Salary benchmarks
Law firm COO salary in 2026
Two readers, one set of rows. The person who would take the seat, and the firm that would pay it. US survey cells and UK annual-report cells, with the year inside every figure.
Law firm COO salary, in the cells.
Match the title on the offer to a row before you match a number. The year sits inside the cell because base, bonus, and the next salary review are different dates.
| Seat | Median | Upper cutoff | Lower cutoff | Firms |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chief operating officer, base | $1,000,000 base as of 1 January 2025 | $1,400,000 base as of 1 January 2025 | $710,000 base as of 1 January 2025 | 29 of 45, June 2025 ‡ |
| Chief operating officer, bonus | $363,425 bonus for the year ending 2024 | $825,000 bonus for the year ending 2024 | $250,000 bonus for the year ending 2024 | 26 of 45, June 2025 ‡ |
| Chief operating officer, aggregate | $1,330,000 aggregate as of 1 January 2025 | $2,250,000 aggregate as of 1 January 2025 | $1,025,000 aggregate as of 1 January 2025 | 29 of 45, June 2025 ‡ |
| Executive director, base | $290,000 base as of 1 January 2025 | $384,360 base as of 1 January 2025 | $244,817 base as of 1 January 2025 | 13 of 45, June 2025 ‡ |
| Executive director, bonus | $30,000 bonus for the year ending 2024 | $65,833 bonus for the year ending 2024 | $21,978 bonus for the year ending 2024 | 13 of 45, June 2025 ‡ |
| Executive director, aggregate | $311,000 aggregate as of 1 January 2025 | $520,360 aggregate as of 1 January 2025 | $281,101 aggregate as of 1 January 2025 | 13 of 45, June 2025 ‡ |
| Seat | Salary in the reported year | Other pay in that year | Total, and the next salary |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gateley, chief operating officer | £300,000 salary for the year ended 30 April 2025 | Cash bonus nil for the year ended 30 April 2025. Share-option value £100,000 and benefits in kind £7,000 for the year ended 30 April 2025. | Total £407,000 for the year ended 30 April 2025. Salary £315,000 from 1 May 2025. |
| Gateley, chief executive (not the COO) | £380,000 salary for the year ended 30 April 2025 | Cash bonus nil and share options nil for the year ended 30 April 2025. Benefits in kind £8,000 for the year ended 30 April 2025. | Total £388,000 for the year ended 30 April 2025. Salary £399,000 from 1 May 2025. |
| Gateley, chief financial officer | £300,000 salary for the year ended 30 April 2025 | Cash bonus nil for the year ended 30 April 2025. Share-option value £100,000 and benefits in kind £7,000 for the year ended 30 April 2025. | Total £407,000 for the year ended 30 April 2025. Salary £315,000 from 1 May 2025. |
| Knights, chief executive, executive director, not a COO | £360,000 salary for the year ended 30 April 2025 | No bonus, benefits, LTIP, or pension in the £’000 emoluments table for the year ended 30 April 2025. | Total £360,000 for the year ended 30 April 2025. Salary £378,000 from 1 May 2025. |
| Knights, chief financial officer, executive director | £280,000 salary for the year ended 30 April 2025 | Bonus £100,000 and pension £14,000 for the year ended 30 April 2025. Benefits and LTIP nil in that table. | Total £394,000 for the year ended 30 April 2025. Salary £294,000 from 1 May 2025. |
| Keystone, chief executive | £357,000 salary and fees for the year ended 31 January 2025 | Long-term incentive shares nil for the year ended 31 January 2025. Pension £10,000 for the year ended 31 January 2025. | Total £367,000 for the year ended 31 January 2025. |
| Keystone, finance director | £212,000 salary for the year ended 31 January 2025 | Long-term incentive share value £113,000 and pension £10,000 for the year ended 31 January 2025. | Total £335,000 for the year ended 31 January 2025. No COO line in that table. |
Median annual base of $1,000,000 as of 1 January 2025. Chief operating officer, AmLaw 100 firms outside New York City, 29 of 45 firms.
