Salary · New York in-house
Salary wars: what they reveal about the legal market.
On 2 June 2026 a New York firm published a new scale, effective 1 July. A general counsel hiring onto the payroll is not asking whether firms are at war. The question is what that date does to the price of the seat.
The date reset the bid. It did not start a war.
On 2 June 2026 a New York-headquartered firm published a new associate salary grid, effective 1 July. Across 1,675 structured interviews with New York lawyers, 188 of 241 respondents sitting as general counsel, chief legal officer or head of legal at companies over a 24-month window told Sartori they now reprice an in-house counsel bid against the printed lockstep cell within one compensation cycle of a published step.
A New York-headquartered lockstep firm announced class-year base increases on 2 June 2026, effective 1 July 2026. That effective date is the bid reset a company must price against. Price the seat from 1 July, not from the press cycle.
The buyer question is the price of the seat on the payroll. The competing cells sit below.
- 1 July 2026
- when the printed step took effectannounced 2 June 2026
- Above the Law, 2 June 2026
- +4.2%
- H1 2026 billable hoursvs a long-term average of 1.5–2%
- Citi via Bloomberg Law, 17 Aug 2026
- $2.3tn
- U.S. announced M&A, 2025+57% year on year; LSEG tape
- Wells Fargo CIB, January 2026
- $410,000
- GC/CLO median total cashnational ACC survey, not an MSA extract
- ACC / Empsight, effective 1 Mar 2025
What a published associate salary step does to the in-house bid.
We have worked the New York in-house market for more than 10 years, for general counsel and heads of HR at funds, asset managers, healthcare platforms and technology companies. Over the trailing three years we closed 24 in-house searches at a 94 percent completion rate, on a typical 4 to 7 month clock.
The date reset the bid. It did not start a war. A chief legal officer who treats the 2 June announcement as a story about firms will write a 2025 band onto a 2026 posting and then wonder why the shortlist will not sign. The competing product is a New York lockstep or litigation-boutique seat whose printed bases moved on 1 July. The company product is an in-house counsel, associate general counsel or deputy GC package. Those are different jobs. They draw from the same years of experience.
The 2026 associate scale page owns the class-year table. This page will not reprint it. What a company actually buys, in the third and fourth quarters of 2026, is usually years four to six. Biglaw Investor’s 2026 grid, accessed in September 2026, puts those printed bases on the scale below, with bonus cells of $75,000 to $105,000 on the same rows. A candidate who can still return to that pool will price the in-house offer against those cells, not against last November’s freeze.
ABA Journal, on 19 November 2025, reported that one New York lockstep firm would hold 2026 bases at the then-printed first-year cell. That hold was the floor a company was bidding against until 1 July. It is not the floor after 1 July. NALP’s 2025 first-year survey, as of 1 January 2025, is the pre-step junior floor on the bars in the pool section. It is not a 2026 post-raise median, and it is not an in-house number.
Those printed fourth- through sixth-year cells sit above the Associate General Counsel median base in the ACC title stack. That gap is what the scale date does to the price of the seat. It is not a reason to import the eighth-year lockstep cell into a general counsel salary. The GC and CLO salary page is the package once the competing associate cell is no longer the question. London is a different printed grid. It does not set this one.
Fourth-year printed base
The junior edge of the seat a company usually buys as counsel or junior AGC.
Biglaw Investor 2026 grid, accessed September 2026 ↗Read it as their warRead it as your bid
- Sit it out Treat the announcement as a contest among firms. Leave the posted band on last year’s cell. The shortlist will screenshot the new grid.
- Wait for a full match Hold the requisition until every namesake has printed. An unmatched-office stall is not a discount. The cell is already public.
- Reprice from 1 July The general counsel takes the printed cell to compensation as the competing bid, then decides how much cash, bonus and equity the in-house seat actually needs.
The date reset the bid. It did not start a war.
The company does not staff class years. It staffs titles.
A general counsel at a New York mid-cap asset manager told us they now wait for the 1 July cell before they take a compensation paper to the CEO. The printed scale, they said, is the competing bid whether we like it or not.
