Salary · Iowa 2026
Lawyer salary in Iowa 2026: $123,550, not Chicago lockstep.
The dated state table is the number a general counsel in Des Moines actually writes, and the number an Iowa lawyer actually takes home. It is not the Chicago median, and it does not move when a New York lockstep firm does.
Des Moines does not track Chicago lockstep.
The 2026 lawyer salary Iowa table is a May 2025 OEWS distribution, republished by O*NET on 25 August 2026: Iowa wage-and-salary lawyers post a $123,550 median against $165,660 in Chicago-Naperville-Elgin. Across 1,675 structured interviews with New York partners and counsel, the Chicago number is the one companies reach for when they price a Midwest desk.
O*NET’s 25 August 2026 republication of May 2025 BLS OEWS data puts Des Moines-West Des Moines lawyers at a $134,560 median against $165,660 in Chicago-Naperville-Elgin. That is a $31,100 gap. Same survey year. Different payroll.
The figure a company writes and the figure a lawyer earns are on this table. The Chicago number is a neighboring payroll. Who earns which rung is below.
- $201,609
- Iowa Supreme Court associate justicesNCSC salary table as of 1 July 2026
- Ballotpedia, 8 September 2026, citing NCSC
- $182,709
- Iowa Court of Appeals judgesSame NCSC 2025 salary table
- Ballotpedia, 8 September 2026
- $46,611
- Iowa magistrates, statutory part-time31 percent of a full-time judge, January 2026 address
- Condition of the Judiciary via KCRG, 16 January 2026
- +10 FTEs
- State Public Defender seats addedPlus $3.1 million in the 2026 justice-systems budget
- ISBA 2026 Legislative Session Report, 10 June 2026
What the lawyer salary Iowa table measures
The dated number is a wage-and-salary median for lawyers, SOC 23-1011. It is not a lockstep class-year ladder, not an equity draw, and not the paycheck of a self-employed county-seat lawyer.
O*NET OnLine, updating its Iowa wage page on 25 August 2026 from May 2025 Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, puts Iowa lawyers at a median of $123,550 ($59.40 an hour). The 10th percentile is $63,790; the 25th is $81,860; the 75th is $179,610; the 90th is $268,460. The Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook, last modified 27 August 2026, puts the matching U.S. median at $159,670. Iowa is about 77 percent of that national row. That is the 2026 table a candidate googles and the table a head of legal should put in the requisition.
Des Moines-West Des Moines, on the same vintage, sits at $134,560 (10th $65,830; 25th $95,820; 75th $213,150; 90th $292,020). Chicago-Naperville-Elgin sits at $165,660. The Des Moines median is about 9 percent above the Iowa median and $31,100 below Chicago. BLS Midwest news release 26-916-CHI, dated 27 July 2026, puts the Des Moines legal-occupations mean hourly wage at $55.35 against a U.S. legal mean of $67.07; the Chicago sister release, 23 July 2026, puts Chicago at $71.28. Those hourly means fold in paralegals, judges and other legal occupations. They still point the same way: Des Moines is not on Chicago’s rung.
NALP’s Class of 2025 Selected Findings, published 5 August 2026 and measured as of 16 March 2026, put the national entry-level median at $100,000, the private-practice median at $155,000, government entry at $81,000, public interest at $75,000 and judicial clerkships at $72,533. Those are national figures. Iowa does not publish a city NALP scale in the free Selected Findings, so this page does not invent one. What Iowa does publish is the OEWS row, and it is enough to kill the lockstep story.
The OEWS row excludes self-employed lawyers and owners of unincorporated firms. On a state where the Iowa State Bar Association counted, in January 2026, 5,183 of 7,055 in-state practitioners in private practice, a material share of Iowa lawyer income never enters the May 2025 OEWS median of $123,550 that O*NET republished on 25 August 2026. A general counsel using that median as a ceiling for a W-2 in-house seat is using it in the direction the survey allows. A candidate treating it as what a county-seat practice should gross is reading a different instrument. The 25th percentile at $81,860 is the band a head of legal should expect to meet for a junior government hire; it sits next to NALP’s national government median, not next to a first-year lockstep rung.
Iowa Legal Aid staff-attorney entry
Employer careers page; below the Iowa OEWS 10th percentile.
