Legal Business Services: Talent Trends and Salary Guide USA 2024/2025

The competition for talent amongst law firms in the client value and operations space remains tough.  

Demand for roles in legal project management, pricing, practice management, finance, data and innovation continues to rise, outstripping supply and keeping salaries high. 

2024 saw plenty of movement, both internal promotions and staff migrating to new roles elsewhere. Staff attraction and retention within legal business services remains a key objective for firms against this backdrop. 

The bottleneck for new talent moving into these roles persists, as firms prefer candidates to have prior legal sector experience. This only serves to increase the value of the existing talent pool. Unless the sector can start to plan more long term and widen the talent pool by bringing in talent from less traditional routes, we predict little change in the situation.

Counter offers remain an issue within the sector where short notice periods make it difficult to quickly recruit replacements. Counter offers are becoming more prevalent across the global market across certain sections of the market, driven by skills shortages. But, they are often a short-term fix.

Legal Business Services - Salary Guide

Let’s start by looking at current salary levels, excluding annual bonus or eployee profit share, for client value and operations roles within law firms. As most of our work in the sector is driven by the US market, we have represented these in USD.

Salary ranges vary by region and city. For example, clients hiring in New York should expect to pay significantly more than those hiring candidates in Atlanta. Additionally, the size of the talent pool plays a key role in determining where candidates are sourced. While remote work enables access to a larger talent pool, firms will need to balance this advantage against the growing desire for employees to work in the office.

Legal Pricing 

Pricing Director	$250,000 +
Senior Pricing Manager	$180,000 - $225,000
Pricing Manager	$150,000 - $170,000
Senior Pricing Analyst	$100,000 - $140,000
Pricing Analyst	$80,000 - $95,000

Legal Project Management (LPM) 

Director & Head of LPM	$240,000 +
Senior Legal Project Manager	$170,000 - $200,000
Legal Project Manager	$120,000 - $170,000
LPM Analyst	$90,000 - $110,000

Legal Practice Management

Director of Practice Management	$250,000 +
Senior Practice Manager	$175,000 - $250,000
Practice Manager	$125,000 - $175,000

There is potential for greater variation at the top end of the range for the biggest firms, where Director of Practice Management roles, for example, may pay comfortably above the $300k mark.

Financial Planning & Analysis (FP&A) and Reporting

Director of FP&A and Reporting	$240,000 +
Senior Manager - FP&A and Reporting	$170,000 - $240,000
Manager - FP&A and Reporting	$150,000 - $180,000

Data & Technology

CTO and Chief Data Officer	$300,000+
Director of Analytics	$225,000 - $275,000
Data Scientist	$140,000 - $200,000
Data Engineer	$150,000 - $220,000
Data Analyst	$120,000 - $160,000

Compared to a year ago, salary levels in the sector have risen steadily. As demand shows no sign of slowing, candidates will continue to expect strong annual pay rises and salary progression when moving roles. 
And it’s not just about salary. Firms need to look at their EVP as a whole – including benefits, culture and working environment – to remain competitive.

Why is demand for talent in legal business services continuing to rise? 

In the fiercely competitive legal business services sector, firms are continuing to drive for greater profitability. At the same time, clients are demanding increased transparency on costs, and better insight throughout the matter.

For some years now, there has been a trend away from traditional hourly billing models to alternative fee arrangements (AFA). Law firms are under pressure to control costs against budget. Internally, they need to protect profits and maintain a competitive edge – a difficult balance.

Externally, they have to win, and keep, clients.

Yes, lawyers are the ones delivering the work. But, without the commercial or project management skills required, can clients be sure that their matter is being delivered in the most cost-effective and efficient way? Increasingly, even the presence of an LPM department is enough to give one firm the edge over another.

Client value and operations teams, therefore, are at the forefront of the battle for business and profits.

And the sector is still evolving. Firms now have more data than ever. As firms find better ways to analyse data and integrate technology, they are finding new ways to drive efficiency, innovate and improve. The industry has yet to fully embrace the potential of AI, which could shift the dial again.

It’s also a discipline that is still growing. There are still plenty of firms out there without distinct pricing and LPM roles, with lawyers managing matters as best they can. As they get on board, the talent market will get even more competitive.

Where will new talent come from?

In the past, operational and commercial roles have all had legal backgrounds. Many have moved from traditional finance and analyst positions. Some have transitioned from legal careers.

It’s always been considered that legal experience is required above everything else.  

But, there are other sectors, with comparable commercial models, where similar roles have been integrated into the business for much longer. People working in these sectors already understand the systems, tech and data that can be harnessed. They are used to reporting to clients throughout the duration of a project and are familiar with the level of scrutiny on costs.

In our view, in order to alleviate talent bottlenecks in the legal sector, law firms could consider attracting talent from other sectors with the right skills, perhaps at entry or lower level roles, and providing them with the legal expertise. In this way, they can grow new, larger talent pipelines at a lower cost.

The hiring landscape for Data & Technology roles

With the explosion in the use of AI in the past year, legal firms have been looking at ways to harnass the potential of AI to drive increases in efficiency, profitability and innovation. A recent survey by The Legal Value Network highlights that 75% of respondents working in the client value space believe that most law firms will be using generative AI substantially in the new few years.

Against this backdrop, demand for data and legal tech talent is high, and predicted to grow. As more and more firms are being asked to provide data analysis by clients, and client value functions increase their use of data to develop AFAs, the importance of data and technology roles within a firm will increase. At the same time, legal client value and practice management roles will become more technology driven. Talent pipelines will need to evolve over the next year or two to account for this shift in focus.

The current Legal Pricing and LPM talent landscape

To conclude, we are still seeing strong demand for client value and operations roles which has led to strong growth in salaries in the US and global legal hubs. 

Law firms should continue to work on the whole employee package to ensure they are able to retain and attract talent to these crucial roles.

Boston Hale has mapped the markets for client values roles globally. We have a broad network of talent, from mid-level to leadership positions, and are keen to extend that network further.

We are available to discuss the market and of course, very happy to recruit across the client value spectrum for legal project management (LPM), pricing, practice management, finance, data and innovation roles in the US, Europe or APAC regions.

Get in touch with Simon Taylor for more information.

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