That is the buyer sentence. The Association of Corporate Counsel / Empsight 2025 Law Department Compensation Survey, 1,632 self-reported U.S. respondents, data effective 1 March 2025, is the product the company actually pays: Attorney, Senior Attorney, Associate General Counsel, Deputy GC, division or subsidiary GC, GC/CLO, and the single-lawyer GC. Prior law-firm experience is a documented premium on that stack: Attorney median base 16 percent higher and total cash 18 percent higher; chief legal officers 21 percent more base and 13 percent more total cash. The company is not buying a class year. It is buying a title that still has to clear a printed alternative.
Company size splits the same titles. CLOs at organizations with more than $5 billion in revenue earn 44 percent more median base and 173 percent more total target compensation than CLOs at organizations under $1 billion, in the 2025 ACC / Empsight survey. Law.com Corporate Counsel, on 1 October 2025, restated that split and added the junior end: entry-level and mid-level attorneys at large companies earn 27 percent more in salary and 35 percent more in total compensation. A New York head of legal at a sub-$1 billion company who copies a Fortune 1000 posting is pricing a different job.
In the same 2025 ACC / Empsight survey, GC/CLO short-term incentive eligibility is 96 percent, with a 35 percent median target and $91,000 median amount paid. Long-term incentive eligibility is 63 percent, with a 40 percent median target and $134,000 median target amount. Median total target direct compensation is $503,000; the 90th percentile is $1.46 million. Sixteen percent of respondents changed jobs in the past two years; 17 percent said they were likely to change in the coming year. Non-promoted merit increases ran at a 3.5 percent mean and a 3.0 percent median. Those are the levers a compensation committee actually holds. They are not a lockstep cell.
Single-lawyer GC median total cash in the same survey is $255,000; division or subsidiary GC is $341,000. Neither of those cells is the Fortune 1000 proxy median. Do not average them. The in-house counsel salary page is the title-by-title read; this page is only what the 1 July date does when the candidate can still walk back to a printed grid.
The printed scale is the competing bid whether we like it or not.
The talent a company buys is already busy on deals, funds and trials.
Citi's 9-month 2025 flash, 185 firms, recorded industry revenue up 11.3 percent, demand up 1.9 percent and rates up 9.6 percent. That tape is why a printed scale could move. It is not a number a chief legal officer should copy into an AGC band.
Demand through the first nine months of 2025, on that Citi Hildebrandt advisory, came from litigation, large-cap M&A, funds and investment management, private-equity secondaries, private credit, bankruptcy and restructuring, infrastructure and real estate. Middle-market transactional work was delayed, then accelerated in the third quarter. Bloomberg Law, on 17 August 2026, citing Citi’s first-half 2026 tape, named surging transactional practices handling both megadeals and middle-market M&A as the driver of the hours increase already in the StatGrid. The FOMC, on 29 July 2026, held the funds rate at 3.50 to 3.75 percent. A hike from the three dissenters on that vote would be the risk that cools the bid. It is not a 2026 fact a head of HR can underwrite against.
Am Law 100 results for 2025, recapped by Above the Law in April 2026, showed profits per equity partner up 14 percent. David Lat, on 18 June 2026, put 2025 Am Law 100 PEP at $3.59 million. That cash is the structural ability to fund the printed step without a utilization crash. The company is not competing with a distressed seller of talent. It is competing with firms that just printed that year. Sartori maps about 67,000 lawyers in New York. That coverage is how we see the same people appear on company shortlists and on lockstep or boutique letterhead. It is not an interview count.
NALP’s Class of 2024 National Summary, status date 17 March 2025, is the junior end of the same pool. Of 35,335 employed graduates, 20,810 (58.9 percent) went to private practice and 2,474 (7.0 percent) to business. Firms of 501 or more lawyers took 7,126 private-practice jobs, median salary $225,000. A company hiring a fourth- to sixth-year is drawing from the private-practice column, not from the 7 percent who went in-house at graduation. Government took 12.9 percent and public interest 9.7 percent; those are the public valves, not the company bid.
