Salary benchmarks
Knobbe Martens Salary 2026: The Posted Floor
The 2026 wage this firm has printed is a posting, not a class-year letter. The attorney page states a base of at least $215,000. The last bonus memo the legal press printed is 14 February 2025. A general counsel who prices this lawyer off the July 2026 lockstep is using someone else's table.
A floor is not a class year.
Knobbe Martens salary is the number a general counsel tries to match when the candidate's firm has not published a 2026 grid.
Sartori maps about 23,000 lawyers in Los Angeles. The question on this page is what a company must bid to hire from an intellectual-property boutique that prints a floor instead of a class year.
The attorney posting, accessed 7 October 2026, states a base of at least $215,000 for laterals with two or more years in patent litigation or patent prosecution. Knobbe Martens ↗
Four numbers, two buyers. The associate can see a floor. The general counsel still does not have a class year. Every figure is cited below.
- $296.9M
- Gross revenue for the prior year, up 8 percent, in The Recorder's 14 March 2025 account of American Lawyer data. Headcount on that print was 272 lawyers and flat.
- Law.com, The Recorder, 14 March 2025
- 24,986
- USPTO patent applications first published 2021–2025 on which IP Pilot named the firm, data as of May 2026.
- IP Pilot, 10 June 2026
- 1,750
- Hours-per-year associate quota on the firm's careers page, accessed 7 October 2026, before quota-credit days.
- Knobbe Martens careers overview, accessed 7 October 2026
There is no public 2026 Knobbe class-year scale.
Knobbe Martens salary: the documents that exist
Open the posting and the bonus memo. Do not back-fill a 2026 grid the firm has not issued.
The attorney posting, accessed 7 October 2026, seeks laterals with a technical background and at least two years of patent litigation or patent prosecution, patent-bar eligible, in New York, Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, D.C. Base salary for the position is at least $215,000, depending on qualifications, and may include signing bonuses and annual bonuses. That sentence is the 2026 wage the firm has chosen to print. It is one floor for a two-year gate, not seven class years.
The spring bonus is a different document, and it is dated. On 14 February 2025 the firm told associates and counsel it would pay special spring bonuses by year of partnership consideration. Above the Law published the memo on 19 February 2025. The American Lawyer, on 18 February 2025, described the firm as the first Am Law 200 shop to announce spring bonuses that season. Payment date: 31 March 2025. Full-time associates and counsel in good standing, employed on the payment date. Leaves of absence were prorated.
| Seniority in the memo | Spring bonus | Payment date |
|---|---|---|
| 1st year | $2,500 | 31 March 2025 |
| 2nd year | $5,000 | 31 March 2025 |
| 3rd year | $10,000 | 31 March 2025 |
| 4th year | $15,000 | 31 March 2025 |
| 5th year | $20,000 | 31 March 2025 |
| 6th year and above, including counsel | $25,000 | 31 March 2025 |
The ABA Journal, on 19 February 2025, citing Law.com, reported year-end bonuses of $5,000 to $30,000 in addition to this ladder. The year-end figure is a range, not a class-year row. Adding $25,000 to $30,000 and calling the sum a sixth-year total is a calculation the firm did not publish.
Labor condition applications are not a scale either. They are the wage an employer attests for a specific sponsored role. A Department of Labor compilation shows associate-title filings at $215,000 in Irvine on 1 July 2024, $205,000 in Irvine on 25 April 2025, and $200,000 in New York on 7 May 2025 and 12 May 2025. Those offers sit on the same shelf as the $215,000 posting and above the 2018 first-year. They do not prove a seventh-year cell.
The $20,000 gap is the one arithmetic a general counsel should not skip. Two hundred fifteen thousand dollars is the floor for a lawyer who already has two years. Two hundred thirty-five thousand dollars is what a market-matching firm pays a lawyer in year one, from 1 July 2026. Using the market first-year as this firm's first-year overstates the junior. Using the floor as the senior's base understates the lawyer the company usually wants.
Document you can printWage you cannot
- The posting A floor for a two-year lateral, patent-bar eligible, in seven U.S. offices. This is the 2026 base the firm has published.
- The bonus memo A dated spring ladder by year of partnership consideration, plus a reported year-end range that is not row-by-row.
- The missing grid No 2026 class-year letter. Absence of a memo is not a secret match and not a refusal. It is a missing document.