The chief operating officer median base is 3.4 times the executive director median base in the same June 2025 sample. Aggregate compensation, in the table, is PwC’s own sum of base and bonus. It is not the base median plus the bonus median. The documents are listed in Sources.
- $269,630
- Mean annual wage, chief executives, all industries, May 2025.SOC 11-1011. Median in this table is hourly: $102.88. The annual column is the mean, not a law-firm COO salary.
- BLS OEWS Table 1, May 2025
- 204,350
- Chief executive employment, wage and salary, all industries, May 2025.
- BLS OEWS Table 1, May 2025
- $134,940
- Mean annual wage, general and operations managers, all industries, May 2025.SOC 11-1021. Median hourly wage $50.85. Not a law-firm operating seat.
- BLS OEWS Table 1, May 2025
- 3,503,020
- General and operations manager employment, wage and salary, all industries, May 2025.
- BLS OEWS Table 1, May 2025
An all-industry chief-executive mean is not a law-firm chief operating officer salary.
Chief operating officer and executive director are different seats.
The cash follows the row the survey, or the annual report, actually printed. The phrase on the query is not a license to borrow the neighboring cell.
Same words, three seatsRead the document that uses them
- US chief operating officer Firmwide operating officer. The Am Law sample gives this title its own base row, above the rest of the administrative bench.
- US executive director A different title in the same sample. Firms use it for a firmwide administrator who is not the chief operating officer. The cash is the lower row.
- UK executive director An employee on the board. The annual report may be listing the chief executive, the chief operating officer, or the chief financial officer. The cash is that person’s remuneration line.
Law firm COO salary questions arrive with a second phrase attached: executive director law firm pay. In the June 2025 PwC sample those are two lines. The chief operating officer median base is $1,000,000 as of 1 January 2025, on 29 firms. The executive director median base is $290,000 as of 1 January 2025, on 13 firms. Dividing the first by the second is 3.4 times. That ratio is the title gap inside one comparison group, AmLaw 100 xNYC - Firms (45 members). It is not a cost-of-living gap, and it is not a New York City gap. New York City firms are excluded from the group labeled AmLaw 100 xNYC, and the report does not publish a New York City chief operating officer base. The same group report prints an average size of 1,047 attorneys among its 45 members, and it prints no maximum and no minimum in that size range.
PwC’s own guide says one-fourth of the data lies above the first quartile and one-fourth lies below the third. On the chief operating officer base row that is an upper cutoff of $1,400,000 and a lower cutoff of $710,000, with the $1,000,000 median between them, all as of 1 January 2025. Those cutoffs are not a 25th and a 75th percentile in the usual order.
A firm that employs both titles is not paying one person twice. The survey separates the rows because the incumbents are different people. Using the executive director median on a chief operating officer hire, or the reverse, is how a first written offer misses.
Partner profit is a third number, and it is not this salary. Profit per equity partner is a residual after the operating cost, including this seat, has been paid. The law firm partner salary guide is the place to read that residual. The chief operating officer does not receive it.
| Phrase | Where it is used | What the seat is | What it is not |
|---|---|---|---|
| Law firm COO | US Am Law sample, and some UK board reports | The firmwide operating officer | The US executive director row |
| Executive director law firm pay | US Am Law sample | A firmwide administrative title under, or beside, the operating officer | A UK board seat, and not the COO median |
| Executive director | UK listed legal group, directors’ remuneration | An employee-director: chief executive, chief operating officer, or chief financial officer | The US executive director band |
Base, cash bonus, and what the report already added.
PwC publishes the sum. Rebuilding it from the two medians uses different headcounts and the wrong arithmetic.
The chief operating officer bonus median is $363,425 for the year ending 2024, on 26 firms. The base median is $1,000,000 as of 1 January 2025, on 29 firms. Adding those two medians produces a figure PwC did not publish. The aggregate median PwC did publish is $1,330,000 as of 1 January 2025, on 29 firms. The report says aggregate compensation combines base salary and bonus. Use that row for a cash total. Use the bonus row for the year ending 2024. The headcounts are not the same.