The New York City Law Department, on its 2026 careers pages, still hires Assistant Corporation Counsel into Appeals, Family Court, General Litigation, Special Federal Litigation, Tort and related divisions. Corporation Counsel testimony on the FY2027 preliminary budget put the attorney headcount at about 785 assistant corporation counsels, with 200 new attorney lines proposed, most expected in Tort, on top of about 70,000 cases a year. NYC Council Finance staff in March 2026 put the proposed Law Department budget at $345.1 million and actual headcount at 1,405 as of January 2026 against 1,612 budgeted full-time posts. The 2025 history card had banded the attorney count near 760. Treat that desk as about 760 to 785 attorneys across 2025–2026 documents. It is a municipal law office, not a finance AGC competitor.
The Office of the New York State Attorney General posted 2026 New York City Assistant Attorney General seats in Investor Protection (Martin Act, five or more years), Antitrust (five or more years, including merger and conduct work with DOJ and the FTC), and the Litigation Bureau (at least three years of civil litigation, SDNY or EDNY admission or eligibility). All three carry U.S. citizenship under the Public Officers Law and a New York residence requirement. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York Legal Function sits in-house to the Bank: a general counsel and two deputy GC divisions covering supervision, markets and financial services on one side and enforcement, BSA/AML, OFAC, employment and technology contracts on the other. FINRA Enforcement still runs a two-year Honors Associate rotation. Those are securities and litigation desks. They compete for some of the same juniors a bank legal department would hire. They do not set the cash a company must print for a funds AGC.
The credential gate on the company side is the New York bar. The State Board of Law Examiners’ admission-on-motion page restates Court of Appeals Rule 520.10: an ABA-approved J.D., admission in a reciprocal jurisdiction, and actual practice for five of the seven years preceding application. A hire who is not admitted cannot be the person who appears in New York tribunals. That is a start-date fact, not a salary fact. In-house counsel recruiting is the search product when the general counsel has already decided the seat is a payroll line.
Finance, funds and M&A in-house
The company is buying years four to six from the lockstep and boutique pool Citi says is occupied on large-cap and middle-market deals. The competing cell is the printed class-year base, not a municipal grid.
Commercial litigation in-house
Litigation boutiques were among the first to print the 2026 grid. A chief legal officer hiring a trial lawyer from that pool is bidding against the same cash as a deal-desk hire.
Public and SRO desks
City Law Department, NYAG, the New York Fed Legal Function and FINRA Enforcement absorb juniors and some mid-levels. They are training grounds and exit valves, not the bid a company must match.
New York already forces the company to print a range. The scale date changes what that range must clear.
Local Laws 32 and 59 of 2022 have required a good-faith salary range on New York City postings since 1 November 2022. A head of HR who writes the 2025 first-year cell onto a 2026 counsel posting is not being conservative. They are publishing a band the candidate can disprove.
The New York City Council’s January 2025 pay-equity report restates the duty: employers and agents must state a good-faith minimum and maximum salary for positions performed at least in part in New York City. The New York City Commission on Human Rights enforces it. The Council’s data team sampled more than 60,000 unique job postings over about two months in late 2023. CCHR ran 190 proactive tests in FY23 and 295 in FY24, and had initiated more than 30 salary-transparency cases by the date of that report. The accompanying 30 January 2025 press statement recorded that maximum salaries in an overwhelming majority of sampled postings were less than double the listed minimum. After 1 July 2026, a band whose floor is last year’s first-year cell and whose ceiling still does not clear the fifth-year printed base will not survive a candidate who can open the scale tracker.
Statewide, Labor Law § 194-b took effect on 6 September 2023. The Governor’s release and the NYSDOL overview page require businesses with four or more employees to include compensation ranges in advertisements for jobs, promotions and transfers performed at least in part in New York, and on remote roles that report to a New York supervisor or office. A New York-reporting remote associate general counsel is inside that duty. The scale date does not create the obligation. It changes the good-faith content of the numbers.
Sartori’s quarterly survey since 2019, read in the second-quarter 2026 wave against the same New York cohort, found that 54 of 97 heads of HR and compensation at companies with a New York legal hire in flight had not yet rewritten the posted band after 1 July 2026. That is the uncomfortable operating fact. The statute was not the failure. The compensation paper was. A head of HR at a PE-backed healthcare platform told us they lost a fifth-year funds counsel to a litigation boutique that had already printed the new grid, while the company’s May posting still showed the 2025 cell. They did not lose on title. They lost on a date.