Iowa Legal Aid staff-attorney posting ↗Public and aid floorDes Moines commercial ceiling
- Legal aid and magistrates Poverty-law staff attorneys and statutory part-time judicial officers. Same license. A different instrument from the OEWS median.
- The state median desk Wage-and-salary lawyers in private practice, county government and agency counsel. This is the row the 2026 table actually measures.
- Des Moines in-house and Iowa-band firms Insurer, utility and 90-attorney full-service seats. Upper Iowa band. Still not a Chicago lockstep paycheck.
Waterloo-Cedar Falls publishes a 90th percentile of $360,480 on the same O*NET table. That is a small-cell high-end outlier the Bureau still prints; it is not a second Iowa scale. Treat it as a published tail, not as a hiring target. Cedar Rapids leads the published metro medians at $137,570. Northeast Iowa nonmetro sits at $79,180. Who earns the figure depends on the seat, not on a story about Chicago.
Des Moines is 81 percent of Chicago. That is the table, not a story.
Who writes the Iowa paycheck
The buyer is not a lockstep firm matching a New York class-year number. It is a Des Moines insurer, a rate-regulated utility, an Iowa-band full-service shop, a state Department of Justice, a county attorney, or a legal-aid office.
Des Moines in-house
A Fortune 500 insurer filled an EVP, general counsel and secretary seat effective 8 June 2026 and relocated it to Des Moines. A Berkshire-owned Iowa utility sits the general counsel over legal, rates and government affairs from Locust Street.
Iowa-band full-service firms
The largest Iowa shops publish more than 90 attorneys. Chambers USA 2026 ranks four Iowa departments Band 1 at one of them; Chambers USA 2025 created an Iowa Energy ranking and put another Des Moines firm in Band 1.
State and county public
The Attorney General posts Assistant Attorney General seats, a Revenue section chief over a dozen or so lawyers, and a one-year solicitor-general fellowship. Ninety-nine elected county attorneys handle the vast majority of criminal cases.
Legal aid and the panel
Iowa Legal Aid covers all 99 counties from 10 offices and listed staff-attorney entry at $61,800. The 2026 session added 10 State Public Defender FTEs and a $4-an-hour lift on every indigent-defense appointment.
Of 33 closed New York associate searches over the trailing three years, Sartori’s mandate telemetry records 11 files in which a compensation conversation imported a Chicago or national lockstep number onto a payroll that was not Chicago. Five of those eleven needed a second brief once the local table was produced. The New York associate desk has worked this comparison for more than 10 years. The Iowa row is what the second brief has to carry.
Start with in-house, because that is the desk a general counsel actually controls. Principal Financial Group, a Fortune 500 insurer and asset manager at 711 High Street, announced on 28 April 2026 a new executive vice president, general counsel and secretary, effective 8 June 2026, to lead legal, government relations and compliance from Des Moines. The company reported about 19,000 employees and about 82 million customers as of 31 March 2026. MidAmerican Energy Company, principal place of business at 1615 Locust Street, serves about 1.6 million electric and gas customers; its 2025 delivery to Iowa customers was the equivalent of 95.9 percent carbon-free energy, the Berkshire Hathaway Energy site states. The senior vice president, general counsel oversees legal, regulatory and rates, and government affairs. BLS May 2025 figures put insurance claims and policy processing clerks at a location quotient of 2.44 in Des Moines-West Des Moines. That is the labor market that pays in-house counsel salary Des Moines — an insurance capital, not a satellite of a Chicago law department.
Firm-side pay in Iowa is an Iowa-band number. Nyemaster Goode publishes more than 90 attorneys across Des Moines, Ames and Cedar Rapids. Chambers USA 2026 ranks four of its Iowa departments Band 1: Corporate/M&A, Labor & Employment, Commercial Litigation, and Real Estate. BrownWinick, a 90-plus-attorney shop, took Chambers USA 2025 Band 1 in Corporate/M&A and in the inaugural Iowa Energy category, and its careers page has been hiring laterals in real estate, labor and employment, business immigration, and corporate/M&A. These are the labels a Des Moines buyer of outside counsel actually uses. They are not Chicago lockstep departments, and they do not pay a Chicago lockstep associate scale.
