same day, put London revenue at $148.2 million, up 48 percent, and PEP over $7 million. Legal Cheek’s firm profile repeats London at $148.16 million, global revenues exceeding $2.6 billion, and a 22 percent PEP uplift to over $7 million. Above the Law, on 19 December 2025, cited 2024 Am Law gross revenue of $2,373,034,000. Bloomberg Law, on 20 August 2025, had already put 2024 gross revenue at more than $2.3 billion and PEP at more than $5.9 million. Those are the dated bands this page will stand behind. A March 2026 American Lawyer dollar table that did not yield a full-text read is omitted rather than rounded.
$7 million is a ratio. $225,000 is a paycheck. Do not swap them.
ILRG’s 2025 ranking update counts 1,331 attorneys and 522 partners, a 2.5-to-1 attorney/partner ratio, rank #26 among America’s 350 largest, up 1.2 percent from 1,315 in 2024. The firm’s about page, accessed 2026, describes more than 1,300 lawyers, 26 offices, more than 125 practice capabilities, and clients including half of the Fortune Global 100. Those are two instruments: a ranking census and a firm description. Neither is a partner draw.
Legal Cheek, on 29 September 2025, listed King & Spalding London NQ at £175,000 in a table of more than 100 firms. Average NQ across that Firms Most List was £118,756, nearly 5 percent up on the prior year, with 18 U.S. outfits in London then above £170,000. The same publication’s firm profile lists first-year trainee £62,000, second-year trainee £67,000, PGDL and SQE grants of £17,000 each, an annual target of 1,800 hours, 25 days’ leave, four training contracts, and latest trainee retention of 100 percent. London hours are not the U.S. 1,950. London cash is not the U.S. first-year. A general counsel matching a London NQ is matching £175,000, not $225,000.
The general counsel is not a second law firm.
The people who earn the 2026 figure sit on the firm lockstep. The people who pay it are the in-house buyers of that work — or the in-house teams trying to hire the same lawyers off it.
Keep the work at the firmA non-lockstep product on the same letterhead
- Panel instruction The chief legal officer funds the lockstep as outside counsel. The figure is a rate-card problem, not a requisition.
- AGC-and-up hire The usual large-company buy of a mid-to-senior associate. ACC median total cash at associate general counsel is the comparable, not an Attorney band.
- Staff-attorney product Diligence and closing support the firm itself posts below first-year lockstep. A different seat. A different number.
Of 96 general counsel, chief legal officers and heads of legal at life-sciences, energy, financial-services, automotive and technology companies inside Sartori’s Atlanta interview cohort, over a 24-month window, 61 said they still price a King & Spalding-adjacent associate as an Atlanta regional hire. That cut sits inside the same cohort, not a second count. The 61 are the buyers the opening angle is about. The other 35 already treat the lockstep as national. A head of legal who is actually buying the work, rather than the person, is not in that 61. They are matching a rate card, and the lockstep is someone else’s problem.
A general counsel who cannot cash-match buys the work.
The Association of Corporate Counsel and Empsight International’s 2025 Law Department Compensation Survey, data effective 1 March 2025, covers 1,632 self-reported U.S. in-house respondents and was released 16 September 2025. Median total cash: Attorney $160,000 (base $148,000); Senior Attorney $228,000; Associate General Counsel $294,000; Deputy General Counsel $368,000; GC/CLO $410,000 (90th $764,000). Attorney total cash does not match a $225,000 first-year. Senior Attorney cash approximately matches the first-year and sits well below a fourth-year $310,000 base. The company that pays this figure is buying AGC-and-up at a large corporate, or keeping the work at the firm.
Other ACC facts from the same 2025 summary, used here as national self-reported cash rather than as Atlanta or King & Spalding-alumni pay: 77 percent of respondents had law-firm experience before in-house; 16 percent went law-school-to-in-house. Attorneys with firm experience posted 16 percent higher median base and 18 percent higher total cash than those without. CLOs at companies of $5 billion-plus revenue posted 44 percent higher base and 173 percent higher total target than CLOs at companies under $1 billion. AGC median base was 36 percent higher at large companies, with a 75 percent total-compensation gap. 28 percent had changed jobs in the prior two years; 17 percent planned to move in the coming year. Non-promoted merit increase: median 3.0 percent, average 3.5 percent.