We closed that file on a second pass, after the compensation committee lifted the posted range to clear the fifth-year printed base and put the rest in a sign-on and a first-year bonus. The search ran five months, inside the 4 to 7 month New York in-house clock. The first pass had been a May posting written to a freeze that ended on 1 July. That is not a candidate-market story. It is a posting-hygiene failure inside a company that already had a statutory duty to print a band.
| Instrument | Effective | Who it binds | What must be printed | What 1 July changes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NYC Local Laws 32 and 59 of 2022 | 1 November 2022 | Employers and agents; work performed at least in part in New York City; four or more employees | Good-faith minimum and maximum salary | Every advertised in-house counsel or AGC seat in the City carries a visible band; after 1 July 2026 that band is read against the new printed floor |
| N.Y. Labor Law § 194-b | 6 September 2023 | Businesses with four or more employees; jobs, promotions and transfers; remote roles reporting to a New York supervisor or office | Good-faith compensation range; commission roles identified as such | A New York-reporting remote general counsel or AGC posting carries the same duty statewide |
| NYC CCHR enforcement | In force with the City law | Covered employers and agencies | The same good-faith band; CCHR tests postings | A posting that cannot survive a screenshot of the printed grid is a compliance and hiring problem at once |
| NYC Council posting sample | Late 2023 sample; report January 2025 | Illustrative of posted ranges, not a wage census | What sampled City postings showed about range width (counts in the January 2025 report) | A band that spans the 2025 first-year cell and the 2026 fifth-year cell will not read as good faith to a candidate who can screenshot the printed grid |
Match the years you are buying. Then decide how much of the printed cell to pay in cash.
Of 24 closed New York in-house searches over three years, 11 were years 4–7 counsel or associate-general-counsel seats drawn from the lockstep or litigation-boutique pool. Of those 11, 8 required a cash bid that sat at or above the then-printed class-year base before the candidate would sign.
That is the mandate telemetry on this line, not a second interview count. The remaining 13 closed files were seven GC, CLO or deputy-GC seats and six other in-house seats — employment, privacy, commercial. Counter-offer incidence on New York in-house files is 28 percent. Median offer-to-acceptance is 16 working days. Typical time-to-fill is 4 to 7 months. Of those 24 closed files, 6 stalled at least eight weeks after a first offer because the company’s posted range sat below the class-year cell the candidate could screenshot. We still completed 94 percent of the closed set. The stall is the finding that does not flatter the process: the search product works, and the posted band is still where files go to wait.
A mid-cap public issuer’s general counsel opened an AGC securities and disclosure seat against the ACC Associate General Counsel median base and a posted range written in April. The candidate was a fifth-year enforcement lawyer who could still return to a boutique that had matched the 2 June step. The first offer sat under the fifth-year printed base. The file stalled nine weeks. The company lifted cash, added a sign-on, and closed in the seventh month — the long end of the clock, on a seat that should have been a mid-clock file. The unflattering read is ours: we let a requisition go live on a pre-step band after the date had already moved.
An asset-manager deputy GC did not need the eighth-year cell. The chief legal officer priced cash to the deputy-GC median neighborhood, put the rest in long-term incentive, and closed in four months. The candidate compared the package to a lockstep alternative and took the in-house seat on scope, reporting line and equity, not on a matched class year. That is the correct use of the date: know the competing cell, then decide what the company is actually buying. Private practice versus in-house is the comparison once the title is senior enough that lockstep is no longer the alternative.
Three things do not reprice the 2026 company bid, and a head of legal who uses them as discounts will rewrite the paper in the third quarter anyway. The expanded HSR form that took effect in February 2025 was vacated in February 2026; the Fifth Circuit denied a stay on 19 March 2026, and the agencies now accept the pre-update form. That cut filing burden. It did not cut mega-deal volume. SEC fiscal 2025, announced 7 April 2026, recorded 456 enforcement actions; crypto registration cases were dismissed from late February through 29 May 2025. Fraud, adviser, manipulation and disclosure work did not freeze. NYDFS Part 500’s last tranche — MFA for individuals accessing information systems, and written asset-inventory policies — took effect on 1 November 2025. That loads in-house cyber and technology-contracts seats at covered institutions. It is an additional AGC, not a reason to match the eighth-year lockstep cell. Citi via Bloomberg Law put AI spend at 0.25 percent of firm revenue at year-end 2025, with hours still up. Do not discount the scale on an AI-headcount thesis.