The bars below are the other firmwide median bases as of 1 January 2025, and the median bonuses for the year ending 2024, in the same 45-firm group. Each of those rows is marked ‡. Do not paste a bonus median onto a base from a different row, and do not treat a bonus for the year ending 2024 as a 2026 award. The chief financial officer median base on that chart is $672,500 as of 1 January 2025, on 32 firms. That seat is read on the law firm CFO salary guide. The law firm’s own general counsel, on that base chart, is a different job from a company general counsel. Company-side ranges sit on the general counsel salary guide. The operating seat’s neighbors inside the firm are mapped on law firm management.
In the US sample, executive director and chief operating officer were different rows, and the cash followed the row.
UK pay is one director's line, not a national median.
Three annual reports show what a listed legal group paid the people on its board. They do not show what an unlisted firm in Manchester, or a US firm, should copy.
No exchange rate is applied here. Pound figures stay in pounds, attached to one issuer. Gateley (Holdings) plc, for the year ended 30 April 2025, reported group revenue of £179.5 million, up 4.1 percent from £172.5 million. The report’s at-a-glance line states 1,590 employees, of which over 1,000 are fee earners. Average headcount for the year was 1,571, and average fee-earner headcount was 1,066. That scale sits under the remuneration table. It is not the AmLaw 100 xNYC group, and it is not a survey of UK chief operating officers.
The column header is the part that gets misread. On Gateley’s chief operating officer line for the year ended 30 April 2025, the £100,000 is share-option value and the cash bonus is nil. The total of £407,000 therefore exceeds the salary of £300,000 without a cash bonus. From 1 May 2025 that salary is £315,000. The chief financial officer is on the same reported shape. The chief executive’s total, £388,000, is lower than the chief operating officer’s total even though the chief executive’s salary, £380,000, is higher. From 1 May 2025 the chief executive’s salary is £399,000. A total is not a salary.
Knights Group Holdings plc, annual report for the year ended 30 April 2025, uses executive director for the chief executive and the chief financial officer and does not disclose a chief operating officer. The chief financial officer’s £100,000 is a cash bonus, unlike Gateley’s share-option column of the same size. The chief executive’s salary and total are both £360,000 for that year, and £378,000 from 1 May 2025. The chief financial officer’s salary is £280,000, pension £14,000, total £394,000, and salary £294,000 from 1 May 2025. Those executive directors are board employees. They are not the US executive director whose median base was $290,000 as of 1 January 2025.
Keystone Law, year ended 31 January 2025, reported revenue of £97.7 million, up 11.1 percent from £87.9 million. Its directors’ table has a chief executive (salary and fees £357,000, pension £10,000, total £367,000) and a finance director (salary £212,000, long-term incentive share value £113,000, pension £10,000, total £335,000), and no chief operating officer line. Of that finance director total, the share value is the larger step up from salary, the same kind of misread as Gateley’s option column. Absence of a line is not a salary of zero. A single issuer is not a quartile. The closed-search rows are a separate record, and they are not these filings.
What the accepted offer actually was.
Mandate telemetry from 1 October 2023 through 30 September 2026. Accepted bases on closed chief operating officer and executive director searches. Not the PwC sample, and not a national average.
18 searches closed in that window: 11 in the United States (4 at 800 or more lawyers, all chief operating officer, and 7 at 150 to 799) and 7 in the United Kingdom (4 in London at 200 or more lawyers, and 3 executive director titles outside London). No chief operating officer title outside London is in this set.
| Segment | Closed | Median accepted base | Median target bonus | Window |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| US, 800 or more lawyers, chief operating officer | 4 | $920,000 | 50% of base | 1 October 2023 through 30 September 2026 |
| US, 150 to 799 lawyers, chief operating officer or executive director | 7 | $410,000 | 30% of base | 1 October 2023 through 30 September 2026 |
| Of which: chief operating officer title | 3 | $520,000 | Group median in the row above | 1 October 2023 through 30 September 2026 |
| Of which: executive director title | 4 | $335,000 | Group median in the row above | 1 October 2023 through 30 September 2026 |
| London, UK firms of 200 or more lawyers, chief operating officer or executive director | 4 | £275,000 | 25% of base | 1 October 2023 through 30 September 2026 |
| UK outside London, executive director | 3 | £155,000 | 15% of base | 1 October 2023 through 30 September 2026 |
The $920,000 median is not the PwC median of $1,000,000. One is an accepted base on 4 closed searches at US firms of 800 or more lawyers. The other is the incumbent median base, as of 1 January 2025, at 29 Am Law 100 firms outside New York City. Lawyer count and title define the segment, not membership in the 45-firm group.
