Salary benchmarks
Paul Hastings Salary 2026: Who the Published Figures Cover
The 2026 documents a company can actually print cover U.S. associates on a bonus memorandum and equity-partner economics on the Am Law 100. They do not count the in-house seats companies staff from this firm. Last public base, as printed by Above the Law on 28 November 2023: $225,000 to $435,000.
Paul Hastings salary: who the 2026 figures cover
Sartori maps about 23,000 lawyers in Los Angeles. A general counsel asking what that lockstep still costs to match is usually holding two documents and a hole: a U.S. associate bonus memo, an Am Law profits print, and no count of how many of those lawyers companies actually put on a corporate W-2.
The 17 December 2025 memorandum is addressed to U.S. associates and was paid to eligible associates in good standing on 13 February 2026. Counsel, of-counsel, London newly qualified solicitors, and every in-house seat sit outside that addressee line. Coverage is the addressee, not the letterhead.
Four lenses, two readers. The associate wants the dated grid. The general counsel wants to know whether that grid is a reservation wage or an invoice. Neither reader gets a 2026 Paul Hastings first-year from a document the legal press has not printed. Every figure is cited below.
- $8.330M
- Paul Hastings profits per equity partner on the 2026 Am Law 100 (2025 results), up 24.05 percent, rank 9.
- Above the Law reprint of the 2026 Am Law 100, 15 April 2026
- $2.68B
- Firm revenue for the fiscal year ended 31 January 2026, up 20 percent, against a 14.1 percent average at the 25 largest U.S. firms (Citi).
- Bloomberg Law, 12 February 2026
- $653,000+
- Partnership share value, up nearly 21 percent — a different instrument from profits per equity partner.
- Bloomberg Law, 12 February 2026
Coverage is the addressee, not the letterhead.
The last public base, and the bonus a company can actually date
Open the 2023 base memo first, then the 2025 bonus PDF. Everything a general counsel or an associate does with the 2026 question starts from those two documents, not from a guessed match.
Above the Law, on 28 November 2023, reported that Paul Hastings matched Cravath, effective 1 February 2024: $225,000 for the class of 2023 through $435,000 for the class of 2016 and senior. That is the last Paul Hastings-specific base-salary memorandum located in the legal press. It is a U.S. associate lockstep. It is not a 2026 table.
| Class year (Nov 2023) | Seniority then | Base salary |
|---|---|---|
| Class of 2023 | 1st year then | $225,000 |
| Class of 2022 | 2nd year then | $235,000 |
| Class of 2021 | 3rd year then | $260,000 |
| Class of 2020 | 4th year then | $310,000 |
| Class of 2019 | 5th year then | $365,000 |
| Class of 2018 | 6th year then | $390,000 |
| Class of 2017 | 7th year then | $420,000 |
| Class of 2016+ | 8th year & senior then | $435,000 |
The 2026 market lockstep is a different table. Milbank announced it on 2 June 2026, effective 1 July 2026: first-years at $235,000, eighth-years at $455,000. Bloomberg Law, on 17 June 2026, restated that floor and cap and noted that more than a dozen firms had adopted it within two weeks. Above the Law's 2026 raise scorecard, through 31 August 2026, lists Milbank, McDermott, Hueston Hennigan, Quinn Emanuel, Katten, Sullivan & Cromwell, Norton Rose Fulbright and others. Paul Hastings is not on that table. Absence from a matcher list is not a secret raise.
What is a 2026 Paul Hastings document is the bonus. Above the Law, on 18 November 2025, reported that the firm was first among large U.S. firms to match Cravath's year-end scale. The firm's own memorandum, dated 17 December 2025 and addressed to U.S. associates, restated the class-year grid and a special-bonus column. Eligible associates in good standing, employed on the pay date, were paid on 13 February 2026. Eligibility sat under a 2025 Annual Bonus Policy dated 2 January 2025. Proration applied for leave, part-time schedules, or joiners after 1 January 2025 unless full annual performance criteria were met.
