Legal Jobs in Seattle, WA

Observed local pay is strong. BLS puts Seattle legal occupations at a $67.24 mean hourly wage, with a $116,750 median annual wage, $85,140 at the 25th percentile, $168,270 at the 75th percentile, and $247,830 at the 90th percentile in 2025. Directional current posting data runs higher: sampled salary ranges center on about $152k to $210k, and Revelio Public Labor Statistics shows a Washington mean offered salary on new openings of about $125,262 in September 2026, based on n=203.

Full September 2026 market report

Advertised pay

Across the 155 openings that disclose pay, the advertised range midpoint runs $114,326 at the 25th percentile, $167,500 at the median and $198,750 at the 75th. These are advertised ranges, not earned pay.

Active openings as of November 10, 2026

Senior roles | Entry level | Remote | Posted this week

Live from the Callings.ai index of over 13 million postings, refreshed hourly and re-checked here nightly. Roles that close are dropped at the next refresh.

Showing 30 of 174 openings.

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What our analysts see this month

Competitive market | next 3-6 months

This is a competitive market, not a collapsing one. Washington legal, compliance & risk employment was up 3.3% year over year in September 2026, but active postings for the same field were down 5.8%, which means the market still has jobs while openings are tighter than last year. Seattle's unemployment rate was 4.8% in August 2026, and local professional and business services employment was up 0.6278% year over year, so the employer base is still stable enough to support hiring. Pay remains strong, but access is uneven: Seattle legal occupations had a $116,750 median annual wage and $139,860 mean annual wage in 2025, while only about 10% of sampled openings were entry level.

Best positioned: Licensed attorneys and mid-career legal/compliance professionals who can show privacy, AI-governance, contracts, litigation, or regulatory depth have the best odds right now.

Main caution: The biggest trap is assuming Seattle's high posted salary bands mean broad access; sampled openings center on about $152k to $210k, but the market skews toward mid and senior hiring and only about 10% of roles are remote.

From the September 2026 market report

Who is hiring here

Counted across all 174 openings in this market. 10 of the employers below are hiring for more than one role right now.

1. Amazon: 14 open roles
2. Ashurst Perkins Coie Group: 12 open roles
3. Databricks Inc.: 6 open roles
4. Modern Family Law: 6 open roles
5. Lee & Hayes: 5 open roles
6. Lewis Brisbois: 4 open roles
7. Ascendion: 3 open roles
8. Cisco Systems, Inc: 3 open roles
9. King County International: 3 open roles
10. Lyft Inc: 3 open roles

Where the openings are

• Seattle: 129
• Bellevue: 19
• Redmond: 6
• Kirkland: 2
• Kent: 2
• Port Orchard: 2
• Bellevue, Washington, United States; Mountain View, California, United States; New York City, New York, United States; San Francisco, California, United States; Seattle, Washington, United States; Washington: 1
• Lakewood: 1

Work arrangement

on-site 87 (51%), hybrid 74 (44%), remote 9 (5%)

Where the demand is

Real opportunity exists, but it is not evenly spread across the category. Over the last 90 days, the sample shows more than 350 postings across more than 175 companies, and hiring is fragmented rather than dominated by one employer. Most sampled demand sits in legal services, law practice, and legal departments, with smaller but meaningful pockets in internet and web services and technology. Among named employers, Amazon and Ashurst Perkins Coie Group were among the most consistently active, each with more than 20 postings in the sample. The strongest firm-side signals are tied to targeted practices rather than broad staffing. Seyfarth expanded labor and employment in Seattle by seven lawyers, McGuireWoods added two former Boeing product-liability lawyers and grew its Seattle office to 16 lawyers, and Foster Garvey announced five first-year associates including one in Intellectual Property, Privacy & Technology. A separate Seattle recruiter snapshot also pointed to litigation, corporate, intellectual property, and technology as leading demand areas. The nontraditional opportunity pocket is privacy, cybersecurity, and governance. Seattle's fall conference calendar highlighted privacy, security, risk, AI governance, supplier risk, contract negotiation, data-security compliance, and incident response. That matters if you are trying to enter through compliance, vendor risk, privacy operations, or legal-ops-adjacent work instead of classic law-firm tracks.

• Law firms: litigation, labor & employment, corporate, and specialty regulatory work (high): This is the deepest visible pool, supported by Seattle expansions in labor and employment, product liability, litigation, and environmental/regulatory partner hiring.
• In-house legal and commercial roles in tech and internet companies (moderate): The sample shows a meaningful share of activity in internet and web services plus technology, with Amazon among the most active named employers.
• Privacy, cybersecurity, AI governance, and compliance operations (moderate): This is the clearest growth-style niche for candidates who can mix legal, policy, data, and operational risk skills.