Inside the mid-size US seven, title still moves the base. The median accepted base on the 3 chief operating officer titles was $520,000. The median on the 4 executive director titles was $335,000. The difference is $185,000. The combined median for all 7, $410,000, sits between those two title medians because the seven are one set. A firm that averages the titles and then offers the average to a chief operating officer is the miss in the Chicago hire. The target bonus median for the seven as a group is 30% of base. The title split does not have its own bonus median.
London is its own band. 4 closed searches at UK firms of 200 or more lawyers, chief operating officer or executive director, accepted a median base of £275,000 with a median target bonus of 25% of base. That is not the Gateley chief operating officer’s £300,000 salary, and it is not the US executive director median converted into pounds. Outside London, 3 executive director searches closed at a median base of £155,000 and a median target bonus of 15% of base. Dropping the London median onto a regional executive director title is the UK version of using the chief operating officer survey row for a smaller US title.
Timing on the 18 was a median of 29 days to a shortlist of 4, and a median of 14 weeks to an accepted offer. 15 of the 18 accepted the first written offer. 3 first offers were declined because the firm had priced an executive director title off the chief operating officer survey band. All 18 still closed with a hire. The three declines are part of the record. They are not a rounding error, and they are not a reason to hide the first number the firm tried.
One of the 3 mid-size chief operating officer titles was a 420-lawyer litigation firm in Chicago. In 2025 it hired its first non-lawyer chief operating officer in 14 weeks, on a $545,000 base and a 35% target bonus. The 14 weeks are the same median as the full set of 18, not a faster outlier. The base sits with the chief operating officer title inside the 150-to-799 band, whose median was $520,000, and not with the executive director median of $335,000. The managing partner of that firm described the first offer this way:
We had priced an executive director off a chief operating officer survey row. The shortlist would not move at that number.
The brief for that seat is the law firm chief operating officer search. That Chicago firm is outside the Am Law group, so the group's median base was the wrong anchor for the first letter.
The person who is paid, and the firm that pays.
Same cells. The person checks the letter against the row. The firm decides which row it is allowed to use before it writes the letter.
Read the title on the offer before the number on the offer.
If the letter says chief operating officer, the US executive director row is not your comparison. In a UK listed group, executive director can mean a board employee: the chief operating officer, the chief executive, or the finance director. Ask which line is being copied, and which year it belongs to.
Separate the base date, the bonus year, and the date the next salary takes effect. A 2026 start can still be set against a base as of 1 January 2025 or a bonus for the year ending 2024. Those are the US survey dates, not automatically yours. If the letter includes share options or a long-term incentive, ask whether it is cash. At Gateley, year ended 30 April 2025, the chief operating officer’s £100,000 was the share-option column and the cash bonus was nil. At Knights, same year-end, the chief financial officer’s £100,000 was a cash bonus.
Then match the firm. The Am Law comparison group is 45 firms outside New York City. A smaller US firm, a New York City firm, and a UK firm are outside it. Use the closed-search segment with your lawyer count and your title, window 1 October 2023 through 30 September 2026. Partner drawings are a different distribution, on the partner pay guide.
Name the title, the lawyer count, and the city before you name a salary.
Four segments closed in the window above: US firms of 800 or more lawyers hiring a chief operating officer; US firms of 150 to 799 lawyers, split by title; London firms of 200 or more lawyers; and executive director seats outside London. The Am Law median is the incumbent picture for one US group. It is the wrong first number for a firm outside that group, and the wrong first number for an executive director title inside it.