What a general counsel must actually bid
The associate is paid by the firm. The company that wants the same lawyer is bidding an in-house title against a floor, not against a published seventh year.
The Association of Corporate Counsel 2025 Law Department Compensation Survey, 1,632 respondents, data effective 1 March 2025, put U.S. associate-general-counsel median base at $245,000 and median total cash at $294,000. Deputy-general-counsel median base was $280,000 and median total cash $368,000. Attorney median base on that survey was $148,000. The Knobbe floor of $215,000 sits above attorney median base and below associate-general-counsel median base. A senior whose real salary the firm has not printed can sit on either side of the deputy-general-counsel cell. The posting will not tell you which.
California makes the floor visible. Labor Code section 432.3, as amended by SB 642, approved 8 October 2025 and effective 1 January 2026, requires an employer with 15 or more employees to include the pay scale in a job posting. Pay scale means a good-faith estimate of the range the employer reasonably expects to pay upon hire. This posting prints “at least $215,000,” which is a floor. A candidate reads a floor as a ceiling when the requisition on the company side is an attorney grade. That is how a search for a sixth-year prosecutor dies in the first conversation.
Chief legal officers at companies with revenue above $5 billion are the band whose median total target exceeds $1 million on the same 2025 survey. Most medical-device and tools companies hiring one patent counsel are not in that band. They are choosing between an associate-general-counsel title, a deputy title, or leaving prosecution on the outside invoice. The patent attorney salary page sets the national version of that choice. This page is the firm-specific version.
Posted lateral floor
At least $215,000 on the attorney posting, accessed 7 October 2026.
Knobbe Martens ↗If you want the lawyer, price the seniority you cannot see. If you want the docket, keep the invoice.
- Write the title first. An associate-general-counsel or deputy grade is the compensation decision. An attorney requisition against a two-year floor looks thrifty and loses the senior.
- Treat the floor as a floor. At least $215,000 is the bottom of a posting, not the wage of every lawyer who clears two years.
- Separate bonus from base. The spring ladder ends at $25,000. Do not gross it up into a market year-end the firm did not pay on the public record.
- Keep volume on the invoice. A portfolio measured in thousands of filings stays outside until a named officer has to sign.
Company searches are retained. The fee is 25 to 30 percent of first-year total compensation. The retainer is 30 percent of that fee, and it is kept if the client cancels. The service view sits on in-house counsel recruiting.
Your posting is the number the company can verify. Your class year is the number it will ask for next.
- Lead with the posted base. A company can read $215,000. It cannot audit an individualized bonus that never became a memo.
- Do not guess a match. The July 2026 market first-year is not, on this record, your firm's first-year.
- Name the spring bonus as spring. Year of partnership consideration is the firm's step, not a Cravath class year. Say which document you are quoting.
- Expect a title change. Cash that clears a senior prosecutor usually arrives as associate general counsel or deputy general counsel.
The associate-side process is on associate recruiting. The market ladder those offers get compared with is the 2026 BigLaw associate scale.
A posted floor of at least $215,000 is not a senior prosecutor's base.
Equity track, hours, and the PEP that is not public
Partner pay at this firm is a structure, not a dollar. The dollar the Am Law print does publish is revenue.
The careers page, accessed 7 October 2026, says associates may be considered for partnership as early as six years after joining, and that the partnership is single-tier equity. It also states a 1,750-hour quota. Quota credit is 15 days a year for an associate's first through fifth years and 20 days a year from the fifth year onward. The January 2023 Recorder interview, carried on the firm's site, said each credit day then reduced the quota by 7 hours, which the firm described as about 1,640 hours. That 1,640 figure is a 2023 description. The 2026 page still prints 1,750 and the credit-day schedule. It does not restate 1,640.
Revenue is the partner number a reader can date. Above the Law, on 19 February 2025, put 2023 gross revenue at $275 million and the firm at No. 135 on the Am Law 200 then current. The Recorder, on 14 March 2025, citing American Lawyer data, put the next year's gross revenue at $296.9 million, up 8 percent, with revenue per lawyer up 8.3 percent, headcount flat at 272 lawyers, and seven offices on the two coasts. Two hundred seventy-five million times 1.08 is $297 million. The two prints agree. Neither is a 2025 fiscal PEP, and neither is take-home for any partner.
