Legal Counsel salary: $228K median
From 465 open roles that publish a yearly US-dollar range. Advertised ranges, not verified pay.
$228Kmedian advertised salary
$192K – $270Kmiddle half of roles
$232Kaverage advertised salary
465roles counted
Legal Counsel salary by level
Lead roles advertise a median of $272K, 13% more than senior roles ($240K). The level comes from the job title; titles without a level word are counted separately.
| Level | Median salary | Middle half | Roles |
|---|---|---|---|
| Senior | $240K | $214K–$264K | 128 |
| Lead and above | $272K | $200K–$306K | 54 |
| No level in title | $219K | $185K–$262K | 275 |
Legal Counsel salary by location
| Name | Median salary | Roles counted |
|---|---|---|
| 🇺🇸San Francisco Bay Area | $250K | 143 |
| 🇺🇸California | $245K | 192 |
| 🇺🇸Seattle | $244K | 24 |
| 🇺🇸New York | $242K | 97 |
| 🇺🇸United States | $228K | 433 |
| 🇺🇸Washington, DC | $225K | 29 |
| 🇺🇸Los Angeles | $225K | 27 |
| 🇺🇸Texas | $216K | 17 |
Top-paying companies
| Name | Median salary | Roles counted |
|---|---|---|
| OpenAI | $348K | 10 |
| Fal Ai | $325K | 3 |
| Anthropic | $300K | 13 |
| Figure Lending | $285K | 3 |
| Waymo | $280K | 3 |
| Barnes | $275K | 16 |
| $258K | 4 | |
| Anduril Industries | $256K | 12 |
| OKX | $250K | 5 |
| Databricks | $250K | 7 |
| Harvey | $246K | 6 |
| DoorDash USA | $246K | 4 |
| Fivetran | $246K | 5 |
| Brex | $245K | 6 |
| Perplexity | $245K | 3 |
| Verkada | $245K | 3 |
| xAI | $240K | 3 |
| ConvertKit | $239K | 5 |
| Runway Ml | $235K | 4 |
| SpaceX | $228K | 17 |
| Instacart | $218K | 3 |
| Affirm | $215K | 3 |
| Gotion | $215K | 3 |
| Life360 | $200K | 3 |
| Adyen | $195K | 9 |
Highest-paying open Legal Counsel roles
All legal counsel jobs- Deputy General Counsel and Vice President, Intellectual PropertyAltos Labs · 🇺🇸San Francisco Bay Area, CA$486K - $571KLeadAgile
- Employment Law AttorneyMorgan & Morgan, P.A. · 🇺🇸New York$85K - $500K
- Trial AttorneyMorgan & Morgan, P.A. · 🇺🇸Sacramento, California, United States$100K - $500K
- Counsel – Drug, Device and Consumer ProductsBarnes · 🇺🇸New York$300K - $475K
- Counsel – Drug, Device and Consumer ProductsBarnes · 🇺🇸Los Angeles$290K - $460K
- LawyerOmnilex · 🇺🇸New York$250K - $450KRemote
- Associate General Counsel, Commercial – InfrastructureOpenAI · 🇺🇸San Francisco$381K - $423K
- Lead Counsel, Commercial (Energy - Infrastructure)OpenAI · 🇺🇸San Francisco$330K - $423KLead
- Vice President, Deputy General Counsel, Product, Regulatory & LitigationAffirm · 🇺🇸Remote US$370K - $415KRemoteLead
- Senior CounselGoodfire · 🇺🇸San Francisco, CA$200K - $400KSenior
- Sr. Counsel, CommercialAmplitude · Remote-NAMER$237K - $398KRemoteSenior
- General CounselFirecrawl · 🇺🇸San Francisco, CA$310K - $392KGoLLM
- Commercial Counsel, HardwareAnthropic · 🇺🇸San Francisco, CA$335K - $385K
- IP Counsel, Life Sciences PatentsAnthropic · 🇺🇸San Francisco, CA | New York City, NY$335K - $385KMachine Learning
- Senior Vice President, Deputy General Counsel, Global Commercial and PrivacyHackerOne · 🇺🇸Washington DC$300K - $385KRemoteLead
- Vice President, Associate General Counsel, Infectious Disease FranchiseInvivyd · 🇺🇸New Haven, CT (Northeast preferred)$309K - $383KLead
- Head of LegalInterface Ai · 🇺🇸San Francisco$307K - $383KLead
- Legal CounselRiver AI Inc. · 🇺🇸Palo Alto, CA$330K - $380K
- Senior Counsel, Product & DataChainalysis · 🇺🇸New York$230K - $380KRemoteSeniorGoMachine Learning
- Lead Counsel, Strategic AlliancesDatabricks · 🇺🇸Bellevue, Washington; Mountain View, California; San Fran…$247K - $377KLeadAgile
Questions about Legal Counsel pay
- What is the average Legal Counsel salary?
- $232K a year on average and $228K at the median, across 465 open Legal Counsel postings at tech companies that state pay (November 2026). The median is the better guide: a few very high offers pull the average up.
- What is the typical range?
- The middle half of the postings offer $192K to $270K a year. A quarter offer less and a quarter offer more.
- Which companies advertise the highest Legal Counsel pay?
- OpenAI ($348K), Fal Ai ($325K), Anthropic ($300K), by the median of their open postings that state pay (three postings or more).
- Where do these figures come from?
- From the pay ranges employers print in their own job postings, read from their careers pages every hour. The midpoint of each range is counted. These are advertised ranges for open roles, mostly in the United States and in US dollars, not what people are actually paid.
Writing about this? A sentence you can quote
The median advertised salary for Legal Counsel roles at tech companies is $228K a year, and the middle half of postings offer $192K to $270K. Counted from 465 open job postings that state pay, November 2026. Source: Hiring Right Now, https://jobseveryhour.com/salaries/legal-counsel/
Free to use with the link.