Salary · New York 2026
Lawyer salary in New York 2026: July scale versus year-end bonus
On July 1, 2026 New York lockstep bases moved to $235,000–$455,000 under a June 2, 2026 memorandum. The year-end bonus that still prices an autumn hire was set by Cravath on November 18, 2025. This page is for the associate who earns that cash and the general counsel who has to match it.
A New York hire in 2026 is priced off two clocks, not one number.
July payroll moved. Year-end bonus did not. The associate who earns the figure and the general counsel who matches it are reading different calendars of the same cash.
On July 1, 2026 a first-year lockstep associate in New York moved to a $235,000 base under a June 2, 2026 memorandum published by Above the Law. Across 1,675 structured interviews with New York associates and counsel, 268 of the 412 respondents sitting as in-house counsel or general counsel over a 24-month window told Sartori their last firm-to-company offer was written to lockstep base alone.
A June 2, 2026 memorandum published by Above the Law raised lockstep bases effective July 1, 2026: plus $10,000 for years one through four, plus $20,000 for years five through eight. That is payroll. It is not a 2026 year-end. Price July payroll off the new base.
Four ledgers, one metro, one calendar year. The mistake is adding them. The dated instruments sit in the table below.
- 29
- New York City 2L summer associates per office, 2025Largest market; national average was eight
- NALP Perspectives on 2025 Law Student Recruiting, January 26, 2026
- 1,077
- Lawyers in the largest New York office, 2025Up 11.1% from 969 in 2024
- New York Law Journal, July 22, 2026
- 4.2%
- Law-firm demand growth, first half of 2026Against a historical 1.5–2% band
- Law.com reporting Citi Law Firm Group, August 17, 2026
- 92.8%
- Class of 2025 employment rateStatus date March 16, 2026; salaries collected before the June raise
- NALP Selected Findings, August 5, 2026
The two clocks behind lawyer salary New York in 2026
The associate reads a class-year base that moved on July 1. The general counsel matching that associate in September still reads a bonus memorandum from last November.
New York City was already at a $225,000 first-year median as of January 1, 2025, NALP's 2025 U.S. Associate Salary Survey (released May 28, 2025) shows, so July 1 is a dated raise on a city that was already sitting on the old floor. Only 32 percent of surveyed offices, and 45 percent of 701-plus-lawyer firms, reported paying $225,000; it was nonetheless the modal reported first-year figure. The general counsel matching after July 1 is matching a new monthly base against last year's bonus.
That is the window this page owns. The national class-year ladder is a different URL. So is London versus New York as a market shape. Here the question is narrower: when a 2026 New York hire is priced off the July scale, and when it is still priced off year-end bonus, for the person who earns it and the person who pays it.
The June 2 memorandum is a complete class-year instrument. Classes of 2026 and 2025 move to $235,000; 2024 to $245,000; 2023 to $270,000; 2022 to $320,000; 2021 to $385,000; 2020 to $410,000; 2019 to $440,000; 2018 to $455,000. The same memo applied the 2026/2025 increase to then-current summer associates on the same date. What it is not: a survey median, a bonus, or a New York-only premium. Firms that matched it — McDermott on June 2, Quinn Emanuel on June 4, Seward & Kissel on June 9, Sullivan & Cromwell on June 26, Norton Rose Fulbright on June 30, per Above the Law's running 2026 scorecard — pay that base in New York because they pay it everywhere they compete for the same class.
July payrollLast disclosed bonus
- The base clock A dated memorandum, effective mid-year, paid as monthly salary. Once a firm has matched, every subsequent offer on that payroll is the new rung.
- The mixed offer A company or a late-matching firm writing in autumn 2026. New base as payroll, last year's year-end as a true-up, or a refusal to carry the true-up at all.