The Houston healthcare staff-attorney posting on the September 2026 experienced-lawyer board quotes $165,000 to $200,000, contingent on experience, equity, market and location. That band sits below the first-year lockstep. It is a non-partner-track product a general counsel can buy for diligence and False Claims Act support without matching associate scale. Do not conflate it with the $225,000 new-associate posting.
Every live experienced-lawyer row on that board is a law-firm practice seat. The buyers named on those postings, anonymized to type: Fortune-scale product manufacturers; for-profit and non-profit healthcare companies and private-equity healthcare sponsors; banks, private-debt funds, BDCs and sponsored borrowers; PE sponsors, developers and lenders on energy, power, infrastructure and data-center capital; high-growth technology companies and their investors; EU-regulated life-sciences companies in Brussels. The general counsel at those organizations is the other reader of this salary page.
A general counsel at a Fortune-scale pharmaceutical manufacturer with a Georgia operating company told us they still run King & Spalding-adjacent laterals through an “Atlanta market” compensation committee even when the seat is FDA and product-liability work that is not local. The dated lockstep had become a recruiting number the committee would not clear unless someone put the 2024 table in the packet. That is the in-house read this page is built around: the figure is national, and the committee often is not.
Of 84 associates and counsel on Atlanta-headquartered Am Law 50 platforms in the same cohort, over the same 24-month window, 47 said New York and Houston companies still treat an Atlanta letterhead as a discount even when the lockstep is national.
- Print the 2024 table, not the metro median. The last public first-year is $225,000 in every U.S. market the firm staffs. An Atlanta discount is a buyer error, not a published band.
- A 2026 $235,000 first-year is not yours to claim from a matcher list. The Fall 2027 posting is the 2026 confirmation. Retention risk at years 3 to 6 is real where rivals did match; it is not a new printed scale.
- London is a different paycheck. £175,000 NQ and a 1,800-hour target are not the U.S. first-year and not the U.S. 1,950-hour bonus gate.
- Hours are two numbers. 1,950 billable is bonus eligibility. 2,400 productive is a utilization policy. They are not interchangeable in an in-house negotiation.
A head of legal who opens on a King & Spalding-adjacent mid-level is matching a 2024 base, a 2025 bonus, and an hours gate the in-house seat will not replicate.
- Write the number on the requisition. An Atlanta brand name is not a band. Name the class-year cash the candidate is leaving before you name an in-house figure.
- Decide hire versus panel before the first call. If the file is episodic — an MDL, a qui tam, a fund closing — instruct. If the file needs a personal signature inside the company, the lawyer generally needs to be on payroll.
- Do not use PEP as an in-house comparable. Profits per equity partner is what owners split on average. It is not a counsel offer and it is not a chief legal officer target.
- Budget the offer window. A compensation committee that cannot clear lockstep cash inside Sartori’s Atlanta associate acceptance window is not running this process. It is running a stall.
A general counsel who cannot cash-match buys the work.
The work that priced this lockstep is not an Atlanta cost-of-living story.
False Claims Act recoveries, a PFAS designation the D.C. Circuit just upheld, and a private-equity rebound are staffing mid-levels in New York, Houston, Los Angeles and London. The first-year posting is still $225,000.
The 2026 cash is priced by dockets and capital, not by Peachtree Street rents. Three engines show up on the September 2026 careers board and in the 2026 partner adds: healthcare and product-liability enforcement, private-credit and fund finance, and a trial bench whose growth seats are New York and Dallas.
Enforcement docketsA trial bench that is not Atlanta-only
- Healthcare and toxic tort False Claims Act recoveries and a CERCLA designation now upheld. Mid-level healthcare, FDA, product-liability and EHS seats, not first-years.
- Private credit and fund finance An H2 2025 megadeal rebound after an H1 freeze. Finance, funds, project finance and digital-infrastructure ABS in New York and London.
- New York and Dallas trial Partner adds concentrated in business litigation and Texas. Atlanta laterals remain open. The growth narrative in 2026 is not a regional commodity office.
The Department of Justice, on 16 January 2026, reported False Claims Act settlements and judgments exceeding $6.8 billion in fiscal 2025, the highest single year, with 1,297 qui tam suits, government-opened investigations of 401, qui tam recoveries exceeding $5.3 billion, and more than $5.7 billion related to health care. Priority areas named: managed care, prescription drugs, medically unnecessary care. That docket is why the September 2026 board is hiring healthcare litigation laterals at 2 to 4 years in Los Angeles and New York, healthcare transactions at 3 to 7 years in Atlanta, Houston, New York or Washington, and a Houston staff attorney at $165,000 to $200,000 as overflow. It is not why an Atlanta first-year is a regional commodity.