Public buyers write a different check. The Iowa Attorney General’s office carries a FY 2026 proposed budget of $114,594,387, Ballotpedia reported on 10 September 2026, citing the Iowa Department of Management. Officeholder pay is $123,669. Live postings through 19 August 2026 included Assistant Attorney General seats in fraud and trafficking (federal-court practice, cross-designated Special Assistant U.S. Attorney), a HIDTA drug-prosecution seat, a Farm and Freedom civil-litigation seat, a Revenue section chief over “a dozen or so lawyers,” and a one-year Samuel Freeman Miller Honors Fellowship in the Solicitor General’s office. A November 2025 State of Iowa posting for Assistant Attorney General, Major Case Litigation (HHS Division) listed $62,337.60–$153,420.80 annually in Des Moines/Polk. The Iowa Judicial Branch budget for fiscal 2026 is $221,834,378.
The Attorney General’s own divisions page states that Iowa’s 99 elected county attorneys handle the vast majority of the state’s criminal prosecutions. The Iowa County Attorneys Association FY 2025–26 salary survey counts 66 full-time county attorneys (60 by board resolution with private practice prohibited, 6 full-time by choice) and 33 part-time. Outside the five metro counties, the person who earns a county-attorney check often also earns a small-firm check. That stacked income is why the OEWS median and a rural county seat are not the same conversation, and why a company in Des Moines should not price its in-house band against either of them.
Company payrollPublic schedule
- In-house insurer and utility General counsel, deputy, regulatory and coverage counsel on a Des Moines headquarters payroll. The company sets the band. Chicago does not.
- Iowa-band full-service firm Associate and member seats at 90-attorney shops and the small-firm majority behind them. Chambers Iowa ranks, not an Am Law lockstep.
- AG, county attorney, legal aid Statutory and posted public pay. Ninety-nine elected county attorneys; ten legal-aid offices; a State Public Defender expansion in the 2026 budget.
The Handbook also records that lawyers held about 863,700 jobs in 2025, with legal services employing 52 percent, self-employed 11 percent, local government 8 percent, state government 7 percent and federal government 5 percent. Iowa’s mix leans harder on private practice and state-and-county government than that national split, which is why a company that prices a Des Moines in-house seat against a federal or Am Law median overshoots the market it is actually hiring in. The in-house counsel salary 2026 brief covers the national band; this page owns the Iowa row.
Five counties hold the bar. Forty-three counties do not.
The Iowa median is a metro number wearing a state label. The Iowa State Bar Association's January 2026 rural roundtables are the geography underneath it.
On 14 January 2026 the Iowa State Bar Association reported 9,655 licensed attorneys, of whom 7,055 practice in the state and 5,183 are in private practice; about 73 percent of active attorneys are “available to the public.” Five counties — Dallas, Johnson, Linn, Polk and Scott — hold 63 percent of Iowa’s attorneys and 37 percent of its population. Forty-three counties qualify as ABA-defined legal deserts. Thirty-one percent of licensed attorneys are age 60 or older; the Association’s research says as many as 64 counties could qualify as deserts within ten years even if new attorneys stay in Iowa and distribute proportionally. The American Bar Association’s 2024 National Lawyer Population Survey, with data as of 31 December 2023, counted 7,190 Iowa resident active attorneys. That is a different cut from the ISBA practicing-in-state figure; they are not collapsed here.
Projections Central, republished by O*NET, puts Iowa lawyer employment at 3,700 in 2024, rising to 3,940 in 2034 (+6 percent), with 140 projected annual openings. That 3,700 is a projections base. It is not the May 2025 OEWS employment count, which this page does not have, and it is not the 7,055 practitioners. A general counsel who treats those three figures as one headcount will mis-size the pool.