- The bonus clock A November instrument that still prices cash until a 2026 year-end is announced. Specials sit on this clock. They are not a substitute for it.
| Class year | Seniority | July 1, 2026 base | July 2026 special |
|---|---|---|---|
| Class of 2026 / 2025 | 1st / 2nd year | $235,000 | $6,000 |
| Class of 2024 | 3rd year | $245,000 | $10,000 |
| Class of 2023 | 4th year | $270,000 | $15,000 |
| Class of 2022 | 5th year | $320,000 | $20,000 |
| Class of 2021 | 6th year | $385,000 | $25,000 |
| Class of 2020 | 7th year | $410,000 | $25,000 |
| Class of 2019 | 7th / 8th year | $440,000 | $25,000 |
| Class of 2018 | 8th year & senior | $455,000 | $25,000 |
Adding a $15,000 2025 year-end and a $6,000 2026 special to the new $235,000 first-year base produces $256,000 of last-disclosed cash. That arithmetic is an illustration. It is not a 2026 year-end announcement.
Hours gates sit on the bonus clock, not the base clock. Quinn Emanuel's June 4 match carried a 2,000-hour bonus gate; Norton Rose Fulbright's June 30 match carried a 1,900-hour gate; Cravath's November 18, 2025 year-end carried none, as Above the Law reported that day. A general counsel who matches "the scale" without asking which gate travels with which component is matching a headline, not an offer.
| Hire you are writing | Clock that prices it | Live instrument |
|---|---|---|
| Associate already on a matching-firm payroll after July 1 | July base | June 2, 2026 memorandum, effective July 1, 2026 |
| Autumn 2026 firm-to-company lateral | July base plus last disclosed year-end | November 18, 2025 Cravath scale; 2026 year-end unannounced |
| Public-to-firm move | Statutory table versus July base | OPM 2026-NY; City posting of May 12, 2026; UCS-360 of April 1, 2026 |
| In-house match against a posted band | Committee band versus July base | The employer's own posting, not lockstep |
| Offer at a firm that delayed the floor | Old base until January 1, 2027 | Ice Miller and McKool Smith, per the 2026 scorecard |
The general counsel matching after July 1 is matching a new monthly base against last year's bonus.
Attorney salary New York sits on more than one payroll.
Lockstep firms, the City, the federal GS, the state courts, and corporate legal departments pay New York lawyers from instruments that do not share a raise date.
Sartori maps roughly 67,000 lawyers in New York. That file records admission, employer and practice. It does not record which clock an offer was written against. The Office of Court Administration's year-end 2025 registry is a different census: 102,325 registered New York attorneys listing a New York County business or residence address, 125,103 across the five boroughs, 193,536 in-state, 367,591 in total. That is registered-bar geography, including non-practicing and out-of-state office holders. It is not a count of people working in Manhattan, and it is not this firm's mapping file.
Firm-side demand is still a Manhattan concentration. The New York Law Journal, on July 22, 2026, ranked New York offices by lawyer headcount; the largest-office figure sits in the grid above. The 2026 New York 100 hub described 2025 growth as fueled by high-stakes litigation and deals, with many firms generating more revenue without relying solely on headcount. The seats being priced off the July scale in this metro are lockstep associates in M&A, capital markets, financial institutions and commercial litigation, plus litigation-boutique associates whose firms matched at or above the floor. Public buyers posting attorney titles in this metro included the City Law Department, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, and the Office of the New York State Attorney General's Manhattan bureaus — Appeals & Opinions, Litigation, Criminal Enforcement & Financial Crimes, Environmental Protection, and Investor Protection among them.
The general counsel who pays a matching figure sits somewhere else: in a bank, a fund, a corporate department, or a public legal desk. Thomson Reuters Institute, on March 24, 2026, surveyed more than 2,400 general counsel globally; as of the fourth quarter of 2025, 36 percent expected to increase outside-counsel spend over the next year and 20 percent expected to decrease it, and nearly half named staffing and resource constraints as the top barrier to delivering additional value. That is not a New York salary table. It is the budget the New York match has to survive.