Do not staff the seat from the May 2025 all-industry wage table. Those means show distance from the broader management market. They are not the offer. The published market map covers 1,480,000+ lawyers. It counts lawyers, not chief operating officers.
The search is retained: 25–30% of first-year total compensation, with 30% of that fee paid as the retainer. Scope is set on the law firm chief operating officer search brief, and the conversation opens at contact. The seat’s place among finance, marketing, and technology is the law firm management map.
Where these figures are printed.
Five documents. The US survey is one sample group. The UK figures are three annual reports. The occupational wages are the national all-industry table.
Sources
5 references- PwC — 2025 Senior Administrative Leaders Compensation and Staffing Report, AmLaw 100 xNYC sample (issued June 2025) pwc.com ↗
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics — OEWS Table 1, national employment and wage data, May 2025 bls.gov ↗
- Gateley plc — Annual Report and Financial Statements, year ended 30 April 2025 gat07-live-6886446136b24d92baa583994b2d-80531f1.divio-media.net ↗
- Knights Group Holdings plc — Annual Report and Accounts, year ended 30 April 2025 knightsplc.com ↗
- Keystone Law — Annual report, year ended 31 January 2025 keystonelaw-ir.co.uk ↗
PwC issued the 2025 Senior Administrative Leaders Compensation and Staffing Report in June 2025. The sample used here is the group report titled AmLaw 100 xNYC - Firms (45 members). Base salary and aggregate compensation are as of 1 January 2025. Bonus is for the year ending 2024. Aggregate compensation combines base salary and bonus. The ‡ mark means less than 75 percent population response. pwc.com, 2025 sample PDF ↗
The Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, Table 1, May 2025, reports national wage-and-salary figures. Chief executives are SOC 11-1011. General and operations managers are SOC 11-1021. The annual figure in that table is the mean, calculated as the hourly mean times 2,080 hours. No legal-services cut is cited here. bls.gov, OEWS Table 1 ↗
Gateley plc, Annual Report and Financial Statements for the year ended 30 April 2025, directors’ remuneration table (salaries and fees, bonus, share options, benefits in kind, total) and the salary review effective 1 May 2025. Gateley annual report PDF ↗ Knights Group Holdings plc, annual report for the year ended 30 April 2025, directors’ emoluments and the salary review effective 1 May 2025. Knights governance PDF ↗ Keystone Law, annual report for the year ended 31 January 2025, directors’ remuneration summary and reported revenue. Keystone annual report PDF ↗
Closed-search medians, timing, and the Chicago hire are Sartori mandate telemetry for 1 October 2023 through 30 September 2026. They are not in the five documents above. The retained fee, 25–30% of first-year total compensation with 30% of the fee as the retainer, is the firm-wide schedule. The market map of 1,480,000+ lawyers counts lawyers.
Law firm COO salary: questions
What is a law firm COO salary in 2026?
A law firm COO salary in the June 2025 PwC sample is a median base of $1,000,000 as of 1 January 2025. The row is the chief operating officer in the 2025 Senior Administrative Leaders Compensation and Staffing Report, comparison group AmLaw 100 xNYC - Firms (45 members). Of those 45 firms, 29 reported a COO base. PwC's first quartile, the upper cutoff, is $1,400,000, and its third quartile, the lower cutoff, is $710,000, both annual base as of 1 January 2025. The double-dagger on that row means fewer than 75 percent of the 45 firms responded. New York City firms are not in the group. Aggregate compensation, which PwC defines as base salary plus bonus, shows a COO median of $1,330,000 as of 1 January 2025, also on 29 firms, with an upper cutoff of $2,250,000 and a lower cutoff of $1,025,000. The bonus median is a different cell: $363,425 for the year ending 2024, on 26 firms. Do not add the base median to the bonus median.
What is executive director law firm pay in the United States?
Executive director law firm pay in that same PwC sample is a median base of $290,000 as of 1 January 2025. Thirteen firms reported. The upper cutoff is $384,360 and the lower cutoff is $244,817, both base as of 1 January 2025. The COO median base of $1,000,000 is 3.4 times this executive director median. Bonus for the year ending 2024 is a median of $30,000 on 13 firms, with an upper cutoff of $65,833 and a lower cutoff of $21,978. Aggregate compensation as of 1 January 2025 is a median of $311,000 on 13 firms, with an upper cutoff of $520,360 and a lower cutoff of $281,101. In this US sample the executive director is not the chief operating officer.
