Lawyer salary comparison
How does your salary compare with the market?
Choose your city, career stage and firm type, then enter your salary to see whether it sits below, within or above the published range.
For lawyers in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. Base salary excludes superannuation and benefits.
Australian law just had one of its strongest years in a decade.
Demand
+5.4%
Fees worked
+10.2%
Profit per equity partner since FY2020
+74.2%
The market is growing. So what does the deal look like for the lawyers working in it?
Metrics are based on Thomson Reuters Financial Insights data from 27 participating Australian law firms, including some of the country’s largest by qualified fee-earner count.
Source: Thomson Reuters Institute, Australia State of the Legal Market 2026, published 27 August 2026.
What does a lawyer earn in 2026?
Published salary data varies considerably by market, career stage and firm type. That variation matters more than a single headline number. Set your own three and read the published range.
Years of post-qualification experience, then senior associate years and special counsel.
This figure stays in your browser. It is never saved, never sent to Clarence and never included in any analytics.
This compares your figure against the city, career stage and firm type selected above. If those are not yours, change them and the comparison updates.
Published salary range
$180k to $230k
Sydney, Senior Associate 3+, mid-tier, national or elite boutique
| Firm type | Published range |
|---|
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Explore the Going Solo guideEvery figure above is a published range, exactly as the source prints it. Nothing on this page averages those ranges or works out a figure of its own.
Base salary only, exclusive of superannuation and benefits. The published tables are for Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.
Source: Robert Walters Australian Legal Market Overview 2026, private practice salary guide.
Firm type changes the number.
| Market | General boutique | Mid tier | Top tier |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sydney | $150k to $185k | $180k to $230k | $215k to $290k |
| Melbourne | $150k to $175k | $180k to $205k | $215k to $280k |
| Brisbane | $145k to $175k | $175k to $200k | $210k to $270k |
Source: Robert Walters Australian Legal Market Overview 2026. Base salary, exclusive of superannuation and benefits.
Salary is one part of the exchange.
Money
Salary, super, bonus and other financial benefits.
Time
Billable targets, actual working hours and how predictable those hours are.
Flexibility
When and where the work happens, and how much control you have over it.
Progression
What changes as responsibility, client ownership and seniority grow.
Upside
How much of the value you create you eventually get to own.
A good deal will look different to different lawyers. The useful part is understanding what yours actually contains.
Some lawyers read this and conclude their deal is a good one. Others start wondering what the alternative looks like.
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600+
independent legal practices
2,000+
solicitors in the network
33
years
3
cities
Scale claims as at April 2026.
- The market figures come from the Thomson Reuters Institute, Australia State of the Legal Market 2026, published 27 August 2026. They are based on Thomson Reuters Financial Insights data from 27 participating Australian law firms, including some of the country's largest by qualified fee-earner count. They are not a census of the profession.
- The salary figures are published third-party benchmarks. They come from the Robert Walters Australian Legal Market Overview 2026, private practice salary guide, read on 5 September 2026. They are not Clarence research.
- Every salary figure shown is a published range, printed as the source prints it. This page does not average those ranges and it does not produce a salary figure of its own.
- Salary figures are base salary only. They exclude superannuation and benefits, as stated in the source.
- The published salary tables are by city, for Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. The source also covers Perth and Adelaide, which are not shown here because Clarence is not in those cities.
- If you enter your own salary, this page tells you only whether it sits below, within or above the range you selected. It does not work out a percentile, it does not rank you, and it does not say whether you are paid fairly.
- Anything you type into this page is worked out on your own device. Your salary is never saved, never sent to Clarence and never included in any analytics.
- Discussion on Reddit and other social platforms may inform the questions this page asks. It is not used as quantitative market evidence anywhere on this page.
- Clarence does not claim that lawyers are underpaid. This page sets out published figures and the parts of the job that sit alongside them, and leaves the conclusion to the reader.
- Everything here is general information. It is not career advice and it is not financial advice.