The associate on a matching-firm payroll after July 1 is already earning the new base. The open question is which bonus components still attach.
- Year-end is last year's. Cravath's November 18, 2025 scale paid New York associates on December 12, 2025 with no hours requirement. Until a 2026 year-end prints, a lateral offer that "includes bonus" is carrying that instrument.
- The summer special already paid. A July 2026 special matching the 2024 and 2025 special schedule was payable by August 31, 2026. An associate who received it has already banked 2026 mid-year cash. A general counsel hiring that associate in September is not hiring someone who is still waiting on it.
- Hours gates are not the base. A bonus hours gate, where a matching firm imposed one, decides whether last year's year-end is collectible. It does not change the July 1 payroll number.
The general counsel, chief legal officer or head of legal matching that hire is writing against a 2026 department budget, not against 2025 firm profits.
- Outside counsel and headcount trade. Thomson Reuters Institute and Georgetown Law, in the 2026 Report on the State of the US Legal Market released January 7, 2026, still put 90 percent of legal dollars on hourly billing, while net spend anticipation among general counsel dropped toward levels not seen since the pandemic, with forecasts pointing to contraction by mid-2026.
- Posted in-house cash sits lower. Intesa Sanpaolo's New York CIB legal department posted an in-house legal counsel associate, reporting to Head of Legal, on August 29, 2026 at $120,000 to $160,000 for three to five years of banking or financial-services experience. That ceiling is $75,000 below the new first-year lockstep base.
- A true-up is a committee vote. Matching July payroll is one decision. Putting a 2025 special into the offer is another. The second one is where New York company-side searches stall.
The July base was paid from 2025 profits, into a class already locked.
The memorandum of June 2, 2026 is a mid-year cash reset funded by calendar 2025. The New York 2L class that will earn it in 2027 was largely offered before July 2025.
David Lat, on April 30, 2026, restating the 2026 Am Law 100, put 2025 gross revenue at $178.95 billion (plus 13.0 percent), revenue per lawyer at $1.39 million (plus 8.7 percent), profits per equity partner at $3.59 million (plus 14.0 percent), and attorney headcount at 128,868 after a 4.0 percent rise — against 7.7 percent the year before. Equity-partner count rose 2 percent; nonequity rose almost 7 percent. Above the Law, on April 15, 2026, placed Wachtell revenue per lawyer at $5.085 million and profits per equity partner at $12.152 million. That is the cash that funded a June raise effective July 1. It is not 2026 year-end, and it is not a New York-only P&L.
SIFMA's Research Quarterly for the second quarter of 2026, published July 16, 2026, recorded $121.6 billion of U.S. IPOs in that quarter and $1,459.2 billion of completed M&A year-to-date. New York is the origination seat for a large share of that work. A general counsel matching a capital-markets associate in summer 2026 was matching July base into a half-year whose demand growth Citi's Law Firm Group, as reported by Law.com on August 17, 2026, called rare against its historical band.
The pipeline underneath that cash was already closed. NALP's Perspectives on 2025 Law Student Recruiting, released January 26, 2026, put New York City as the largest 2L summer market, with the smallest national class size since 2020. Offer rate from those 2L programs to return as entry-level associates was 97 percent; acceptance of those offers was 89.4 percent. Of 2026 2L summer recruiting, 85 percent of offers went out before July 2025. The July 2026 scale is being paid to a New York class that was locked a year before the memorandum.
Entry-level volume is not the same as lateral demand. NALP's Class of 2025 Selected Findings, published August 5, 2026 with a status date of March 16, 2026, states that salary information was collected before some large firms increased starting salaries to $235,000 in June 2026. The Mid-Atlantic row — New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania — accounted for 21.9 percent of located jobs, with a median of $115,000 and a 75th percentile of $225,000. That 75th percentile is the old floor, collected before the raise this page is about.
We can match the July number. We cannot put last November's special into base.
The public ledger did not move with the June memorandum.