| Area | Median | Versus Iowa median | Seat |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cedar Rapids | $137,570 | Above Iowa median | Metro private practice / in-house |
| Des Moines-West Des Moines | $134,560 | Above Iowa median | Insurance, utility, Iowa-band firms |
| Omaha-Council Bluffs NE-IA | $131,730 | Above Iowa median | Bi-state metro |
| Iowa City | $127,210 | Above Iowa median | University / hospital / firm |
| Waterloo-Cedar Falls | $126,570 | Above Iowa median | Metro; 90th-percentile outlier published |
| Ames | $125,200 | Above Iowa median | DOT satellite / university |
| Davenport-Moline-Rock Island IA-IL | $124,850 | Above Iowa median | Quad Cities bi-state |
| Sioux City IA-NE-SD | $120,790 | Below Iowa median | Tri-state metro |
| Dubuque | $109,270 | Below Iowa median | Smallest published metro median |
| Northwest Iowa nonmetro | $98,130 | Below Iowa median | Rural general practice |
| Southeast Iowa nonmetro | $92,630 | Below Iowa median | Rural general practice |
| Southwest Iowa nonmetro | $90,240 | Below Iowa median | Rural general practice |
| Northeast Iowa nonmetro | $79,180 | Below Iowa median | Lowest published Iowa median |
The pipeline matches the map. The University of Iowa College of Law ABA employment summary for 2025 graduates, as of 16 March 2026, records 158 graduates: 52 employed in Iowa, 25 in Illinois, 12 in Minnesota; 28 went to firms of 501 or more lawyers; government took 18; business and industry 13; state and local clerkships 21; federal clerkships 8; public interest 9. Drake University Law School in Des Moines, on its careers statistics page, reported 91 of 100 Class of 2024 graduates employed, 56 percent in private practice, 18 percent in government, 15 percent in clerkships, and 89 percent of employed graduates in the West North Central division. Drake is the local feeder for Des Moines firms, agencies and insurers. Iowa Law splits between staying and exporting. The export is the Chicago lockstep story. It does not rewrite attorney salary Des Moines.
On the same May 2025 OEWS table republished by O*NET on 25 August 2026, Omaha-Council Bluffs, a Nebraska-Iowa metro named here only as a row, sits at $131,730. Waterloo-Cedar Falls is $126,570. The Quad Cities (Davenport-Moline-Rock Island) sit at $124,850 on an Iowa-Illinois line this page does not explain. Sioux City, on an Iowa-Nebraska-South Dakota line, sits at $120,790, the first published metro below the state median. The South Dakota side of that line is on the South Dakota lawyer salary page for 2026. Southeast Iowa nonmetro is $92,630; Southwest Iowa nonmetro is $90,240. Those six rows complete the table the bars abridge.
BLS Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages for the first quarter of 2026, released 4 September 2026, puts Iowa’s average weekly wage at $1,301 (36th among states and D.C.). Polk County sits at $1,604; Dallas County, the Des Moines west suburbs, at $1,771. Those are all-occupation covered wages, not lawyer pay. They do tell a head of HR why a Des Moines in-house band can clear the Iowa median without approaching Chicago: the cost of labor around the seat is a Polk-and-Dallas number.
The statutes that pull the table are Iowa’s, not Chicago’s.
Iowa's 2026 session adjourned 3 May. It moved indigent-defense economics, built a rural loan tool, and modernized magistrates. It did not raise judicial-officer salaries, and it did not write a lockstep scale.
Holding yearStructural tools
- Indigent-defense rate An across-the-board hourly lift on every contract appointment, plus State Public Defender headcount. Demand on the public panel, not on a Des Moines insurer desk.
- Rural loan repayment The first statutory tool aimed at the desert problem the bar documented in January. It finances junior rural seats. It does not create a general counsel requisition.
- Magistrate right-size Workload formula replaces a county-by-county statutory count. Remaining part-time judicial work concentrates; rural counties lose a local officer.
The Iowa State Bar Association’s 2026 Legislative Session Report, posted 10 June 2026, records a $4 an hour increase for all indigent-defense contract appointments beginning 1 July, a cumulative +$22 an hour since 2019 (+36.6 percent on the base). The justice-systems budget added $3.1 million and 10 State Public Defender FTEs. The Association had sought $100 / $95 / $90 by felony class; the $4 across-the-board was what the budget allowed. Funding is shared with the loan program: a $20 surcharge on most civil filing fees, split 50/50. The 2025 precursor, Senate File 644 signed 11 June 2025, had added $2 an hour. 2026 is the first session that pairs a rate bump with a rural-loan tool.
Qualifying attorneys may receive up to $10,000 per year for six years toward eligible student loans, state-income-tax exempt, capped at 25 new awards a year and 150 at one time. Eligibility is an accredited-law-school graduate within five years of application, Iowa-licensed, practicing in Iowa or committing to. Priority goes first to those who reside and practice in a rural area — a county or municipality under 26,000 and more than 20 miles from a city of 50,000 or more — and who provide at least 50 hours of indigent defense a year. That is a junior rural general-practice instrument. It is not a Des Moines deputy-GC instrument.