Original Jurisdiction, on 23 June 2026, reading the 2026 Am Law 200 for fiscal 2025, put the Second Hundred at $29.4 billion of revenue, up 6 percent; revenue per lawyer $895,000, up 5.2 percent; profits per equity partner $1.208 million, up 9.5 percent; and headcount 32,903, up 0.7 percent. Those are averages for firms ranked 101 to 200. This firm's own PEP is not in that paragraph. A general counsel who treats $1.208 million as the equity partner's paycheck at an Irvine IP firm is reading the wrong row. The same readout is not a reason to mark an associate offer to Am Law 100 lockstep.
The firm's news boilerplate describes about 300 lawyers and scientists across Orange County, Los Angeles, New York, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, D.C., and a California founding in 1962. That census counts scientists with lawyers. The Recorder's 272 is a lawyer full-time-equivalent for the financial year it was describing. Revenue per lawyer uses the 272. Cash uses the posting.
| Figure | Public? | Document |
|---|---|---|
| Lateral base floor | Yes — at least $215,000 | Attorney posting, accessed 7 October 2026 |
| 2026 class-year scale | Not published | No memo in the 2026 raise coverage |
| Spring bonus | Yes — $2,500 to $25,000 | Memo 14 February 2025; paid 31 March 2025 |
| Year-end bonus | Range only, $5,000 to $30,000 | ABA Journal, 19 February 2025, citing Law.com |
| Gross revenue | Yes — $275 million, then $296.9 million | Above the Law 19 February 2025; The Recorder 14 March 2025 |
| Profits per equity partner | Not this firm's figure | Second Hundred average is $1.208 million, FY2025 |
Prosecution volume, PTAB mix, and the in-house signature
Demand for these lawyers is a filing count and a trial docket, not a mood about intellectual property.
The USPTO's FY2025 agency financial report says the office received 475,223 serialized patent applications, up 2.0 percent from the prior year. FY2025 ran from 1 October 2024 through 30 September 2025. That is the prosecution market this firm sells into. IP Pilot, updated 10 June 2026 with data as of May 2026, counted 24,986 U.S. applications first published from 2021 through 2025 on which the firm was the agent. Volume is not a wage. It is why a general counsel still has a prosecution invoice after the associate floor is known.
Trials are the other desk. The PTAB's FY2025 year-end roundup records 1,433 petitions: 1,361 inter partes reviews, 95 percent, and 72 post-grant reviews, 5 percent. A company whose products are chips, devices, or software is hiring into the electrical slice of that year, whether the seat is a senior associate at the firm or a patent counsel in Irvine. Life sciences is the smaller slice and the one Orange County operating companies ask for by name.
The hiring consequence is narrow. A general counsel at a device company does not need a first-year to “support IP.” The outside firm already has the filings. The in-house seat appears when claim scope, a PTAB defense, or a freedom-to-operate call has to be signed by someone on the payroll. That person is usually a prosecutor or a patent litigator past the two-year gate on this posting, which means the $215,000 floor is the wrong budget even when it is the right document. The California lawyer salary page is the statewide wage around that decision. It is not this firm's scale.
Filing volumeNamed officer
- The prosecution book Tens of thousands of published applications over five years. That work can stay on an invoice.
- The PTAB slice Electrical matters dominate the Board's year. Bio and pharma are the smaller count and the local operating-company ask.
- The in-house signature One patent counsel, titled, when the board wants the call inside the building. The floor does not price that seat.
What the Los Angeles associate book does with this floor
The Los Angeles associate book is the desk that meets this floor. The IP-boutique files inside it are a handful, and the incomplete file is among them.
Sartori & Partners has worked the Los Angeles associate market for more than 10 years, for companies and for firms. Sartori & Partners maps 1,480,000+ lawyer profiles globally and has run quarterly market surveys since 2019. The Los Angeles associate desk is one cut of that work. Mandate telemetry on the desk is 30 closed files over three years, at a 93 percent completion rate, on a typical timeline of 6 to 12 weeks. Across 575 structured interviews with Los Angeles associates and in-house counsel, companies kept returning to the same gap: a floor they could read, and a seniority they could not.
Of those 30 searches, 19 were company-side and 11 were firm-side. Of those company-side files, 12 were in years 4 to 8 in corporate, privacy, or employment. The other 7 sat outside that band. 4 of those files were patent prosecution or patent litigation profiles from an IP boutique, which is the Knobbe-shaped seat. 1 of those IP-boutique files did not complete.