A first-year lockstep base now sits above the City attorney ceiling, above the GS-15 New York cap, and $2,300 below a New York State Supreme Court Justice.
A lawyer salary NYC conversation that starts from the City posting or a GS-15 cap, and one that starts from the July memorandum, are not the same conversation. The City of New York's Assistant Corporation Counsel posting of May 12, 2026 advertised $87,737 to $188,235. Experience bands on that posting run $87,737 to $122,300 at zero to five years; $122,300 to $137,188 at five to ten; $137,188 to $159,521 at ten to fifteen; and $159,521 to $180,791 at fifteen to twenty. The Law Department's own careers page for admitted attorneys repeats the $87,737 to $188,235 envelope. A first-year lockstep base of $235,000 sits $46,765 above that ceiling. The Law Department's entry-level careers page states that it typically hires an entry class of 40 to 80 recent graduates a year, with the majority placed in litigating divisions in order of numbers of placements: Tort, Labor and Employment, Special Federal Litigation, Family Court, General Litigation. City residency is not required. Federal-court divisions require admission or immediate availability for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York.
OPM Salary Table 2026-NY, effective January 2026, applies a 1 percent General Schedule increase plus 37.95 percent locality for New York-Newark. GS-12 runs $105,481 to $137,128; GS-13 $125,431 to $163,062; GS-14 $148,222 to $192,694; GS-15 step 1 is $174,347, with steps 5 through 10 capped at $197,200. That cap is the cash ceiling for a federal agency attorney on the GS in this locality. It is $37,800 below the new first-year lockstep base. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, in an open-continuous Assistant United States Attorney posting updated June 10, 2026, pays on an administratively determined scale by years of attorney experience; the GS locality table is the floor underneath that posting, not the posting's own number. New York bar is not required; any U.S. jurisdiction plus citizenship and the 28 U.S.C. §545 residence rule are.
The Unified Court System moved on a third calendar. Appellate Division, First Department announcement 51607, posted April 13, 2026 for 180 Maiden Lane, lists Attorney JG-23 at $84,659 plus $4,920 location pay; Senior Attorney JG-26 at $99,490 plus $4,920; Associate Attorney JG-28 at $110,853 plus $4,920; Principal Attorney JG-31 at $130,061 plus $4,920. OSC Payroll Bulletin UCS-360, issued March 10, 2026, implemented a 2 percent judicial increase effective April 1, 2026: Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals $271,000; Associate Judge $262,700; Appellate Division Associate Justice $250,100; Supreme Court Justice $237,300; New York City Civil, Criminal and Housing Judge $220,800. A Supreme Court Justice at $237,300 now sits $2,300 above the July 2026 first-year firm base. The public ledger did not move with the June memorandum.
A chief legal officer at a New York-headquartered bank told Sartori, in that same cohort and over the same 24-month window, that the compensation committee would match the July number and would not put last November's special into base. A head of legal at a DFS-licensed insurer, in the same cohort, described the April 15, 2026 23 NYCRR 500 certification as the work that justified a mid-level in-house seat even when the committee would not match lockstep cash for an FCPA-only title. Those are two different company problems sharing one metro and one raise.
City Assistant Corporation Counsel minimum
Posted May 12, 2026 on cityjobs.nyc.gov; 0–5 year band starts here.
City of New York job posting, May 12, 2026 ↗The first offer that matches only July is the offer that gets rewritten.
The files that ran long stalled on bonus true-up, not on shortlist quality.
Sartori & Partners runs a continuous research program over nearly 1.5 million lawyer profiles mapped globally, with quarterly market surveys running since 2019. We have worked the New York associate line for more than 10 years. Over the trailing three years we closed 33 associate searches with a 93 percent completion rate, a median of 11 working days from offer to signature, and a typical timeline of 6 to 12 weeks. Counter-offer incidence on this line is 37 percent.