| Class year (2025 memo) | Year-end bonus | Special bonus | Combined |
|---|---|---|---|
| Class of 2025 | $15,000 | $6,000 | $21,000 |
| Class of 2024 | $20,000 | $6,000 | $26,000 |
| Class of 2023 | $30,000 | $10,000 | $40,000 |
| Class of 2022 | $57,500 | $15,000 | $72,500 |
| Class of 2021 | $75,000 | $20,000 | $95,000 |
| Class of 2020 | $90,000 | $25,000 | $115,000 |
| Class of 2019 | $105,000 | $25,000 | $130,000 |
| Class of 2018+ | $115,000 | $25,000 | $140,000 |
Click a column header to re-rank. Combined cash on the senior rung is $140,000 before any further award. That column is U.S. associate cash. It does not price London, counsel, or an in-house offer. The same first-to-match pattern showed up a year earlier: Above the Law, on 20 November 2024, reported Paul Hastings matching the then-current year-end and special scale.
A document you can printA 2026 cell you cannot
- The base memo A class-year U.S. associate grid the firm put in writing in 2023 and the legal press carried. This page treats that as the last public Paul Hastings base.
- The bonus PDF A 2025 U.S. associate year-end and special column, paid in February 2026. The addressee line is the coverage limit.
- The missing 2026 base A later lockstep exists in the market. Absence from the matcher list is not a refusal and is not a confirmation. It is a missing document.
What a general counsel must actually bid
The associate on that grid is paid by the firm. The general counsel who wants the same lawyer on the company payroll is bidding a different table: the 2025 ACC in-house medians, by title, not by class year.
A fourth-year on the last published Paul Hastings scale already sits above median associate general counsel base. The Association of Corporate Counsel 2025 Law Department Compensation Survey — 1,632 respondents, data effective 1 March 2025 — put U.S. associate-general-counsel median base at $245,000 and median total cash at $294,000. Deputy-general-counsel median base was $280,000; median total cash $368,000. The published fourth-year is $310,000. The published seventh-year is $420,000, which already exceeds deputy-general-counsel median total cash.
That is the hiring problem, stated as arithmetic. An attorney-grade or senior-attorney requisition priced on ACC medians will not clear a lockstep mid-level. An associate-general-counsel requisition priced on ACC median base will not clear a fourth-year. A deputy-general-counsel cash package starts to talk to a fifth- and sixth-year, and still loses a seventh-year on base alone. Chief legal officers at companies with revenue greater than $5 billion earn 44 percent more in base and 173 percent more in total target compensation than chief legal officers at organizations under $1 billion, per the same 2025 survey; large-company chief-legal-officer median total target exceeds $1 million. That is the first in-house band that can absorb senior-associate all-in without pretending the title is still senior counsel.
Attorney median base
Association of Corporate Counsel 2025 survey, U.S. attorney median base.
ACC 2025 survey PDF ↗The 2025 ACC Chief Legal Officers Survey Key Findings — 772 chief legal officers, 20 industries, 48 countries — explain why so many companies never open the requisition at all. Understaffing was the top barrier. 30 percent of chief legal officers planned to increase the number of lawyers they hire that year, nearly half in larger companies. 43 percent planned to increase the volume of work outsourced to law firms, up 17 percentage points, with 43 percent citing the global regulatory landscape. 41 percent of law departments had received a cost-cutting mandate. 58 percent of chief legal officers were heavily involved in mergers and acquisitions. The full FTI-hosted report put General Counsel as the dominant top-lawyer title at 60 percent globally and 71 percent in the United States; Chief Legal Officer about 25 percent, more common as company size grows. 79 percent of chief legal officers report to the CEO (83 percent in the United States).
That is the economic structure of the company reader: keep the in-house roster tight, send fund finance, private-credit, employment class actions and financial-restructuring work out, and only open a general-counsel, deputy-general-counsel or associate-general-counsel requisition when a named-officer need or a hold period requires a signature inside the building. The ACC 2025 compensation survey also recorded that 77 percent of in-house respondents had prior law-firm experience and 44 percent went law-school-to-in-house. An attorney with prior firm experience saw a 16 percent higher median base and 18 percent higher total cash; a chief legal officer with prior firm experience saw 21 percent more base and 13 percent more total cash. The typical path off a lockstep seat is not a staff-attorney posting. It is a titled in-house seat, or it is the invoice.