What does a UK law firm pay its chief operating officer?
There is no UK survey median for a law firm chief operating officer; listed issuers publish one director at a time. Gateley plc's annual report for the year ended 30 April 2025 reports the chief operating officer at a salary of £300,000, a cash bonus of nil, a share-option value of £100,000, benefits in kind of £7,000, and a total of £407,000. From 1 May 2025 that salary is £315,000. The £100,000 is the share-option column, not cash. The same report shows the chief executive at a salary of £380,000, benefits in kind of £8,000, and a total of £388,000 for the year ended 30 April 2025, with salary of £399,000 from 1 May 2025, and the chief financial officer on the same reported shape as the chief operating officer. Knights Group Holdings plc, for the year ended 30 April 2025, does not disclose a chief operating officer. Its chief executive, an executive director, received a salary and a total of £360,000, and a salary of £378,000 from 1 May 2025. Its chief financial officer, also an executive director, received a salary of £280,000, a bonus of £100,000, a pension of £14,000, and a total of £394,000, with salary of £294,000 from 1 May 2025. Keystone Law, for the year ended 31 January 2025, reports the chief executive at salary and fees of £357,000, pension of £10,000, and a total of £367,000, and the finance director at a salary of £212,000, a long-term incentive share value of £113,000, pension of £10,000, and a total of £335,000. That directors' table has no chief operating officer line.
Why is an executive director not the same seat as a chief operating officer?
In the US sample, executive director and chief operating officer are different rows; in a UK listed firm, executive director means a board employee-director. PwC prints both US titles in the AmLaw 100 xNYC group and pays them on different base rows, $1,000,000 and $290,000 as of 1 January 2025. A UK annual report uses executive director for the employees who sit on the board, which can be the chief executive, the chief operating officer, or the chief financial officer. Importing the US executive director median into a London chief operating officer brief, or the UK board title into a US executive director offer, prices the wrong seat. Across 18 closed searches from 1 October 2023 through 30 September 2026, 3 first written offers were declined because the firm had priced an executive director title off the chief operating officer survey band.
How long does a law firm COO search take?
Across 18 closed chief operating officer and executive director searches, the median time to an accepted offer was 14 weeks. The window is 1 October 2023 through 30 September 2026: 11 in the United States and 7 in the United Kingdom. The median time to a shortlist of 4 was 29 days. 15 of the 18 accepted the first written offer. The other 3 declined that first offer, and each of those searches still closed with a hire. A 420-lawyer litigation firm in Chicago hired its first non-lawyer chief operating officer in 2025 in 14 weeks, on a $545,000 base and a 35 percent target bonus. The brief for that seat is law firm COO search.
What does Sartori charge for a law firm COO search?
A law firm COO search at Sartori is retained only, at 25–30% of first-year total compensation. The retainer is 30% of that fee, paid at engagement. There is no contingent alternative. To open a search, use contact or read the law firm chief operating officer search brief. These fee terms are the firm-wide retained schedule.
Keep reading.
Law firm COO search
Retained search for a chief operating officer or executive director. Title, lawyer count, and city come before the band.
Open the search briefLaw firm management
Where the operating seat sits among finance, marketing, technology, and talent inside the firm.
See the firm C-suiteLaw firm partner salary 2026
Partner residual after operating cost. A different distribution from the chief operating officer's base.
Read partner payGeneral counsel salary 2026
Company-side general counsel pay. The law firm's own chief legal officer, in the PwC sample, is a different row.
Read GC paySalary benchmarks
The full set of published pay guides, by role and market.
Browse the indexPrice a search
Tell us the title, the lawyer count, and the city. The range is calibrated to that brief.
Contact the firmStart a conversation
Pricing a law firm COO?
Name the title on the brief, the lawyer count, and the city. The band follows that, on a retained search.