Of those 33 closed New York associate searches over three years, 19 were company-side laterals — a general counsel, chief legal officer or head of legal buying a lockstep associate onto the payroll — and 14 were firm-side associate seats. Of the 19 company-side files, 11 first offers were written to then-current lockstep base without a year-end true-up. Seven of those 11 required a rewritten offer before signature. Median rewrite sat inside the 11-day window. The shortlist was not the delay. The first number was.
Six of the 33 closed files ran past twelve weeks. Four of those six stalled on the company's compensation committee refusing a 2025-bonus true-up on a July-scale (or then-current) base. Sartori closed those files. We closed them late, and the delay was the company's, not the market's. That is the finding that does not flatter the method: a clean shortlist does not rescue an offer written to the wrong clock.
Sartori's quarterly survey since 2019, in the 2026 second-quarter New York in-house wave, recorded 61 of 94 general counsel and heads of legal saying they would not put 2025 year-end bonus into the first offer on a lockstep hire. That read sits next to the 268 of 412 in-house respondents in the interview cohort who described their last firm-to-company offer as base-only. The survey asks what the company intends to do. The cohort records what the last offer actually said.
Match July payrollLose the first choice
- Write the live base The July 1 rung, or the delayed January 2027 floor if that is the firm the hire is leaving. This is payroll. It is the part a committee can usually sign.
- Decide the true-up Last year's year-end, the 2026 summer special if it has not been paid, hours-gate treatment, class-year credit. This is the vote that stalls the file.
- Take the counter A 37 percent counter-offer line means the incumbent firm still has a move. A company that matched only the base discovers that here, not in the term sheet.
Two composites from that book, described by category only. A PE-backed healthcare platform hired a year-four lockstep associate onto an in-house seat after July 1, 2026. The first offer matched the $270,000 July base and was silent on bonus. On working day eight the company rewrote it to add the $15,000 July special as a signing amount. Signature came on working day eleven. The file closed in week nine, inside the 6-to-12-week envelope. The candidate never saw a second firm. The committee saw a second number.
A European bank's New York CIB legal desk opened a three-to-five-year in-house counsel seat against a committee cap of $160,000 — the same band a foreign-bank posting in this metro advertised on August 29, 2026. The first-choice candidate was a third-year on the $245,000 July rung. The desk did not match. It hired from the City Law Department's five-to-ten-year band instead, at a figure inside the City's $122,300 to $137,188 range. The company kept its cap. It did not hire the lockstep lawyer. That is a legitimate outcome. It is not a match.
Admission still gates who can sit in either seat. Examination applicants satisfy Court of Appeals Part 520, pass the UBE, the New York Law Exam and the MPRE, complete 50 hours of pro bono under 22 NYCRR §520.16, and file with an Appellate Division within three years of sitting the second day of the UBE. Out-of-state residents are certified to the Third Department unless employed full-time in New York. A general counsel who needs a New York-barred lawyer in 2026 is buying that stack, not a job-board title.
Federal hiring thinned. New York financial regulation did not.
A January 2025 federal freeze and an FCPA pause changed who arrived on the private New York market. 23 NYCRR 500's last provisions still had to be certified on April 15, 2026.
The White House memorandum of January 20, 2025 froze filling vacant federal civilian positions. Reuters, on January 23, 2025, reported that the Department of Justice rescinded Attorney General's Honors Program offers to third-year students. NALP's Class of 2025 Selected Findings then recorded federal government jobs excluding clerkships falling 37.0 percent, with Honors Program seats moving from 317 to 50. Those candidates re-entered private and municipal New York markets after January 2025 — too late for 2025 on-campus interviewing, in time to be priced off 2025 bonuses and then the July 2026 scale if they landed in firms. Assistant United States Attorney seats at the Southern District remained excepted-service and open-continuous through December 31, 2026. The freeze is not a census of every public legal job in this city.