Single-lawyer general counsel median base on the same 2025 table was $234,000 (total cash $255,000). Division or subsidiary general counsel sat at $279,000 base and $341,000 total cash. Those are real company seats. They are not a fourth-year lockstep. The firm's own Law Students page advertises “In-house Counsel Job Opportunities” as a confidential client channel for associates. Existence of a channel is not a census of who used it.
The firm pays the scaleThe company pays the seat
- Payroll at the firm The associate earns the last published class-year base plus the 2025 year-end and special column the partnership actually paid. The document trail for the base is 2023. The document trail for the bonus is December 2025.
- The panel invoice The company keeps headcount flat and sends fund finance, private equity, employment and restructuring work out. The 2025 chief-legal-officer survey is the map of that choice.
- The in-house offer Title, cash and equity have to clear a lockstep mid-level. An attorney-grade requisition priced on survey medians will not. Most companies discover this on the second declined offer.
If you want the lawyer, price the title. If you want the work, keep the invoice.
- Write the title first. An associate-general-counsel or deputy-general-counsel grade is a compensation decision, not a courtesy. A senior-attorney requisition against a fourth-year lockstep is how processes stall.
- Put equity on the page. Large-company chief-legal-officer total target is the band that absorbs senior all-in. Carry at a sponsor, or RSUs at a public company, is what usually closes a lockstep mid-level who will not move for median associate-general-counsel cash.
- Budget the counter-offer. Firms on this economics defend a fourth- through sixth-year harder than a second-year, because replacement is another lockstep paycheck plus a year of matter continuity.
- Name the alternative. Holding headcount flat and sending the next fund-finance close or employment class action to outside counsel is a rational reading of the 2025 chief-legal-officer survey. It is not a failed search. It is a choice you should make on purpose.
Your class year is the number the company can see. Your 2026 base is the number it cannot.
- Lead with the published base. A company can verify class year against the 2023 grid. It should not be asked to match a 2026 first-year that is not public.
- Bring the bonus PDF, not a guess. The 17 December 2025 memorandum is a dated U.S. associate document. Combined senior cash on that grid is a number a compensation committee can read.
- Expect a title conversation. In-house cash that clears a fifth- or sixth-year usually arrives as associate general counsel or deputy general counsel, not as a senior-counsel grade with a bump.
- London is a separate paycheck. The dollar peg sits on Legal Cheek. A U.S. in-house offer will not be marked to that figure unless the seat is itself in London.
A fourth-year on the last published scale already sits above median associate general counsel base.
Partner economics, London cash, and the finance bench
The associate scale is the document. Partner pay is an ALM average plus a firm-reported share value. London is a sterling conversion of the last public U.S. first-year. None of the three is a substitute for the other.
The 2026 Am Law 100, covering 2025 results and reprinted by Above the Law on 15 April 2026, put Paul Hastings profits per equity partner at $8.330 million, up 24.05 percent, ninth among the Am Law 100. Am Law 100-wide profits per equity partner rose 14 percent that cycle; 70 firms rose 10 percent or more. Those figures measure equity-partner economics at a U.S.-headquartered firm. They are not take-home for any named partner, and they are not the associate grid.
Bloomberg Law, on 12 February 2026, reported a different instrument: partnership share value rose nearly 21 percent to just over $653,000, more than doubling since fiscal 2020 on the same account. Revenue for the fiscal year ended 31 January 2026 rose 20 percent to $2.68 billion, against a 14.1 percent average at the 25 largest U.S. firms in Citi's law-firm banking group. Profit margin was 57 percent, with a stated longer-term goal of 60 percent. New York office revenue was $1.1 billion, up $550 million over three years. London roughly doubled to about $250 million. Texas was around $100 million last year. Do not add share value to profits per equity partner. They answer different questions inside the same partnership.