EPA designated PFOA and PFOS as CERCLA hazardous substances in a final rule dated 8 May 2024, effective 8 July 2024. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, on 18 August 2026, denied the petitions for review in Chamber of Commerce v. EPA, No. 24-1193. The firm’s product-liability page lists PFAS as a named core capability. The live EHS associate posting (3 to 6 years, Washington or Atlanta) and the Los Angeles tort seats are the staffing response. The D.C. Circuit decision removes the “maybe the rule dies” delay. It does not mint first-years.
King & Spalding’s 27 February 2026 M&A Outlook, citing PitchBook, recaps an H1 2025 freeze after April 2025 tariff shock, then a Q3 inflection: quarterly deal value about $310 billion with volume relatively flat; U.S. PE deals over $1 billion at about 53.6 percent of PE deal value, up from 35 percent in 2024, and only about 1.9 percent of count; take-privates about 58 in 2025 against about 97 across 2023 and 2024, aggregate value above $200.3 billion. The Federal Reserve Board lowered the target range by a quarter point to 4 to 4-1/4 percent on 17 September 2025 and by a further quarter point to 3-3/4 to 4 percent on 29 October 2025. The Outlook treats three H2 2025 cuts as the financing backdrop. The Fall 2027 Finance and Project Finance postings at $225,000 are the junior end of that cycle. 2026 is a deployment year, not a freeze year.
The FTC’s expanded HSR form took effect 10 February 2025 and was vacated on 12 February 2026; the Fifth Circuit denied a stay on 19 March 2026, restoring the pre-2025 form as the default. CFIUS remains the foreign-investment gate on the same deals. After the vacatur, hours per HSR filing itself fall; deal volume still needs 3-to-5-year M&A associates, which is why Corporate laterals were live in Washington and Houston in September 2026. Do not hire to the vacated form.
London is not an Atlanta cost-of-living spillover. Failure to prevent fraud under the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023 came into force on 1 September 2025. The Employment Rights Act 2025 received Royal Assent on 18 December 2025, with staged 2026 and 2027 duties the firm mapped on 3 February 2026. A 12-lawyer fund-finance team joined London on 2 September 2024; Finance and Restructuring runs more than 100 lawyers across 11 offices. Legal Business put 2025 London revenue at $148.2 million. Those clocks staff London Special Matters, Global Human Capital, and fund-finance mid-levels. They do not rewrite the U.S. first-year posting.
The firm elected 27 lawyers to partner and 17 to counsel for 2026, effective 1 January 2026, across 13 offices. As of 3 September 2026 it had added 64 partners in the calendar year, of which 23 in Business Litigation and 18 based in New York. A nine-partner litigation group joined on 3 February 2026, seven of them in Dallas. Atlanta business-litigation laterals at 4 to 6 years remain open. The growth narrative in 2026 is New York and Dallas trial, which is why the lockstep is national. Chambers USA 2026 overviews still describe more than 125 lawyers on pharma, biotechnology and device work, more than 50 in corporate and finance, over 40 in international trade and WTO, and more than 350 dedicated energy lawyers on the energy capability page. Special Matters cites more than 100 former government officials and work before 73 of 93 U.S. Attorney’s Offices. Global Arbitration Review’s 2025 GAR 30, announced 11 April 2025, selected the firm first worldwide for the fifth time in six years; that ranking is a caseload mark, not a 2026 associate scale.
The first-year posting held at $225,000. The dockets that price the mid-level did not.
We have run this hire in Atlanta for 8 years. The slow files are the ones that pretend the lockstep is a metro median.
Over the last three years we closed 26 Atlanta associate searches at a 93 percent completion rate, on a typical timeline of 6 to 12 weeks. Counter-offer incidence on that line is 39 percent. Median offer-to-acceptance is 12 working days.
We have worked the Atlanta associate market for 8 years, for general counsel and heads of legal at life-sciences, energy, financial-services, automotive and technology companies, and for the firms those companies hire from. Over the last three years we closed 26 associate searches with a 93 percent completion rate and a typical timeline of 6 to 12 weeks. Of those 26 closed Atlanta associate searches, 17 were company-side seats and 9 were firm-side. Of the 17 company-side files, 10 were years 3 to 6 priced against the last public $260,000 to $365,000 band. Six of those 10 ran past the 6-to-12-week band, at a median of 14 weeks, because the buyer opened on Atlanta metro or NALP-regional cash. That is the number that cuts against us: the published Atlanta associate timeline does not hold when a company treats this letterhead as a regional commodity, and we now brief the 2024 table first rather than the headline band.