The February 10, 2025 executive order paused new FCPA investigations and enforcement actions for 180 days unless the Attorney General excepted. Deputy Attorney General guidelines of June 9, 2025 required authorization by the Assistant Attorney General of the Criminal Division or higher and prioritized cartel-linked bribery, harm to identifiable U.S. companies, and national-security infrastructure. Sidley Austin, on April 9, 2026, restating the SEC Division of Enforcement's fiscal 2025 results, counted 6 FCPA actions against 11 in fiscal 2024, and 456 total Commission actions — 303 standalone, 69 follow-on, 84 delinquent-filer — against 583 in fiscal 2024 and 784 in fiscal 2023, the lowest number in at least 20 years. Headline monetary relief of about $17.9 billion included $14.9 billion from orders in SEC v. Stanford International Bank, originally filed in 2009; excluding that case, penalties were $1.3 billion and disgorgement $1.7 billion. A new SEC Chair was sworn in on April 21, 2025, as the Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance recorded on January 21, 2026. A general counsel matching July-scale cash for an FCPA-only or crypto-enforcement junior in 2026 is matching a 2025 profit pool against a thinner federal docket.
New York State did the opposite for DFS-licensed entities. The Second Amendment to 23 NYCRR 500, adopted November 1, 2023, set a two-year transition for new multi-factor authentication and asset-inventory requirements. Those last provisions took effect November 1, 2025; covered entities first certified them in annual reports due April 15, 2026. NYDFS's Consumer Protection and Financial Enforcement Division, in its report transmitted March 15, 2026, secured more than $134 million in recoveries for New Yorkers in 2025 and collected more than $100 million in penalties. The Insurance Frauds Bureau received 51,419 suspected-fraud reports, opened 243 investigations, made 169 arrests and sent 95 referrals to prosecutors. In-house banking, insurance and virtual-currency counsel in New York had a dated 2025-26 workstream — policies, vendor contracts, board reporting, certification — independent of the SEC slowdown.
The Southern District's civil docket did not vanish with the enforcement reset. The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, Table C-3 for the twelve months ending September 30, 2025, recorded 9,962 private civil cases commenced in the Southern District of New York (contract 1,277; civil rights 3,426; intellectual property 805; labor 1,049) and 5,766 in the Eastern District. The Brattle Group, in May 2026, counted 51 prosecuted financial-fraud cases in 2025 by the DOJ Fraud Section and the Southern District against a ten-year average of 73. Defense demand did not disappear. Federal origination narrowed. A company that needs white-collar capacity in 2026 is buying SDNY, NYDFS and state-AG fluency, not a count of new FCPA indictments.
Political-access risk priced into 2025 bonus season and the 2026 base at New York transactional firms after a March 6, 2025 White House order targeting a large firm, and after an April 2, 2025 settlement in which a New York-headquartered firm committed at least $100 million in pro bono legal services, the fourth such deal, as the ABA Journal reported on April 3, 2025. Employment-practice reviews affect how summer and lateral offers are documented. They do not move the dollar scale. Litigation boutiques that sued kept a constitutional-litigation docket. The associate who earns the July number and the general counsel who matches it are both downstream of that year. Neither of them is paid by it directly.
Memoranda, ledgers, and the New York research file
Lockstep cash traces to firm memoranda. Public cash traces to the City, OPM and the Unified Court System. Company-side behavior traces to Sartori's New York associate file and to the corporate-department surveys named below.