The same Bloomberg account is the capital that funds the lockstep. Paul Hastings lawyers advised on more than $250 billion of global deals in that fiscal year, 13th among law firms on Bloomberg League Tables, the first time the firm had cracked the top 20 in at least a decade. Restructuring: 36 creditor-side engagements, second-most behind Gibson Dunn, per Octus. Litigation headcount grew more than 20 percent from the beginning of 2024 through the end of the third quarter of the last fiscal year, the fourth-largest jump among the 50 largest firms by revenue on Bloomberg Law's compilation. Lateral partners: more than 140 since the start of 2023, per Sure Point Legal Systems, even as the firm had 600 fewer total lawyers than any of the firms that had hired more partners. The annual lateral band in that reporting was between 30 and 50.
London cash is the one non-dollar paycheck this page can date. Legal Cheek, on 29 September 2025, listed Paul Hastings London newly qualified pay at £167,000, with a footnote that the firm pays London-based newly qualified lawyers $225,000, converted on 1 September 2025. That is a peg to the last public U.S. first-year, not a roll to $235,000. The 2026 Legal Cheek firm profile lists first-year trainees at £60,000 and second-year trainees at £68,000, 12 training-contract places, and a 2,000-hour annual target in that London survey. The same profile describes London as the largest non-U.S. office, with over 200 qualified lawyers including around 50 partners. The firm's September 2025 London recruiting brochure restates more than 200 qualified lawyers and 20 new partners in that office since January 2022. The 11 May 2026 private-equity and real-estate team announcement put London office revenue up 25 percent year on year and 90 percent over three years.
The finance and mergers benches are separate hiring desks, not synonyms for “corporate.” The Global Finance page states a team of more than 150 lawyers. The 19 July 2026 London fund-finance release restates a 2025 book of more than 500 debt and preferred-equity closings totaling over $260 billion. The Mergers and Acquisitions page states over 170 lawyers across 24 offices and more than 500 transactions over the past two years. A general counsel who wants a fund-finance lawyer is not posting a generic corporate role. A fellowship award of $50,000 sits beside, not inside, the associate scale; the firm's fellowship page limits it to ABA-accredited full-time 1L and 2L students likely to practice in a U.S. office.
The 2025–2026 stack that still prices the work
Demand for the lawyers on that published scale is not a mood. It is a dated stack of capital-cycle and regulatory events, each of which a general counsel already has on the board agenda.
PitchBook, on 4 February 2026, put 2025 global mergers and acquisitions at nearly $5 trillion across over 50,000 transactions, above 2021; mega-deals of $1 billion or more were 28 percent more numerous year on year and 56.6 percent of value while 1.5 percent of count. Fewer, larger deals is the staffing implication: mergers, antitrust and leveraged-finance mid-levels on live files, not a surge of first-year seats for small-cap volume. The firm's own mergers page already prints the two-year deal count.
KPMG's Q2 2026 Pulse of Private Equity, using PitchBook as of 30 June 2026, put 2025 private-equity investment at $2.3 trillion and the first half of 2026 at $1 trillion across 9,294 deals. H1 exits were 1,315 — a pace the pulse called unseen in over a decade — while rolling 12-month deal count sat at a more than five-year low. Sponsors stay busy on new deals and continuation vehicles. Portfolio-company general counsel seats stay filled longer when exits lag. U.S. deal value inside that pulse was $545 billion.
That capital cycle is why Charlotte opened. The firm's 26 January 2026 announcement launched a North Carolina office around fund finance, joining an existing platform in New York, California, Texas, London and Paris. Reuters the same day put about 15 additional lawyers on the launch; Bloomberg Law the same day put the group at 15 to 20, mostly Charlotte-based. The chair cited a $1.2 trillion fund-finance market anticipated to more than double to over $2.5 trillion by 2030, a 2030 figure Bloomberg attributed to a 2024 Ares report. Product labels on the release: subscription and capital-call facilities, NAV, GP lines, management-fee lines, employee co-invest, hybrids, separately managed accounts, continuation vehicles. The buyers of those hours are banks and nonbank lenders sitting across from sponsors — and the internal counsel at those institutions who want one stop for their own lawyers. Reuters also placed the launch in the week Cadwalader had said it was combining with Hogan Lovells: a peer-firm restructuring that supplied laterals, not a campus class.
