Maritime Attorney Salary 2026: Law Firm vs In-House

On 2 June 2026, Milbank moved the matching large-firm associate scale to a $235,000 first-year base and a $455,000 eighth-year base, generally effective 1 July 2026, as recorded by Above the Law’s associate compensation scorecard (updated through 31 August 2026) and by Biglaw Investor’s live scale table. Seward & Kissel matched on 9 June 2026; Norton Rose Fulbright matched on 30 June 2026. Both firms carry U.S. maritime practices. That is the New York finance table. It is not the New Orleans casualty table.

NALP’s 2025 U.S. Associate Salary Survey, summarized in the June 2025 Bulletin, put the first-year median at $200,000 overall as of 1 January 2025, $215,000 in firms of 701 or more lawyers, and $150,000 in firms of 250 or fewer. Most specialist maritime boutiques sit in that last band. The ABA Journal, restating the same survey on 29 May 2025, put the eighth-year all-associate median at $330,000. Houston reported 66.7 percent of 12 offices at a $225,000 first-year; New York City reported 56.5 percent of 23 — even before the June 2026 raise, lockstep was not yet universal inside large offices, and it was never the boutique rate.

In-house cash is a different instrument. The Association of Corporate Counsel and Empsight International fielded the 2025 Law Department Compensation Survey from 6 May to 27 June 2025, with data effective 1 March 2025 and 1,632 respondents in the executive summary. Median annual base / median total cash: Attorney $148,000 / $160,000; Senior Attorney $201,000 / $228,000; Associate General Counsel $245,000 / $294,000; Deputy General Counsel $280,000 / $368,000. CLOs at companies with $5 billion-plus revenue earn 44 percent more in base and 173 percent more in total target compensation than CLOs at companies under $1 billion, with large-company CLO median total target exceeding $1 million. The executive summary does not publish a maritime-specialty row. ACC reports those medians as all-industry.

Federal admiralty seats sit on the General Schedule. OPM Salary Table 2026-NY, effective January 2026, puts GS-15 step 1 at $174,347 and caps steps 5 through 10 at $197,200 (level IV of the Executive Schedule). Houston’s 2026 table runs GS-15 from $170,618 to the same $197,200 cap. Norfolk’s 2026 table runs GS-15 from $150,144 to $195,190. Rest of U.S., covering much of Louisiana outside a named locality, runs GS-15 from $147,945 to $192,331. Those are the 2026 cash ceilings for GS attorney seats at the U.S. Coast Guard, MARAD, the Federal Maritime Commission, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, NOAA and the Department of Justice Torts Branch Aviation, Space & Admiralty Litigation Section.

Twenty-eight water-transportation establishments per in-house lawyer is the ratio of the 2025 QCEW carrier file (2,521) to the May 2023 OEWS lawyer count (90). Deep-sea, coastal and Great Lakes water transportation (NAICS 483100) accounted for 80 of those 90 lawyers. Those 90 sit among 65,190 water-transportation jobs in the same May 2023 industry table. Support activities for water transportation — ports, marine cargo handling, navigational services — did not publish a lawyers row in the same May 2023 tables. The 90 are carrier payrolls. They are not the admiralty bar.

The Bureau of Transportation Statistics’ Port Performance Freight Statistics: 2026 Annual Report (January 2026) measured the cargo those establishments move: in 2023 the top 150 U.S. ports handled 2.6 billion short tons, and 109 U.S. ports handled 40.6 million loaded TEUs. In 2024, ships moved 42.4 percent of the value of U.S. goods trade ($2.2 trillion). That is throughput, not legal spend, and it is the volume a general counsel is actually buying advice against.

A publicly traded U.S.-flag Pacific liner makes the in-house shape visible. Matson, Inc.’s investor executive-management page titles the incumbent Executive Vice President, Chief Administrative Officer and General Counsel, overseeing legal, legislative and human-resources activities. The same biography records a 2012 join as vice president and deputy general counsel, a 2014 chief legal officer title, and the 2021 combination. That is one senior officer, not a 20-lawyer maritime department, and it is consistent with a two-digit BLS in-house count at NAICS 483. Port Houston’s careers page is the employer portal for the Port of Houston Authority, “strategic advocate for the Houston Ship Channel.” Applications run through the Authority, not through a job board. Crowley’s careers landing frames a shipping and logistics workforce; legal is a small overlay on a mariner-heavy headcount. None of those three pages published a counsel salary.