Memoranda, ledgers, dockets and the research file
31 references- Sartori & Partners — New York Legal Talent Research Programme (1,675 structured interviews; ~67,000 lawyers mapped; quarterly surveys since 2019; mandate telemetry) sartoriglobal.com ↗
- MEMORANDUM TO ASSOCIATES (June 2, 2026) abovethelaw.com ↗
- ALERT: Milbank Does It Again — Associate Salaries Are Going Up!!! (June 2, 2026) abovethelaw.com ↗
- Associate Compensation Scorecard: The 2026 Summer Of Salary Increases abovethelaw.com ↗
- After Raising Associate Salaries, Milbank Announces Summer Bonuses (August 1, 2026) taxprofblog.aals.org ↗
- Cravath Starts Biglaw’s Bonus Season With Year-End And Special Bonuses! (November 18, 2025) abovethelaw.com ↗
- Associate Compensation Scorecard: Biglaw’s 2025 Bonus Blitz (November 26, 2025) abovethelaw.com ↗
- Milbank Rolls Out $115,000 Associate Bonuses, Matching Rivals (November 24, 2025) news.bloomberglaw.com ↗
- Despite Expectations, $225,000 Entry Associate Salaries Lag at Large Law Firms (May 28, 2025) nalp.org ↗
- Employment for the Class of 2025 — Selected Findings (August 5, 2026) nalp.org ↗
- Law Student Recruiting Moves Earlier as Employer Sponsored Hiring Expands (January 26, 2026) nalp.org ↗
- The Largest Firms by Number of Lawyers in New York (July 22, 2026) law.com ↗
- The 2026 Am Law 100 Is Out, And Surprise: The Rich Law Firms Got Richer (April 15, 2026) abovethelaw.com ↗
- The Top 20 Most Profitable Law Firms (2025) (April 30, 2026) davidlat.substack.com ↗
- Capital Markets Fact Book (August 13, 2026) sifma.org ↗
- SIFMA Research Quarterly — Equity and Related, 2Q26 (July 16, 2026) sifma.org ↗
- Assistant Corporation Counsel | City of New York Jobs (posted May 12, 2026) cityjobs.nyc.gov ↗
- Current Vacancies for Admitted Attorneys — New York City Law Department nyc.gov ↗
- Salary Table 2026-NY (January 2026) opm.gov ↗
- Unified Court System Bulletin No. UCS-360 (March 10, 2026) osc.ny.gov ↗
- UCS-23 Announcement No. 51607 (April 13, 2026) legacypdf.blob.core.usgovcloudapi.net ↗
- Location of Registered NY Attorneys as of the end of Calendar Year 2025 iappscontent.courts.state.ny.us ↗
- 2026 State of the Corporate Law Department Report (March 24, 2026) thomsonreuters.com ↗
- 2026 Report on the State of the US Legal Market (January 7, 2026) thomsonreuters.com ↗
- Big Law Firms See ‘Rare’ Demand Growth, but Expenses Accelerate (August 17, 2026) law.com ↗
- In-House Legal Counsel Associate (August 29, 2026) jobs.intesasanpaolo.com ↗
- ADDENDUM TO DIVISION OF ENFORCEMENT PRESS RELEASE FISCAL YEAR 2025 sec.gov ↗
- Consumer Protection and Financial Enforcement Division Annual Report (March 15, 2026) dfs.ny.gov ↗
- SECOND AMENDMENT TO 23 NYCRR 500 dfs.ny.gov ↗
- Hiring Freeze (January 20, 2025) whitehouse.gov ↗
- Guidelines for Investigations and Enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) (June 9, 2025) justice.gov ↗
Lockstep bases are the June 2, 2026 memorandum effective July 1, 2026. Year-end figures are the November 18, 2025 Cravath scale. Municipal, GS and judicial figures are the dated employer or statutory tables named in the sentence. Sartori interview, telemetry and survey figures are internal; the owner reviews them by hand.
Compensation figures are market instruments, not an offer. Individual firms pay on, above or below lockstep; public employers pay the posted or statutory band; in-house cash is a committee decision. No 2026 year-end is stated because none has been announced. For a confidential read on a specific New York seat — in-house, firm or public-to-private — start a conversation. Method for how the research file is built sits on the methodology page.
Lawyer salary in New York 2026: common questions
What is a typical lawyer salary New York in 2026?