Of the 142 in-house hiring managers in that cohort — general counsel, chief legal officers, and heads of legal — over a 24-month window, 31 said they could not treat an IP boutique's posted floor as the senior's base. Of that same group, 44 had tried, across 4 waves from the first quarter of 2025 through the second quarter of 2026, to hire on that floor. 18 of them reported the first cash offer rejected. Counter-offers on that book landed 33 percent of the time. On those IP-boutique files, 2 drew a counter-offer. Median offer-to-acceptance, when the cash was real, stayed 9 working days.
A deputy general counsel at a publicly traded medical-device company in Orange County told us, We can clear the posted floor. We cannot see the senior prosecutor's real base, so the title has to move before the cash does. A general counsel at a venture-backed diagnostics company in San Diego told us, We will keep prosecution at the boutique until the board funds a patent counsel seat above that floor.
On general counsel and chief legal officer searches the shortlist median is 24 days and the median to an accepted offer is 11 weeks. That book is 52 chief legal officers inside 400+ placements since 2017 (230+ in-house). It is not the Los Angeles associate count, and it is not a substitute for the associate timeline above.
4 recent files on that IP-boutique slice, anonymized, show the same floor from the inside. No real company or candidate is named.
- A medical-device company, patent counsel. The brief was a prosecutor past the two-year gate, to sit in Irvine and own a device portfolio the outside firm had been filing. We closed in 10 weeks. The incumbent firm counter-offered. The candidate signed on day 9, once the title moved to patent counsel and the base cleared the associate-general-counsel median. An attorney-grade draft pegged to $215,000 had stalled in week 3.
- A semiconductor company, patent litigator. The general counsel wanted someone who had already stood up in a district court and at the PTAB, not a contracts counsel with a technical degree. We closed in 8 weeks. Equity, not the posted floor, did the work the ACC attorney median could not.
- A tools company, prosecution counsel. The seat was a fifth-year prosecutor, Orange County, reporting to the general counsel. The range opened above the floor and inside deputy-general-counsel total cash. We closed in 7 weeks. No counter-offer. It is the quiet file among them, and it is why the floor is not the whole story.
- A consumer-electronics company, stalled. The head of legal insisted on an attorney grade at $215,000 for a sixth-year prosecutor and would not retitle. The process ran to week 14 and did not complete. It is the incomplete file among them. We should have stopped when the compensation committee refused to leave the posting. We did not. That is on us.
The market lockstep those committees keep quoting is written up on the BigLaw associate salary scale. Our own cohorts and the survey waves are described on the research page.
Knobbe pay: what is public in 2026, from both sides of the offer
What is the Knobbe Martens salary for associates in 2026?
No 2026 class-year Knobbe Martens salary scale is public. The attorney posting, accessed 7 October 2026, states a base of at least $215,000 for laterals with two or more years of patent litigation or patent prosecution who are patent-bar eligible, plus possible signing and annual bonuses. That floor is $20,000 under the $235,000 market first-year Milbank announced on 2 June 2026. It is not a class-year grid.
What bonus did Knobbe Martens pay associates in 2025?
The 14 February 2025 memo set spring bonuses from $2,500 to $25,000. Above the Law printed the memo on 19 February 2025. Payment was 31 March 2025, for full-time associates and counsel in good standing, prorated for current leaves. The steps follow year of partnership consideration, not a Cravath class year. The ABA Journal the same day, citing Law.com, put the preceding year-end bonuses at $5,000 to $30,000. Those two ranges are separate documents. They are not a combined class-year total.
Did Knobbe Martens match the 2026 Milbank associate scale?
No public 2026 Knobbe match of the $235,000 first-year is on the record. Milbank's ladder, effective 1 July 2026, runs to $455,000 at the senior step. The firm's own last class-year base in the legal press is a November 2018 memo, $180,000 to $240,000. That memo is not a 2026 wage.
What do Knobbe Martens partners earn?
No 2026 profits-per-equity-partner figure for this firm is public. The Recorder, on 14 March 2025, put gross revenue at $296.9 million, up 8 percent, with 272 lawyers. Above the Law, on 19 February 2025, put 2023 gross revenue at $275 million, then rank 135 on the Am Law 200. Original Jurisdiction's 23 June 2026 readout of the 2026 Am Law 200 put Second Hundred average PEP at $1.208 million. That average is the cohort, not this partnership.
How should a general counsel price a hire from this firm?