A head of legal at a private-equity-backed energy developer described the 12-day window as the constraint, not the base. Their compensation committee cannot clear a fourth-year $310,000 number in 12 working days. By the time the band has been rewritten, the associate has already accepted a counter-offer on the lockstep. Sartori’s Atlanta associate counter-offer incidence is 39 percent. National lockstep cash sitting on an Atlanta letterhead is one of the files that produces it.
Sartori’s quarterly survey since 2019, in the four waves covering 2025 and the first half of 2026, finds that 29 percent of Atlanta company respondents had tried to hire an Am Law 50 Atlanta-platform associate onto the payroll in the prior 12 months. The rest had not. Most in-house legal departments in this metro are not trying to cash-match this firm. They are trying to decide whether the file on the desk is a hire or a panel instruction.
Our own mapping of Atlanta lawyers records admission, employer and practice. It does not record a 2026 King & Spalding class-year base, because the firm has not published one. That is the largest hole on this brief: we can price a first-year against the $225,000 posting, and we can price a mid-level against the last public table, and we cannot price either against a June 2026 King & Spalding reset that is not in public. Anyone who hands you that reset from a job board is guessing. We will not. The global file behind the Atlanta map is the same research program: nearly 1.5 million lawyer profiles, with quarterly surveys running since 2019.
Qualification gates sit behind every one of those files. Georgia still requires an ABA-approved J.D.; a scaled bar pass of 270 and an MPRE of 75; it does not accept transferred MBE scores. The NextGen Bar Exam arrives in Georgia in July 2028, with the cut score not yet announced — a 2028 Atlanta first-year issue, not a 2026 pay driver. New York laterals sit on the UBE plus the New York Law Course and New York Law Exam. California litigation and employment postings on the 2026 board require the California bar. The firm’s own laterals repeatedly ask for prior large-firm experience and, on several corporate seats, a top-tier law school. A company that skips those gates on the brief is not running a King & Spalding-adjacent search. It is writing a different role. More than 250 of the firm’s attorneys have served as law clerks; the trial desks treat a federal clerkship as a credential.
The service view of a company-side seat sits on our in-house counsel recruiting page. The associate line that produces the people a general counsel is bidding for sits with associate and attorney recruiting. Companies building a legal function rather than adding a seat should start with the first general counsel guide before they try to cash-match this lockstep. Google Ads Keyword Planner, measured 11 September 2026 across four countries, recorded about 200 monthly searches for the string this page is built on; the U.S.-only read on the same day was 170. That is query volume, not a salary.
PEP is not partner pay. The 2024 table is not a 2026 reset.
A partner page that treated profits per equity partner as a paycheck would be as wrong as an associate page that invented a June 2026 King & Spalding scale. Both mistakes are available. This page makes neither.
| Item | Status | What to do with it |
|---|---|---|
| U.S. associate base by class year | Public as of 1 January 2024 | Above the Law, 3 January 2024; $225,000 to $420,000 |
| 2026 first-year posting | Public | Employer law-student page: Fall 2027 new-associate cash $225,000 |
| 2025 year-end and special bonus endpoints | Public | Above the Law recorded the match on 19 December 2025 |
| Bonus-eligibility hours | Public | 1,950 billable; 2,400 productive hours is a separate policy |
| London NQ and trainee bases | Public | Legal Cheek, 29 September 2025 and the firm profile |
| 2026 Am Law ranks and 2025 revenue band | Public | Firm announcement 14 April 2026; Law360 5 March 2026 |
| 2026 U.S. class-year base after the Milbank reset | Not public | King & Spalding is absent from the matcher table through 31 August 2026 |
| Individual equity or nonequity partner draws | Not public | PEP over $7 million is a ratio, not a paycheck |
| Office-by-office associate census | Not public | Timed-out ALM office counts are omitted rather than guessed |
Two clocks complete the picture the salary line hides. The 2,400 productive-hours policy, rolled out in August 2025, raises the effective price of remaining at the firm and is one reason a mid-level looks at ACC associate-general-counsel cash of $294,000. It does not, by itself, add first-year seats. The 17 counsel elected for 2026 absorb lawyers who will not make equity. Associate-to-partner odds are a function of that two-tier design, not of first-year cash.
BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook figures for May 2024 put the national lawyer median at $151,160, with 864,800 jobs in 2024, projected employment up 4 percent from 2024 to 2034. That national series is a different vintage from the 2025 O*NET Atlanta cell, and it is not a King & Spalding scale. A chief legal officer who uses it as the comparable has left the thesis of this page.
Neighbouring 2026 salary pages own their own tables. This page will not restate them. The market lockstep, the in-house benchmark, and the partner-pay proxy each have a home. The King & Spalding table that is actually public is the 1 January 2024 lockstep, the 19 December 2025 bonus match, the Fall 2027 $225,000 posting, the London NQ, and the 2026 Am Law rank. Everything else is omitted on purpose.
Pay at this firm in 2026: questions from both sides of the figure
What is the King & Spalding salary for U.S. associates in 2026?
The last public U.S. first-year base is $225,000, effective 1 January 2024 and still posted for Fall 2027. Above the Law printed the class-year lockstep on 3 January 2024, running through $420,000 at seven-plus years. The employer’s law-student page, accessed September 2026, still quotes $225,000 for new Finance and Project Finance associates starting Fall 2027. A 2026 $235,000 King & Spalding first-year is not a public figure.
Did King & Spalding match the $235,000 market scale in 2026?
No published King & Spalding row appears on Above the Law’s 2026 matcher table, updated through 31 August 2026. Milbank set class of 2026/2025 at $235,000 and class of 2018 at $455,000 on 2 June 2026, presumed effective 1 July 2026. Absence from that list is not a silent match. This page does not write a King & Spalding $235,000 table.
What bonuses did King & Spalding pay associates for 2025?
The firm matched on 19 December 2025 at $15,000 year-end for the class of 2025 and $115,000 for the class of 2018 and senior. Specials on the same Above the Law row were $6,000 and $25,000. Bonus eligibility is 1,950 billable hours, a firm policy Bloomberg Law restated on 20 August 2025. Tracker hours and payout date were undisclosed.
What do King & Spalding partners make in 2026?
The 2026 Am Law 100 ranked the firm 12th by profits per equity partner after a 2025 year Legal Cheek put at PEP over $7 million. That is firm profit divided by equity owners, not a partner’s draw. The same 2026 print ranked the firm 23rd by revenue. Individual draws are not public.
Can a general counsel cash-match a King & Spalding associate in-house?
ACC’s 2025 survey puts associate general counsel median total cash at $294,000, the usual large-company buy of a mid-to-senior associate off this lockstep. Attorney median total cash is $160,000 — below the $225,000 first-year. A chief legal officer who cannot clear AGC cash buys the work on a panel, or buys a staff-attorney product the firm itself posts at $165,000 to $200,000.
What is King and Spalding salary in London in 2026?
Legal Cheek listed the London newly qualified base at £175,000 on 29 September 2025. Trainee bases on the same firm profile are £62,000 and £67,000, with a 1,800-hour target. That is a different seat and currency from the U.S. lockstep. Latest trainee retention on that profile was 100 percent across four training contracts.
The 2024 lockstep, the 2025 bonus tracker, and the 2026 Am Law rank.
U.S. associate base comes from Above the Law and the employer careers pages. Bonus figures come from the 19 December 2025 tracker. Partner rank and revenue bands come from the firm, Law360, Legal Business and Legal Cheek. Sartori figures are the Atlanta associate research program.