On the July 1, 2026 lockstep scale, matching-firm bases run from $235,000 to $455,000 before bonus. A June 2, 2026 memorandum published by Above the Law set those figures, plus $10,000 on years one through four and plus $20,000 on years five through eight. The year-end bonus that still prices an autumn 2026 hire is the Cravath scale announced November 18, 2025 — $15,000 year-end plus a $6,000 special at the junior end, $115,000 plus $25,000 at the class of 2018. A New York City Assistant Corporation Counsel posting of May 12, 2026 advertised $87,737 to $188,235. Those are different ledgers, not a spread around one median.
Does attorney salary New York follow the national lockstep, or is there a city premium?
For firms that matched the June 2, 2026 memorandum, the July 1 base is a national lockstep, not a New York premium. New York City was already at a $225,000 first-year median as of January 1, 2025, according to NALP's 2025 U.S. Associate Salary Survey released May 28, 2025, so the July move is a dated raise on a city that was already at the old floor. The cash that does move by employer type is everything off lockstep: City bands, the OPM GS-15 New York cap of $197,200 effective January 2026, and posted in-house bands. See the national class-year ladder for the lockstep as a market scale; this page is the New York window.
How should a general counsel match a New York lockstep associate after July 2026?
Match the July 1, 2026 base as payroll, and treat the November 18, 2025 year-end as a separate true-up. Of 19 company-side New York associate files Sartori closed over three years, 11 first offers were written to base alone; 7 of those 11 had to be rewritten before signature. Thomson Reuters Institute's 2026 State of the Corporate Law Department Report, released March 24, 2026, found 36 percent of more than 2,400 general counsel expected to raise outside-counsel spend as of the fourth quarter of 2025 and 20 percent expected to cut it — so the committee that will not put last year's special into base is not being eccentric. It is reading a 2026 budget. Our in-house counsel recruiting desk prices that split before the offer goes out.
How much do lawyers make in New York in public service compared with the July scale?
A first-year lockstep base of $235,000 sits $46,765 above the $188,235 ceiling on the City of New York Assistant Corporation Counsel posting of May 12, 2026. OPM Salary Table 2026-NY, effective January 2026, caps GS-15 at $197,200. A New York State Supreme Court Justice moved to $237,300 on April 1, 2026 under OSC bulletin UCS-360 — $2,300 above the new first-year firm base. A firm-to-public move in 2026 is a cash cut unless the candidate is already above the public band. The public ledger did not move with the June memorandum.
Has the 2026 year-end bonus for New York associates been announced?
No. As of September 11, 2026, 2026 year-end has not been announced. Autumn 2026 laterals still carry the Cravath year-end-plus-special scale of November 18, 2025, with New York and Washington associates paid December 12, 2025 and no hours requirement at that firm. A July 2026 special, payable by August 31, 2026, is a separate mid-year payment — $6,000 at the junior end through $25,000 from the class of 2021 back, as restated by TaxProf Blog on August 1, 2026. Adding last year's year-end to the new base is an illustration, not a 2026 year-end announcement.
How long does a New York associate search take, and what does a counter-offer do to the clock?
Sartori's New York associate line typically fills in 6 to 12 weeks, with a median of 11 working days from offer to signature and a 37 percent counter-offer incidence. Of 33 closed New York associate searches over three years, 6 ran past twelve weeks; 4 of those 6 stalled on whether the company would true-up 2025 bonus on a July-scale base. Completion on the line is 93 percent. The delay is usually the compensation committee, not the shortlist.
Adjacent reads
BigLaw associate salary scale 2026
The class-year lockstep as a market scale — $235,000 to $455,000 — without the New York window this page owns.
Read the national scale Market shapeLondon versus New York
The two-city comparison of market structure. This page is New York pay; that one is the shape of the two markets.
Read London versus New York Who pays in-houseIn-house counsel salary 2026
What companies pay counsel on the corporate ledger, by seniority — the national counterpart to the New York match problem.
Read in-house payA New York search
Price the New York hire on the clock that is actually live.
We map New York associates and in-house counsel against the July base, the still-live 2025 bonus, and the band your compensation committee will actually sign. Confidential, no obligation.