HF 2706 replaces the statutory 206 magistrates with a case-related workload formula set by the Iowa Supreme Court. Terms under the new scheme begin 1 August 2027. The Chief Justice’s January 2026 Condition of the Judiciary had asked to right-size by about 60 posts and save a minimum of $2.5 million annually; the address also recorded a District 8A opening in April 2025 that drew two attorney applicants, and a 1 June 2025 Davenport OWI complaint dismissed after two and a half months with no court-appointed counsel. The 2026 session passed the magistrate bill. It did not pass the 4.3 percent judicial-officer increase ($2,256,477) the branch had asked for FY 2027. HF 2800 gives the Supreme Court authority to set judicial-officer salaries later. A $500,000 line for new Business Court judges is a commercial-docket seat, not a lockstep raise. A May 2025 study-bill formula that would have pegged district judges to a percentage of federal district-judge pay is not current law, and this page does not write it as one.
Commercial rules that create or remove Iowa seats in 2026 sit next to those public tools. Senate File 383, the PBM statute signed in June 2025, never went into effect: a district-court split injunction and cross-appeals to the Eighth Circuit followed, Healthcare Dive reported on 9 October 2025, with pharmacy associations citing more than 200 Iowa pharmacy closures since 2014, 34 of them in 2024. That docket is insurance-regulatory, ERISA and appellate work at the Iowa Insurance Division, at Des Moines plan sponsors, and at Iowa-band firms — now, through the appeal, not a 2027 associate class. Worthwhile Wind, LLC v. Worth County Board of Supervisors, Iowa Supreme Court opinion 24 April 2026, is the land-use fight over wind siting and vested rights. HF 2527, effective 1 July 2026, limits climate-tort liability for agricultural and renewable-fuel greenhouse-gas claims. HF 2660 lifts the small-estate affidavit threshold to $100,000; Senate File 2497, the Uniform Assignment for Benefit of Creditors Act, takes effect 1 January 2027. Those last two move volume on estate and creditors’ rights desks. They do not move Chicago.
The session moved public-defender economics. It did not move judicial-officer pay.
Price the seat against the table, then run the search.
A general counsel in Des Moines and an Iowa lawyer reading the same OEWS row are looking at one number. The hire still fails when the brief pretends that number is Chicago.
We have worked the New York associate market for more than 10 years, for companies and for firms, in insurance, energy and corporate seats. Over the last three years we closed 33 associate searches at a 94 percent completion rate on a typical timeline of 6 to 12 weeks. New York mandate telemetry on those same 33 files records a 37 percent counter-offer incidence and a median 11 working days from offer to acceptance. Eight of the 33 involved a Midwest-desk relocation; those eight ran to a median 14 days to signature, still inside the same closed-search set. The credential gate on almost every Iowa seat is admission to the Iowa bar, or a deadline to obtain it. Iowa Legal Aid and MidAmerican both accept admission on motion or a next-exam / one-year license condition. County attorneys must also be registered voters of the county under Iowa Code § 331.751 (2025). A company that writes a Chicago number and forgets the Iowa license has not opened a real search.
Your exposure is a mispriced band, not a thin shortlist. Des Moines has lawyers. It does not have Chicago lockstep lawyers sitting on an Iowa payroll.
- Put the OEWS row in the brief. Iowa $123,550, Des Moines $134,560, Chicago $165,660, same May 2025 OEWS vintage on O*NET. Candidates will find the table. The brief should find it first.
- Name the buyer type. Insurer GC, utility regulatory, Iowa-band corporate/M&A, Assistant Attorney General, county attorney, legal aid. Each writes a different check on the same license.
- Budget the Iowa bar as a gate, not a preference. On-motion or next-exam language belongs in the requisition, not in week eight.
- Expect the counter-offer. Our New York associate line runs a 37 percent incidence. A Des Moines insurer defending a regulatory counsel seat will defend it; replacement costs a license cycle, not just a search.
- Do not gold-plate the title. A coverage counsel seat at a Des Moines carrier is not a Chicago capital-markets seat. Writing it as one empties the shortlist.
Your ceiling is the Iowa 90th and the Des Moines in-house band, not a class-year lockstep you watched a classmate take in Illinois.
- Read the 10th and the 90th, not only the median. May 2025 OEWS via O*NET puts Iowa at $63,790 to $268,460. Legal-aid entry sits under the 10th; the Des Moines 75th on that table is $213,150.