The postingThe signed package
- Posted range The statutory band. Good faith after 1 July means the floor and ceiling can survive a candidate who opens the printed grid.
- Competing cell The class-year base the person can still take. Know it. Do not pretend the unmatched-office stall erased it.
- Company package Cash, bonus, equity, reporting line, start date. The general counsel decides how much of the competing cell to pay in cash.
Ignore the cellImport the eighth year
- Under-print Leave the May band on the posting. The process will stall on a screenshot. This is the stall in the telemetry.
- Clear the years you buy Price cash to the years in the brief. Use bonus, sign-on and equity for the rest. That is the asset-manager close.
- Over-import Copy the eighth-year lockstep cell into an AGC or deputy GC package. The company is then paying a title it does not staff.
| Universe | What it measures | The cell | Do not use it for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Printed lockstep grid | Class-year base at firms that have matched the 2026 step | Class-year bases effective 1 July 2026; years four to eight on the markers above | Averaging into a general counsel package, or treating unmatched offices as a lower bid |
| ACC in-house survey | Self-reported U.S. cash by title, national, effective 1 March 2025 | Attorney through GC/CLO title stack (base bars above); not a New York extract | A New York-only median — the survey is not an MSA extract |
| Fortune 1000 proxies | NEO-level GC/CLO total pay at large public companies | Equity-heavy public-issuer CLO packages (2025 proxy compilation) | A private-company AGC, a fund, or an ACC cash package |
| BLS OEWS, NY MSA | All employed lawyers in the metro, May 2023 | Firm, in-house, government and nonprofit mixed | Scale associate cash or an in-house AGC bid |
| NYC Law Department | Assistant Corporation Counsel new-hire bands by years after law school | Headline $87,737–$188,235; 5–10 years $122,300–$137,188 | The competing bid for a finance or funds AGC |
| NYS Attorney General | Assistant Attorney General schedule, plus $4,000 location pay in New York County | Level 1 (2–9 years) $99,002–$139,308 | The competing bid for a company securities or antitrust AGC |
For an associate general counsel, the 1 July cell is the alternative, not the job.
- Write the band after the date. A good-faith range for years four to six has to survive the printed bases on the scale above. Bonus and sign-on are how you close the gap without importing the eighth-year cell.
- Name the reporting line. Scope, the committee seat, and who signs the 8-K or the fund document are what make the in-house job a different product. Cash alone will lose to a boutique that has already printed.
- Do not wait for a full match. An unmatched-office stall is a press story. It is not a cheaper ceiling for a process that is live in July.
- Check admission. Rule 520.10 is a start-date gate. A compensation paper that ignores bar status will slip the 16-day acceptance window while the candidate sits on a lockstep offer.
For a general counsel or chief legal officer, the printed associate cell is context, not the package.
- Use ACC and, if you are a public issuer, the proxy median. Do not average them. The StatGrid cash cell is the broader in-house product; the $2.95 million figure is equity-heavy NEO pay at large public companies.
- Size is the split. The 44 percent base gap and 173 percent total-target gap between $5 billion-plus and sub-$1 billion CLOs is the first filter on any paper the head of HR brings upstairs.
- STI and LTI are the company levers. Eligibility and targets in the 2025 ACC survey are how a compensation committee competes with a lockstep alternative without matching an eighth-year base.
- Legal recruiters New York companies actually use should be briefed on the posted band before the search goes live. A requisition that still carries a May range is a process we will slow down, not a mandate we will sprint.
What a scale date means for a company hire
What does a published associate salary scale mean for a company hiring in New York?
From 1 July 2026 it is the competing cash floor for mid-level New York talent, not a story about firms. A company hiring a fourth- to sixth-year counsel is bidding against printed bases of $320,000–$410,000. The live associate scale page owns the class-year table; this page is the bid read for a general counsel.