Capital cycleNamed-officer need
- Fewer, larger deals Private-equity and mega-deal value up, smaller-deal count not the story. Mid-levels on live take-privates, fund finance and antitrust, not a campus surge.
- Rules that move, not rules that vanish A vacated HSR form lightens junior hours. A Supreme Court tariff holding re-routes trade work. An FCPA pause then a narrowed reboot. Employment automated-decision rules in California still bite.
- The in-house signature Trade, tariffs, AI hiring tools and a named officer at close. Headcount stays flat until the board wants a general counsel in the room.
Merger control still creates hours even when the form shrinks. The Federal Trade Commission, on 20 January 2026, published 2026 Hart-Scott-Rodino thresholds effective 17 February 2026: size-of-transaction $133.9 million, up from $126.4 million. A Texas district court vacated the expanded 2025 HSR form on 12 February 2026; the Fifth Circuit denied a stay pending appeal on 19 March 2026, and the agencies returned to the pre-10 February 2025 form. Mid-level antitrust work on second requests was not vacated. Junior narrative-form hours were.
Trade work moved rather than ended. On 20 February 2026 the Supreme Court held, in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump, No. 24-1287, that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not authorize presidential tariffs. The same day the President signed a proclamation, published 25 February 2026 as 91 FR 9339, imposing a 10 percent ad valorem import surcharge under section 122 of the Trade Act of 1974 from 24 February 2026 through 24 July 2026 unless Congress extends it. Private-equity and mergers mid-levels still run tariff diligence — MAC, pass-through, supply-chain covenants. The firm's About Us page prints Chambers Global Band 1 for International Trade (Export Controls and Economic Sanctions) and for FCPA. Those labels describe the desk a company is buying, not a ranking table from a career community.
Investigations demand subtracted, then narrowed. A 10 February 2025 executive order paused new FCPA investigations and enforcement actions for 180 days. Deputy Attorney General guidelines of 9 June 2025 then required Criminal Division authorization and prioritized cartels and transnational criminal organizations, harm to identifiable U.S. competitors, national-security sectors, and substantial bribes. The Fraud Section's 2025 year in review recorded 22 FCPA Unit prosecutors and three corporate FCPA actions in 2025, against a White House fact sheet's decade average of 36 actions a year and 26 FCPA-related actions in 2024. That is a trough, then a thinner docket. It is not a reason for a general counsel to zero the compliance seat. Capacity at a Band 1 FCPA platform reallocates toward sanctions and export controls; it does not disappear.
Two California clocks sit on a Los Angeles-founded employment desk. The California Civil Rights Department announced on 30 June 2025 that Civil Rights Council regulations on automated-decision systems, approved 27 June 2025, would take effect 1 October 2025: recruitment, hiring and promotion tools can violate the Fair Employment and Housing Act, with a four-year record-retention duty. The Federal Trade Commission, effective 12 February 2026, removed 16 C.F.R. part 910 from the Code of Federal Regulations after acceding to vacatur of the noncompete rule. There is no nationwide federal noncompete ban to implement. California still bans noncompetes. Employment associates at a Los Angeles-founded firm are not idle because a federal rule came out of the CFR.
Restructuring hours track a rising docket, not a 2020 spike. The Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts, on 4 February 2026, put year-end 2025 filings at 574,314, up 11 percent; business filings at 24,737, up 7.1 percent; Chapter 11 at 9,201, against 8,884 in 2024 and 4,918 in 2022. Bloomberg's 36 creditor-side engagements sit on that tape. Abu Dhabi, opened 14 April 2025 as a UAE, Europe and Asia hub for energy and infrastructure, staffs U.K., U.S. and UAE-qualified lawyers at the Abu Dhabi Global Market for sovereign-wealth and government-related buyers. The Sports practice launched 13 July 2026, staffed in part with a former club general counsel and a funds lawyer with prior in-house roles at league teams — names omitted, seats described. The company-side sports general counsel is both a client and a reverse hire.
What Los Angeles associate searches actually do with this grid
Sartori & Partners has worked the Los Angeles legal market for more than 10 years, for companies that need an in-house lawyer and for firms that need an associate. Over the trailing three years we closed 30 associate searches on this line, at a 93 percent completion rate, on a typical timeline of 6 to 12 weeks.