- The export seats are real, and they are not this payroll. Iowa Law’s Class of 2025 ABA summary sent 28 graduates into 501-plus firms and 25 into Illinois. Pricing an Iowa in-house move against them is how an offer dies.
- Rural tools are dated and capped. The 2026 loan program, per the Iowa bar’s 10 June 2026 session report, is $10,000 a year for six years, 25 new awards, with a statutory rural definition. It is not a metro raise.
- Public schedules are public. Ballotpedia in September 2026 puts the Attorney General at $123,669 and justices at $201,609; the January 2026 Condition of the Judiciary puts magistrates at $46,611. If the seat is public, those are the comparators, not the OEWS 90th.
- Test the market quietly. The Des Moines insurer-and-firm bench is small. Our in-house candidate desk runs no-names conversations; the company CTA on this page is for the employer.
Two anonymized composites from the same 33-file New York associate book show the pattern. A New York-headquartered insurer filling a Des Moines insurance-regulatory counsel seat arrived with a Chicago midpoint in the first brief. We put the May 2025 OEWS row on the page in week one; the company reset the band to a Des Moines 75th and closed in nine weeks, inside the 6-to-12-week typical timeline, against a 37 percent counter-offer that the incumbent employer made and the candidate declined. A second file, an Iowa-band full-service firm asking us to price a Des Moines energy associate against a national lockstep number, ran 14 weeks — past our usual window — because the first candidate conversation had already quoted Chicago. That file closed only after a second shortlist. We briefed the Chicago number. That was our error, and it is why the dated table now goes in the first memo, not the third. A third file, a rate-regulated utility holding company filling a Des Moines generation-and-storage counsel seat, arrived with the Iowa-license deadline already written. That one closed in eight weeks, inside the typical window. The brief had the table in it before we did. It is the file we now ask every other Midwest-desk client to copy.
A chief legal officer of a New York-headquartered insurer with a Des Moines operating company, speaking in the same 1,675-interview cohort over a 24-month window, put it without decoration: the company had been matching Chicago in its head for three cycles, and the first Des Moines candidate who opened O*NET ended the habit. A head of legal at a rate-regulated Midwest utility holding company, from that same cohort, said the Des Moines in-house band dies the day a Chicago number is quoted to a candidate who then searches the state table. Across 1,675 structured interviews with New York partners and counsel, 214 of 390 in-house hiring managers over that 24-month window told Sartori they had benchmarked a Midwest legal seat against a Chicago or national lockstep number rather than against the state OEWS table. That is the habit this page is for.
The service view of the in-house book sits on our in-house counsel recruiting page; the associate line that carries the 33 closed searches sits on our associate recruiting page. Companies building a first legal function rather than adding a seat should start with hiring a first general counsel and how to run a general counsel search. The neighboring Illinois table, named here only for contrast, is lawyer salary in Illinois 2026.
- Q1 Is this seat on an Iowa payroll, or is it an export seat that happens to recruit Iowa graduates? If it is an export seat → the Chicago or national lockstep table is the right instrument, and this page is the wrong one.
- Q2 Who writes the check — insurer or utility, Iowa-band firm, Attorney General, county, or legal aid? If you cannot name the buyer type → you do not yet have a band. The OEWS median is a starting row, not a job offer.
- Q3 Is Iowa bar admission a day-one gate, a one-year condition, or irrelevant because the work is federal-only? If you have not decided → the shortlist you circulate will mix people who can start with people who cannot.
- → All three answered? Then put the May 2025 OEWS row in the brief, name the buyer, and run the search on the 6-to-12-week clock.
What our New York file cannot see.
A page that only confirms the method is a constructed page. The uncomfortable numbers are the ones that make the rest usable.
Sartori maps roughly 67,000 lawyers in New York. That file records admission, employer and practice. It is a density map for the city whose associate desk closed the 33 searches on this page. It is not an Iowa wage survey, and it does not contain county-attorney pay, legal-aid scales beyond the $61,800 entry the employer publishes, or the in-house bands a Des Moines insurer actually pays its counsel. Those last figures are not in the three research files behind this article, and they are not invented here.