A $215,000 floor does not tell you the senior's base. Associate-general-counsel median base on the Association of Corporate Counsel 2025 survey, data effective 1 March 2025, was $245,000. Deputy-general-counsel median base was $280,000. Match the title to the unpublished seniority, not the floor to a first-year lockstep.
How long does a Los Angeles search for this profile take?
Sartori's Los Angeles associate desk closed 30 searches over three years, at a 93 percent completion rate, on a typical timeline of 6 to 12 weeks. Median offer-to-acceptance is 9 working days. Counter-offers landed on 33 percent of those files. Four of the company-side files in that book were IP-boutique profiles. One of those four did not complete.
The posting, the memo, and the Am Law revenue.
Associate cash comes from the firm's posting and the February 2025 memo. Revenue comes from the legal press. Partner profit for this firm is not in those documents.
Sources and further reading
19 references- Sartori & Partners — Los Angeles Legal Talent Research Programme (575 structured interviews; ~23,000 lawyers mapped; quarterly surveys since 2019; mandate telemetry) sartoriglobal.com ↗
- Attorney | Knobbe Martens knobbe.com ↗
- Exciting News: Biglaw Firm Showers Associates With Special Spring Bonuses abovethelaw.com ↗
- This law firm will pay special spring bonuses of up to $25K abajournal.com ↗
- Law Firm's Spring Bonuses Come After Dozens of Attorney Exits and Amid Wider Talent Battle law.com ↗
- Prominent Firm Decides To Raise Associate Salaries During Bonus Season abovethelaw.com ↗
- Careers and Opportunities in IP Law | Knobbe Martens knobbe.com ↗
- Amid Talent Ups and Downs, Knobbe Martens' Homegrown Ethos and 6-Year Partner Track Prevail law.com ↗
- Associate salary filings, Knobbe Martens Olson & Bear LLP h1bdata.info ↗
- ALERT: Milbank Does It Again — Associate Salaries Are Going Up!!! abovethelaw.com ↗
- 2025 Law Department Compensation Survey Executive Summary acc.com ↗
- The 2026 Am Law 200 Rankings: Losing Ground? davidlat.substack.com ↗
- FY 2025 Agency Financial Report uspto.gov ↗
- PTAB Trial Statistics, FY2025 End of Year Outcome Roundup uspto.gov ↗
- The Largest Patent Prosecution Firms in the US 2021-2025 ip-pilot.com ↗
- California Labor Code § 432.3 leginfo.legislature.ca.gov ↗
- SB-642 Employment: payment of wages leginfo.legislature.ca.gov ↗
- Dozens of Knobbe Martens Lawyers Featured in “Best Lawyers” 2026 Guide knobbe.com ↗
- Knobbe Martens First to Announce Spring Bonuses to Associates, Counsel law.com ↗
The lateral floor is the attorney posting accessed 7 October 2026. Spring bonuses are the 14 February 2025 memo as printed by Above the Law. Year-end bonuses of $5,000 to $30,000 are the ABA Journal's restatement of Law.com. Revenue of $296.9 million is The Recorder, 14 March 2025. The $235,000 to $455,000 ladder is Milbank's 2026 market scale, not a Knobbe match. In-house medians are the ACC 2025 survey, data effective 1 March 2025. Second Hundred PEP of $1.208 million is a cohort average for fiscal 2025. The November 2018 class-year memo is historical and is not a 2026 wage.
Los Angeles associate figures — the interview cohort, the closed-search count, counter-offer incidence, and the offer-to-acceptance window — come from the research program on our research page.
Adjacent numbers for the same two readers.
The patent market, the lockstep this firm has not published, and the search that starts when the invoice is no longer enough.
Patent attorney salary 2026
The national patent contrast: lockstep, boutique floors, and in-house title cash, including this firm's $215,000 posting next to other IP employers.
Read patent attorney pay Market lockstepBigLaw associate salary scale 2026
The $235,000 to $455,000 market ladder, effective 1 July 2026, which this firm has not published a match against.
Read the market scale For companiesIn-house counsel recruiting
How a company-side search is priced when the candidate sits on a boutique floor and the requisition is an associate general counsel seat.
See in-house searchA quiet conversation
Pricing a patent counsel against a posted floor?
We tell a general counsel when the floor will not clear the seniority, and we tell an associate when the company is buying an invoice rather than a seat. Confidential, no obligation.