Jones Walker’s Maritime Industry page is the cleanest public map of who pays the outside-counsel figure: shipowners, operators, charterers, towboats and barge lines, lenders, cruise lines, NVOCCs, ports and terminals, shipyards, cargo owners, offshore companies, underwriters. Anonymized representative mandates on that page include captive counsel to an inland towboat operator; outside general counsel to a PE-backed wind-turbine installation-vessel owner, including MARAD Title XI; marine finance on a $1.75 billion casino-vessel facility and a $350 million FSRU facility for Marshall Islands entities; project counsel on a container terminal in St. Bernard Parish, Louisiana; Jones Act ownership opinions; and counsel on an LNG export facility in Calcasieu Parish. Those are the companies. Most of them buy the work.

Federal government is the named exception that actually employs admiralty lawyers on a published scale. MARAD’s Office of Chief Counsel (updated 16 June 2025) reports a Chief Counsel, a Deputy, and three divisions — Maritime Programs, General Law and Litigation, Legislation and Regulations — covering admiralty, Chapter 537 guarantees, MSP agreements, cargo preference, cabotage and support of DOJ in federal-court litigation. The FMC Office of the General Counsel drafts Commission orders, represents the Commission in the D.C. Circuit, and handles controlled-carrier determinations. The Coast Guard Judge Advocate General delivers international and maritime law, marine safety, litigation and claims. DOJ’s Aviation, Space & Admiralty Litigation Section (page updated 24 January 2023) staffs trial attorneys in Washington and a San Francisco field office for collisions involving U.S. vessels, oil spills and affirmative claims. Their 2026 cash is the OPM table in section 02.

Of 33 closed New York associate searches over three years, 6 were maritime-finance or Jones Act associate seats at New York offices. Four of those six completed inside eight weeks, inside the desk’s typical 6 to 12 week timeline, at a 93 percent completion rate on the city line. Two of the six stalled past twelve weeks: in both, a general counsel at a liner or energy operator opened at an in-house Senior Attorney median and would not reopen against the June 2026 lockstep, and the file went back to a panel firm. That is the finding that does not flatter the method. We now brief the cash table in the first client call, not the fourth.

Two of those six files drew a counter-offer, inside the 37 percent incidence Sartori’s New York associate telemetry records across all 33 closed searches. Median offer-to-acceptance on the city line is 11 working days. Google Ads Keyword Planner, in a four-country pull on 11 September 2026, recorded 210 U.S. monthly searches for the salary query — commercial intent, not a headcount.

Across 1,675 structured interviews with New York partners and counsel, 186 respondents sitting in shipping, marine-finance or in-house marine roles over a 24-month window were asked how their employer priced the seat. 71 of those 186 told Sartori the employer priced against a lockstep it could not match rather than against a maritime specialty premium. 94 of those 186 sat inside a shipping, port or energy legal department; 52 of those 94 said they would not open a dedicated maritime attorney requisition in the next twelve months. A general counsel at a publicly traded Jones Act liner described the legal function as one senior officer spanning legal, legislative and human resources. A head of legal at a Gulf LNG export operator said tug, time-charter and port-liability work stays with outside maritime counsel; the in-house team prices energy and CBP, not admiralty.

Three files, anonymized

1. A PE-backed Gulf energy platform. The company asked for a dedicated Jones Act counsel on payroll, opened at the ACC Senior Attorney median, and met a shortlist sitting on or next to lockstep after the June 2026 matches. Eight weeks of process, no offer accepted. Outcome: the work stayed with a New Orleans–Houston panel under a revised engagement letter. Timeline: 11 weeks to that decision, past the desk’s typical band.
2. An Am Law 100 New York maritime-finance group. After the April 2025 team consolidation onto a large-firm platform, the office needed a mid-level associate on matching scale with Marshall Islands familiarity. Closed in 8 weeks. Counter-offer from the incumbent boutique, declined. Offer-to-acceptance: 9 working days, inside the city median of 11.
3. A coastal navigation district. The authority wanted an FMC/Shipping Act lawyer on staff after the FY 2025 filing spike. The shortlist preferred firm cash. Outcome: a 0.4 full-time-equivalent secondment from the existing panel rather than a hire, budgeted against public-sector cash rather than lockstep. The careers portal remained the intake; no job board was used.