Of the 33 closed New York associate searches over three years, none was a county-attorney file and none was a legal-aid file. The 66 full-time / 33 part-time county-attorney split is the Association’s instrument, not a closed-search count of ours. Iowa Legal Aid closed 14,133 cases for 34,394 Iowans in 2025, with 237 volunteer attorneys, on its own impact page. We can cite those instruments. We cannot pretend our mandate telemetry covers them. Three of the 11 lockstep-import files stalled past 12 weeks because we let a Chicago number into the first candidate conversation; two of those three closed only after a second shortlist. That is the finding that cuts against us, and it is why the dated Iowa table opens this page.
Quarterly market surveys have run since 2019 across a global mapping of nearly 1.5 million lawyer profiles. Those surveys see compensation expectations. They do not see the Iowa magistrate statute, the 25-award loan cap, or the Eighth Circuit docket on SF 383. A company that wants those rules in the brief will not get them from a national lockstep memo. It will get them from the table and from the session report.
| Geography | 10th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Iowa | $63,790 | $123,550 | $179,610 | $268,460 |
| Des Moines-West Des Moines | $65,830 | $134,560 | $213,150 | $292,020 |
| Chicago-Naperville-Elgin | $87,070 | $165,660 | $232,270 | $331,140 |
| United States | $78,360 | $159,670 | $221,370 | $351,600 |
Common questions on lawyer pay in Iowa
What is the 2026 lawyer salary Iowa figure on the state table?
The 2026 state table, May 2025 BLS OEWS via O*NET, puts Iowa lawyers at a $123,550 median. The 10th percentile is $63,790 and the 90th is $268,460. Des Moines-West Des Moines sits at $134,560. These are wage-and-salary figures; they exclude self-employed lawyers and owners of unincorporated firms, which is why the Iowa State Bar Association’s January 2026 count of 7,055 in-state practitioners is a larger universe than the 3,700 wage-and-salary jobs Projections Central put on the 2024 employment base.
Does lawyer salary Des Moines track Chicago lockstep?
No. Des Moines-West Des Moines lawyers posted a $134,560 median against Chicago-Naperville-Elgin’s $165,660 on the same May 2025 OEWS table. That is about 81 percent of Chicago, a $31,100 gap. Illinois statewide sat at $160,800. BLS Midwest releases dated July 2026 put the legal-occupations mean hourly wage at $55.35 in Des Moines versus $71.28 in Chicago.
What does in house counsel salary Des Moines actually buy?
It buys a Des Moines insurer, utility or Iowa-band firm desk, not a Chicago lockstep paycheck. The May 2025 OEWS median for Des Moines-West Des Moines lawyers is $134,560. A Fortune 500 insurer headquartered at 711 High Street named a new EVP, general counsel and secretary effective 8 June 2026 and relocated the seat to Des Moines. Iowa Legal Aid’s March 2025 staff-attorney posting listed entry at $61,800. Neither number is a Cravath rung.
How many lawyers practice in Iowa, and who pays them?
The Iowa State Bar Association counted 7,055 attorneys practicing in-state in January 2026, of 9,655 licensed, with 5,183 in private practice and five counties holding 63 percent of them. Projections Central put Iowa lawyer employment at 3,700 in 2024. Who pays: those private-practice desks, Des Moines insurers and a Berkshire-owned utility, the Attorney General, 99 county attorneys, and Iowa Legal Aid.
What did the 2026 Iowa legislature change for lawyer pay?
The Iowa bar reported on 10 June 2026 a $4-an-hour indigent-defense lift from 1 July and no judicial-officer raise. The same session added 10 State Public Defender FTEs and $3.1 million, created an Attorney Loan Repayment Program of up to $10,000 a year for six years capped at 25 new awards, and signed HF 2706 to replace the statutory 206 magistrates with a workload formula from 1 August 2027.
How long does a company take to hire an Iowa lawyer?
Sartori’s New York associate desk closes typical searches in 6 to 12 weeks, with a 94 percent completion rate on 33 closed searches over three years. Median offer-to-acceptance is 11 working days; counter-offers hit 37 percent. Iowa bar admission, or a deadline to obtain it, is the credential gate on almost every in-state seat. County attorneys must also be registered voters of the county under Iowa Code § 331.751.
BLS wage tables, the Iowa bar, the judicial schedule, and the 2026 session.
Lawyer percentiles come from May 2025 OEWS via O*NET. Headcount geography comes from the Iowa State Bar Association. Public schedules come from Ballotpedia, NCSC and the Condition of the Judiciary. Session outcomes come from the ISBA 10 June 2026 report.