Sartori & Partners maps nearly 1.5 million lawyer profiles globally and has run quarterly market surveys since 2019. The Los Angeles associate desk is one cut of that program, not a second census. Mandate telemetry on this line is 30 closed files over three years — tens, not hundreds — because those are mandates, not interviews.
Of 30 closed Los Angeles associate searches over three years, 17 were company-side mandates whose candidate profile was a lockstep-scale associate — fund finance, private equity, energy, employment or sports mid-levels the general counsel wanted on payroll rather than on a panel. Thirteen were firm-side associate seats. Completions: 28 of 30. Both files that did not complete were inside the 17 company-side searches. Five of those 17 ran past 12 weeks because the buyer would not price above associate-general-counsel median cash. That is the slow segment on this line, and it is ours: we do not place quickly when the requisition is an attorney grade and the candidate is a fourth-year.
Across 575 structured interviews with Los Angeles associates and in-house counsel, 53 of 88 in-house hiring managers — general counsel, chief legal officers and heads of legal at companies — over a 24-month window named the unpublished alumni-to-in-house count as the planning gap. They can read a bonus memorandum. They cannot size how many of those lawyers a Los Angeles company will actually see on a shortlist. A general counsel at a Los Angeles private-equity platform told us they budget the fourth-year lockstep as the reservation wage and still lose the process when human resources posts an attorney band. A head of legal at a California energy operator said they will pay deputy-general-counsel cash for a finance mid-level but will not put associate general counsel on the door — and that is where the search dies.
Sartori's quarterly survey since 2019, in the four waves from the first quarter of 2025 through the second quarter of 2026, found that 31 of 48 Los Angeles company respondents who had tried to hire a lockstep mid-level onto an in-house attorney or senior-attorney grade reported the first cash offer rejected. Median offer-to-acceptance on the associate line remains 9 working days when the cash is real. Counter-offer incidence on the same 30 files is 33 percent. Firms defend. Companies that have not decided whether they are buying a title or buying an invoice use those 9 days to discover the gap, and then they stall.
Three recent Los Angeles files, anonymized composites, show the same arithmetic from the inside. No real company, firm or candidate is named.
- A private-equity platform, associate general counsel, funds. The brief was a fourth- or fifth-year fund-finance or private-equity associate off a lockstep scale, to sit in Los Angeles and own capital-call, NAV and continuation-vehicle work the general counsel no longer wanted only on a panel. We closed in 9 weeks. The incumbent firm counter-offered. The candidate signed on day 9, once the company put the title at associate general counsel and the cash at deputy-general-counsel median total, plus a modest carry grant. An attorney-grade first draft of the same requisition had died in week three.
- A California energy operator, first in-house transactions counsel. The head of legal wanted a fifth-year who had seen energy M&A and project finance, not a senior attorney who had seen vendor contracts. We closed in 11 weeks on an associate-general-counsel title. The package cleared because title, not a quiet plus-up on the ACC senior-attorney median, did the work the published fifth-year base required.
- A bank legal department, stalled. The general counsel insisted on a fund-finance mid-level at senior-attorney median total cash, with no title jump. The process ran to week 14 and did not complete. It is one of the two incomplete files in the 30. We should have declined the brief at week two, when the compensation committee had already said no to associate-general-counsel cash. We did not. That is on us.
Nothing in those files substitutes for a 2026 associate-raise memo, and nothing in them invents an alumni headcount the firm has not published. The service view of the company-side book sits on our in-house counsel recruiting page; the associate-line process sits on associate recruiting. Companies building a legal function from nothing should start with the first general counsel guide before they try to mark a lockstep mid-level to an attorney grade. The in-house cash bands sit on our general counsel salary benchmark. The market lockstep this page uses only as a bound sits on the 2026 BigLaw associate scale.
Paul Hastings pay in 2026: questions from both sides of the offer
What is the Paul Hastings salary for U.S. associates in 2026?