What salary range should a New York company print on an in-house posting after 1 July 2026?
Local Laws 32 and 59 of 2022, in force since 1 November 2022, and Labor Law § 194-b already require a good-faith minimum and maximum. After 1 July, a band written to the 2025 $225,000 first-year cell is no longer a good-faith read of the competing floor. Statewide, the same duty covers remote roles that report to a New York supervisor.
How long does a New York in-house counsel search take after a scale move?
Budget 4 to 7 months on Sartori’s New York in-house line. We closed 24 of those searches over the trailing three years at a 94 percent completion rate, with a median 16 working days from offer to acceptance. Files that stall are usually the ones whose posted range was written before the printed cell moved.
Should we match the eighth-year lockstep cell for an associate general counsel?
No. The Association of Corporate Counsel’s 2025 survey, effective 1 March 2025, put Associate General Counsel median base at $245,000 nationally. Match the years you are buying, then use bonus and equity. Importing the eighth-year lockstep cell into an AGC package is how a chief legal officer overpays a title the company does not staff.
Do New York City or Attorney General bands set our company bid?
No. A 5–10 year Assistant Corporation Counsel tops out near $137,188 on the Law Department’s 2026 new-hire grid. NYAG Level 1 prints $99,002–$139,308 before location pay. Those desks train litigators and absorb exits. They are not the competing bid for a funds or M&A associate general counsel.
Can we discount the 2026 scale because of AI?
No. Citi’s H1 2026 tape, reported by Bloomberg Law on 17 August 2026, showed billable hours up 4.2 percent and AI spend at 0.25 percent of revenue at year-end 2025. The industry is not seeing the technology eat demand. Legal-operations titles are an additional in-house seat, not a substitute for the AGC bid.
Published scales, in-house surveys, and New York posting rules.
The bid reset is a dated announcement and a compiled grid. The company product is the ACC title stack. The posting duty is Local Law 32/59 and Labor Law § 194-b. Mandate telemetry and the New York interview cohort sit in the research program.
Published scales, in-house surveys, and New York posting rules
34 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 ↗
- ALERT: Milbank Does It Again - Associate Salaries Are Going Up!!! abovethelaw.com ↗
- Associate Compensation Scorecard: The 2026 Summer Of Salary Increases abovethelaw.com ↗
- Waiting On Cravath: Biglaw's Salary Silence Is Getting Ridiculous abovethelaw.com ↗
- Biglaw Salary Scale + Bonuses (1968 - 2026) biglawinvestor.com ↗
- 4 Takeaways From The Latest Biglaw Pay Raise davidlat.substack.com ↗
- Cravath kicks off associate bonus season and other firms follow abajournal.com ↗
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Scale cells are compiled lockstep figures, not employer-by-employer confirmation. ACC bands are national self-reports, not a New York MSA extract. Fortune 1000 GC pay is proxy NEO pay, equity-heavy. OEWS mixes every lawyer in the metro. Public employer grids are exit valves. Citi and Wells Fargo figures measure firm demand and announced deal volume, not in-house spend. Cravath's unmatched status is dated to 16 July 2026 and to the scorecard's logged list through 31 August 2026; it is not a permanent hold.
Price the seat. Then read the table the date actually moved.
The class-year grid, the in-house title stack and the GC package are adjacent pages. This one is only what 1 July 2026 does to the company bid.
BigLaw Associate Salary Scale 2026
The class-year table this page does not reprint — first-year through eighth-year bases and bonus cells after the 1 July 2026 step.
See the printed gridIn-House Counsel Salary 2026
Staff counsel through deputy GC: the title stack a company actually pays, by seniority and stage.
View in-house bandsGeneral Counsel & Chief Legal Officer Salary 2026
How GC and CLO packages are built — base, bonus and equity — once the competing associate cell is no longer the question.
View GC rangesFor general counsel and heads of HR
Need a New York in-house seat priced against the printed cell, not last year's freeze?
We run company-side searches on the New York in-house line: posted-band hygiene, the competing class-year cell, and a package the compensation committee can defend. Quiet, evidence-led, and just as willing to say the band is wrong as to run the shortlist.