Sources
41 references- Sartori & Partners — Atlanta Legal Talent Research Programme (300 structured interviews; ~12,000 lawyers mapped; quarterly surveys since 2019; mandate telemetry) sartoriglobal.com ↗
- Top 20 Biglaw Firm Shows Associates Some Holiday Cheer With Raises abovethelaw.com ↗
- Associates See a Pay Boost at Largest Law Firms, but Few May Match in Atlanta law.com ↗
- Associate Compensation Scorecard: The 2026 Summer Of Salary Increases abovethelaw.com ↗
- Associate Compensation Scorecard: Biglaw’s 2025 Bonus Blitz abovethelaw.com ↗
- Top 25 Biglaw Firm Announces Bonuses abovethelaw.com ↗
- Biglaw Firm Adds Onerous Billable Target That Has Everyone Freaking Out abovethelaw.com ↗
- King & Spalding Wants Associates to Log 2,400 ‘Productive’ Hours news.bloomberglaw.com ↗
- Opportunities for Current U.S. Law Students | King & Spalding kslaw.com ↗
- Opportunities for Experienced Lawyers | King & Spalding kslaw.com ↗
- Money talks: What newly qualified solicitors earn at the UK’s top law firms legalcheek.com ↗
- King & Spalding - Legal Cheek legalcheek.com ↗
- $225,000 Entry-Level Salaries Not Yet the Standard at Large Firms nalp.org ↗
- Despite Expectations, $225,000 Entry Associate Salaries Lag at Large Law Firms nalp.org ↗
- Georgia Wages: 23-1011.00 - Lawyers onetonline.org ↗
- Lawyers : Occupational Outlook Handbook bls.gov ↗
- K&S ranks 23rd by revenue and 12th by profitability in the 2026 AmLaw 100 rankings kslaw.com ↗
- The American Lawyer ranks K&S 21st by revenue and 14th by profitability in its 2025 AmLaw 100 rankings kslaw.com ↗
- King & Spalding's Revenue Hits $2.7B In Record Year law360.com ↗
- King & Spalding posts near-50% London revenue hike as PEP passes $7m mark legalbusiness.co.uk ↗
- King & Spalding – Law Firm Profile | ILRG ilrg.com ↗
- About | King & Spalding kslaw.com ↗
- King & Spalding Elects 27 Partners and 17 Counsel for 2026 kslaw.com ↗
- First-Chair Trial Lawyer Phil Bowman Joins King & Spalding in New York kslaw.com ↗
- King & Spalding Adds 12-Lawyer Team and Capital Solutions Platform to Finance and Restructuring Practice in London kslaw.com ↗
- King & Spalding Welcomes Nine-Partner Litigation Group in Expansion of Commercial and IP Litigation Capabilities kslaw.com ↗
- 2025 Law Department Compensation Survey Executive Summary acc.com ↗
- 2025 Law Department Compensation Survey — ACC newsroom acc.com ↗
- False Claims Act Settlements and Judgments Exceed $6.8B in Fiscal Year 2025 justice.gov ↗
- Designation of PFOA and PFOS as CERCLA Hazardous Substances; Final Rule govinfo.gov ↗
- Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America, et al. v. EPA, No. 24-1193 media.cadc.uscourts.gov ↗
- Premerger Notification Program | Federal Trade Commission ftc.gov ↗
- Federal Reserve issues FOMC statement (17 September 2025) federalreserve.gov ↗
- Federal Reserve issues FOMC statement (29 October 2025) federalreserve.gov ↗
- 2026 M&A Outlook — King & Spalding kslaw.com ↗
- New measures to tackle fraud come into effect gov.uk ↗
- Acas welcomes Royal Assent for new Employment Rights Act acas.org.uk ↗
- King & Spalding LLP, USA 2026 | Chambers Profiles chambers.com ↗
- Energy | King & Spalding kslaw.com ↗
- Special Matters and Government Investigations | King & Spalding kslaw.com ↗
- King & Spalding Once Again Earns Top Spot on Global Arbitration Review’s GAR 30 Ranking kslaw.com ↗
U.S. associate base is the 1 January 2024 lockstep published by Above the Law. Fall 2027 first-year cash is the employer law-student page. 2025 bonuses are the 19 December 2025 Above the Law row. 2026 Am Law ranks are the firm's 14 April 2026 announcement. PEP over $7 million and London £175,000 are Legal Cheek and Legal Business. Atlanta wages are BLS/O*NET 2025. In-house cash is ACC/Empsight, effective 1 March 2025.
Our own numbers — the Atlanta interview cohort, the 26 closed associate searches, the 39 percent counter-offer incidence and the 12-day offer-to-acceptance window — come from the continuous research program described on our research page. Compensation data is general information, not financial, career or legal advice. Actual pay varies by office, hours and bonus eligibility.
Keep reading
The market lockstep, the in-house benchmark, and the company-side search this figure sits inside.
BigLaw associate salary scale 2026
The market lockstep this firm has not publicly joined. The $235,000 first-year lives there, not on this page.
See the market scaleGeneral counsel salary 2026
What a company actually pays a chief legal officer — the other side of matching this lockstep on the payroll.
View GC rangesIn-house counsel recruiting
How we staff a corporate legal seat when the published lockstep is the number a general counsel is bidding against.
In-house searchA quiet conversation
Matching a King & Spalding associate on the payroll — or buying the work instead?
We map Atlanta associate and in-house seats against the figures the firm will actually print, and we are as willing to tell you a requisition is a panel instruction as to open a search. Confidential, no obligation.