The last Paul Hastings-attributed U.S. associate base is $225,000 to $435,000, from a 28 November 2023 match effective 1 February 2024. Above the Law printed that grid class by class. The 2026 market lockstep that starts at $235,000 is a Milbank table, announced 2 June 2026 and effective 1 July 2026. Paul Hastings does not appear on Above the Law's 2026 raise scorecard through 31 August 2026, so a 2026 Paul Hastings first-year figure is not public.
What bonus did Paul Hastings pay U.S. associates for 2025?
Paul Hastings matched the Cravath 2025 year-end scale, from $20,000 for the class of 2024 through $115,000 for 2018 and senior. Above the Law reported the match on 18 November 2025; the firm's 17 December 2025 memorandum, addressed to U.S. associates, restated the grid and a special-bonus column of $6,000 to $25,000. Eligible associates in good standing on the pay date were paid on 13 February 2026. The class of 2025 received $15,000 plus a $6,000 special, each prorated to 6 October 2025.
What is Paul Hastings PEP on the 2026 Am Law 100?
Profits per equity partner printed at $8.330 million, up 24.05 percent, ninth among the Am Law 100. That is an ALM average for equity partners in the 2025 reporting year, not take-home for any named partner and not an associate paycheck. Bloomberg Law, on 12 February 2026, separately reported a partnership share value of just over $653,000. Those are two instruments. Do not add them.
How much must a general counsel offer to hire a Paul Hastings associate in-house?
A fourth-year on the last published scale already earns a $310,000 base, above the 2025 ACC associate-general-counsel median of $245,000. The same Association of Corporate Counsel survey put deputy-general-counsel median base at $280,000 and median total cash at $368,000 — still below a seventh-year's $420,000 published base. Chief legal officers at companies with revenue above $5 billion are the first in-house band whose median total target exceeds $1 million. Title, not a quiet premium on an attorney-grade requisition, is what usually closes the gap.
What does Paul Hastings pay newly qualified solicitors in London?
Legal Cheek listed London newly qualified cash as $225,000, converted to £167,000 on 1 September 2025. That is a dollar peg to the last public U.S. first-year base, not a sterling lockstep and not an automatic roll to the 2026 Milbank floor. The same publisher's 2026 firm profile lists first-year trainees at £60,000, second-year trainees at £68,000, and 12 training-contract places.
Did Paul Hastings match the 2026 Milbank associate scale?
Above the Law's 2026 raise scorecard does not list Paul Hastings through 31 August 2026. Milbank announced the $235,000–$455,000 ladder on 2 June 2026, effective 1 July 2026. Absence from the matcher list is not proof of an internal raise and is not proof of a refusal. It is a missing document. This page does not fill it in.
The memos, the Am Law print, and the in-house survey.
Associate bases come from Paul Hastings' 28 November 2023 match as printed by the legal press. The 2025 bonus grid comes from the firm's 17 December 2025 memorandum. In-house medians come from the Association of Corporate Counsel. Partner economics come from the 2026 Am Law 100 and Bloomberg Law. What is missing is listed as missing.
Sources and further reading
44 references- Sartori & Partners — Los Angeles Legal Talent Research Programme (575 structured interviews; ~23,000 lawyers mapped; quarterly surveys since 2019; mandate telemetry) sartoriglobal.com ↗
- About Us | Paul Hastings LLP paulhastings.com ↗
- Locations | Paul Hastings LLP paulhastings.com ↗
- Law Students / Clerks | Paul Hastings LLP paulhastings.com ↗
- Paul Hastings Fellowship paulhastings.com ↗
- Global Finance | Paul Hastings LLP paulhastings.com ↗
- Mergers and Acquisitions | Paul Hastings LLP paulhastings.com ↗
- Leading Biglaw Firm Is One Of The First To Match Cravath's New Salary, Bonus Scale abovethelaw.com ↗
- Paul Hastings Is First Biglaw Firm To Match Cravath's Generous Bonus Scale abovethelaw.com ↗
- 2025 Year-End Bonuses memorandum (17 December 2025) abovethelaw.com ↗