Sources and further reading
34 references- Sartori & Partners — New York Legal Talent Research Programme (1675 structured interviews; ~67,000 lawyers mapped; quarterly surveys since 2019; mandate telemetry) sartoriglobal.com ↗
- Iowa Wages: 23-1011.00 - Lawyers onetonline.org ↗
- Illinois Wages: 23-1011.00 - Lawyers onetonline.org ↗
- Lawyers : Occupational Outlook Handbook bls.gov ↗
- Occupational Employment and Wages in Des Moines-West Des Moines — May 2025 bls.gov ↗
- Occupational Employment and Wages in Chicago-Naperville-Elgin — May 2025 bls.gov ↗
- Iowa Employment Trends: 23-1011.00 - Lawyers onetonline.org ↗
- ISBA shares findings from Rural Practice Roundtables across Iowa iowabar.org ↗
- 2024 ABA National Lawyer Population Survey americanbar.org ↗
- Iowa court salaries and budgets ballotpedia.org ↗
- Iowa state government salary ballotpedia.org ↗
- Attorney General of Iowa ballotpedia.org ↗
- Iowa chief justice calls for changes to magistrate system, employee pay structure kcrg.com ↗
- 2026 Legislative Session Report iowabar.org ↗
- Staff Attorney - Iowa Legal Aid iowalegalaid.org ↗
- Locations - Iowa Legal Aid iowalegalaid.org ↗
- 2025 Iowa Legal Aid Impact iowalegalaid.org ↗
- Iowa Code Section 331.751 (2025) — Office of county attorney law.justia.com ↗
- ICAA salary survey FY 25–26 iowa-icaa.com ↗
- Job Postings | Iowa Attorney General iowaattorneygeneral.gov ↗
- Divisions | Iowa Attorney General iowaattorneygeneral.gov ↗
- Principal Financial Group Names New General Counsel principal.com ↗
- MidAmerican Energy Company : Berkshire Hathaway Energy brkenergy.com ↗
- Iowa Roots, Global Reach / About | Nyemaster Goode, P.C. nyemaster.com ↗
- Nyemaster Goode PC, USA 2026 | Chambers Profiles chambers.com ↗
- Laterals & Associates - BrownWinick Law Firm brownwinick.com ↗
- Chambers USA 2025 Guide Recognizes Five BrownWinick Practice Areas brownwinick.com ↗
- IOWA, UNIVERSITY OF EMPLOYMENT SUMMARY FOR 2025 GRADUATES law.uiowa.edu ↗
- Employment Statistics | Drake University drake.edu ↗
- Employment for the Class of 2025 — Selected Findings nalp.org ↗
- Worthwhile Wind, LLC v. Worth County Board of Supervisors iowacourts.gov ↗
- Pharmacy groups defend Iowa PBM law amid legal challenge healthcaredive.com ↗
- County Employment and Wages in Iowa — First Quarter 2026 bls.gov ↗
- State-by-state tracking of judicial salaries ncsc.org ↗
OEWS figures measure wage-and-salary lawyers (SOC 23-1011) and exclude self-employed owners. ISBA counts measure licenses and in-state practice. Judicial and executive salaries are officeholder schedules. Projections Central 3,700 is a 2024 employment base, not a May 2025 OEWS employment count. SF 383 is on appeal and is not treated as operative. The May 2025 HSB 340 district-judge formula is a study-bill score, not enacted pay.
Our own numbers — the New York interview cohort, the 33 closed associate searches, the counter-offer incidence and the offer-to-acceptance window — come from the continuous research program described on our research page and the methodology page, which set out the cohorts, the survey waves and the mapping coverage behind every Sartori figure quoted above.
Adjacent tables for the same two readers.
Lawyer salary in Illinois 2026
The neighboring table this page names for contrast: Chicago-Naperville-Elgin at $165,660, and why that payroll is not Iowa's.
Read the Illinois tableIn-house counsel salary 2026
How companies price a legal seat on the payroll when the published figure is a national band rather than a state OEWS median.
Read the in-house bandLawyer salary 2026
The national OEWS median and industry mix behind the Iowa row: federal, legal services, local and state government.
Read the national tableA quiet conversation
Price the Iowa seat against the table, not against Chicago.
We help general counsel, chief legal officers and heads of HR put an Iowa lawyer on the payroll at a band the dated table will support. Confidential, no obligation.