Legal Recruiting · Massachusetts

The Massachusetts lateral market, in the numbers firms publish.

We track every opening Massachusetts law firms post publicly, and the salary ranges they publish with them. Here is what the market looks like right now, and what it means if you are weighing a move.

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Open demand

What Massachusetts firms are hiring for today

Openings posted publicly by law firms with Massachusetts offices (July 2026). Postings only show you the visible market; many searches, especially at partner level, never get posted at all.

648

Open law-firm postings

313

Attorney roles (associate)

148

Litigation openings

The most balanced big market in the country. Boston's demand splits almost evenly three ways: litigation, intellectual property, and corporate each carry a nearly equal share of posted openings, a balance no other large market shows. The life sciences corridor drives it, pulling licensing, patent, and deal work in equal measure.

Source: Voll Recruiting analysis of publicly posted law-firm openings, July 2026.

Practice areas

Where the demand concentrates

Posted openings by practice area. If your practice sits in a deep column, you have options; if it sits in a thin one, timing and positioning matter more, and that is exactly the situation a recruiter earns their keep in.

Litigation

148 openings

Corporate / transactional

131 openings

Intellectual property

143 openings

Source: Voll Recruiting analysis of publicly posted law-firm openings, July 2026.

Published pay

What Massachusetts postings are offering

Salary ranges taken directly from current public postings. Ranges like these are the floor of a negotiation, not the ceiling; knowing where a specific firm actually lands is the part we do for a living.

Role	Firm · location	Experience	Posted range
Life sciences licensing associate	Goodwin Procter · Boston	3 to 5 years	$260,000 – $365,000
Real estate transactions associate	Goodwin Procter · Boston	3 to 4 years	$260,000 – $310,000

Source: Salary ranges published in public law-firm job listings, July 2026.

The part postings can't show you

The best Massachusetts moves are rarely the posted ones.

A posting tells you a seat exists. It does not tell you which groups are quietly building, which firms flex on class year, or where your book and background put you at the front of the line. That is the read we give every Massachusetts attorney we work with, confidentially, before anything is sent anywhere.

Get a confidential market read

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