Where to focus: If you have options, focus first on mid-career roles that combine legal judgment with privacy, contracts, employment, or regulatory risk instead of broad generalist applications.

Roles worth searching next

• Legal operations / CLM implementation specialist: This path uses contracts, workflow design, and project management rather than courtroom or partner-track experience.
• Privacy program manager or AI governance program manager: Seattle signals strong overlap between legal, privacy, security, and AI governance work.
• Employee relations or labor relations manager: Labor-and-employment expansion in Seattle and state policy changes create demand for employer-side workplace policy and investigation skills.
• Vendor risk or third-party risk analyst: Local signals tie supplier risk, contract negotiation, data-security compliance, and incident response together.

What postings ask for

• Active license to practice law (table_stakes | immediate): For attorney and counsel paths, licensure remains the clearest screening requirement; among postings that listed a certification, an active license to practice law was the most common requirement. Who: Attorneys, judicial clerks, and laterals targeting counsel or firm-side work.
• Regulatory compliance (table_stakes | immediate): Regulatory compliance appears among the most-requested local hard skills, and national employer guidance also flags it as a specialized skill tied to demand and compensation. Who: Compliance managers, risk analysts, contracts professionals, and lawyers moving in-house.
• Contract negotiation and CLM implementation (differentiator | near-term): Contract negotiation shows up frequently in local postings, and contract lifecycle management implementation is one of the specialized skills national legal employers are rewarding. Who: Commercial counsel, contract managers, legal ops candidates, and career switchers from procurement or vendor management.
• Legal research and legal writing (table_stakes | immediate): Legal research is the most-requested hard skill in the local sample, and legal writing also ranks near the top. Who: Entry-level candidates, litigators, paralegals, and anyone without deep local network access.
• Data privacy, cybersecurity law, and AI governance (premium | immediate): Seattle's recent conference agenda put privacy, security, risk, and AI governance at the center, and national compensation guidance also identifies data privacy as a specialized demand area. Who: In-house counsel, product lawyers, privacy professionals, GRC staff, and switchers coming from security or policy teams.
• Risk management and project management (differentiator | near-term): Both skills show up in local postings and help bridge legal work with operational ownership, especially in compliance and vendor-risk tracks. Who: Career switchers, compliance staff, operations professionals, and legal ops candidates.

Questions about this market

What do Legal, Compliance & Risk roles pay in Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA?

Observed local pay is strong. BLS puts Seattle legal occupations at a $67.24 mean hourly wage, with a $116,750 median annual wage, $85,140 at the 25th percentile, $168,270 at the 75th percentile, and $247,830 at the 90th percentile in 2025. Directional current posting data runs higher: sampled salary ranges center on about $152k to $210k, and Revelio Public Labor Statistics shows a Washington mean offered salary on new openings of about $125,262 in September 2026, based on n=203. Seattle can pay very well for legal work, but the premium is concentrated in licensed counsel, specialized regulatory work, and senior in-house or firm-side roles.

Where is demand for Legal, Compliance & Risk roles in Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA concentrated?

Real opportunity exists, but it is not evenly spread across the category. Over the last 90 days, the sample shows more than 350 postings across more than 175 companies, and hiring is fragmented rather than dominated by one employer. Most sampled demand sits in legal services, law practice, and legal departments, with smaller but meaningful pockets in internet and web services and technology. Among named employers, Amazon and Ashurst Perkins Coie Group were among the most consistently active, each with more than 20 postings in the sample. The strongest firm-side signals are tied to targeted practices rather than broad staffing. Seyfarth expanded labor and employment in Seattle by seven lawyers, McGuireWoods added two former Boeing product-liability lawyers and grew its Seattle office to 16 lawyers, and Foster Garvey announced five first-year associates including one in Intellectual Property, Privacy & Technology. A separate Seattle recruiter snapshot also pointed to litigation, corporate, intellectual property, and technology as leading demand areas. The nontraditional opportunity pocket is privacy, cybersecurity, and governance. Seattle's fall conference calendar highlighted privacy, security, risk, AI governance, supplier risk, contract negotiation, data-security compliance, and incident response. That matters if you are trying to enter through compliance, vendor risk, privacy operations, or legal-ops-adjacent work instead of classic law-firm tracks.

Which employers are hiring the most Legal, Compliance & Risk talent in Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA?

Recent postings show the most activity from Amazon (more than 20 postings), Ashurst Perkins Coie Group (more than 20 postings). See the full market report for the complete employer landscape.

Can Legal, Compliance & Risk roles in Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA be done remotely?

Of recent postings, 10% are remote and 40% hybrid, with 55% on-site. Use the Remote filter above to see only remote openings.

How current are these listings?

Openings come from the Callings.ai live index of over 13 million jobs, refreshed hourly. This page searches postings from the last 30 days; run the search yourself to filter by anything else in plain language.

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