- Paul Hastings Is The First Major Biglaw Firm To Match Milbank Bonus Scale After Cravath Announces abovethelaw.com ↗
- ALERT: Milbank Does It Again — Associate Salaries Are Going Up!!! abovethelaw.com ↗
- Associate Compensation Scorecard: The 2026 Summer Of Salary Increases abovethelaw.com ↗
- Latest Associate Pay Raises Reflect Start of ‘Prestige Law’ Era news.bloomberglaw.com ↗
- The 2026 Am Law 100 Is Out, And Surprise: The Rich Law Firms Got Richer abovethelaw.com ↗
- Paul Hastings Tops $2.6 Billion as Aggressive Hiring Pays Off news.bloomberglaw.com ↗
- Paul Hastings – Law Firm Profile | ILRG ilrg.com ↗
- Money talks: What newly qualified solicitors earn at the UK’s top law firms legalcheek.com ↗
- Paul Hastings - Legal Cheek legalcheek.com ↗
- 2025 Law Department Compensation Survey Executive Summary acc.com ↗
- 2025 ACC Chief Legal Officers Survey Key Findings acc.com ↗
- ACC Chief Legal Officers Survey (full report, FTI-hosted) static2.ftitechnology.com ↗
- Class of 2024 National Summary Report nalp.org ↗
- Employment for the Class of 2024 — Selected Findings nalp.org ↗
- Leading fund finance partners reunite… Charlotte office paulhastings.com ↗
- Paul Hastings Lures Cadwalader, Haynes Team for Charlotte Launch news.bloomberglaw.com ↗
- Law firm Paul Hastings adds funds finance team for Charlotte launch reuters.com ↗
- Paul Hastings adds powerhouse private equity and real estate team in London paulhastings.com ↗
- Continues Growth of Premier Global Fund Finance… London paulhastings.com ↗
- Adds Transformative Energy and Infrastructure Team in Abu Dhabi, London and Paris paulhastings.com ↗
- Abu Dhabi Office | Paul Hastings LLP paulhastings.com ↗
- Paul Hastings Launches Global Sports Practice paulhastings.com ↗
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- Training Contracts at Paul Hastings (September 2025) assets.ctfassets.net ↗
Associate bases are Paul Hastings' 28 November 2023 match as printed by Above the Law, effective 1 February 2024. The 2026 $235,000–$455,000 ladder is the Milbank market scale, used here only as a bound: Paul Hastings is not on Above the Law's 2026 raise scorecard through 31 August 2026. Bonus dollars are the 17 December 2025 U.S. associate memorandum. In-house medians are the Association of Corporate Counsel 2025 Law Department Compensation Survey (1,632 respondents, data effective 1 March 2025). Am Law 100 figures are 2025 results published in 2026. Bloomberg Law's $2.68 billion and $653,000 share value are fiscal year ended 31 January 2026. ILRG's 1,175 attorneys are the 2025 ranking year; the 594-associate cell is 2022 data. Legal Cheek's $225,000 London NQ is a 1 September 2025 conversion. NALP figures are Class of 2024. The firm's About Us 'more than 1,500 lawyers' is a marketing headcount, not the ILRG census.
Our own numbers — the Los Angeles interview cohort, the associate-line mandate telemetry, the counter-offer incidence and the offer-to-acceptance window — come from the continuous research program described on our research page, which sets out the cohorts, the survey waves and the mapping coverage behind every Sartori figure quoted above.
Adjacent numbers for the same two readers.
The market lockstep, the in-house bands, and the search that starts when a general counsel decides the invoice is no longer enough.
BigLaw associate salary scale 2026
The market lockstep Milbank set on 2 June 2026 — $235,000 to $455,000 — which this page uses only as a bound on what Paul Hastings has not published.
Read the market scale Company payGeneral counsel and CLO salary 2026
The in-house bands a company actually puts on a chief legal officer package when a lockstep mid-level will not fit an attorney-grade requisition.
Read the GC benchmark For companiesIn-house counsel recruiting
How we run a company-side search when the brief is a lockstep-scale associate and the budget is an associate-general-counsel seat.
See in-house searchA quiet conversation
Matching a lockstep-scale lawyer on an in-house offer?
We tell a general counsel when the title will not clear the candidate, and we tell an associate when the company is buying an invoice rather than a seat. Los Angeles associate and in-house searches, confidential, no obligation.