Attorney Salary in Illinois 2026,
$160,800 Median | BLS Data by City

The published Illinois figure is $160,800 a year, or $77.31 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025, with a band from $82,160 at the 10th percentile to $330,200 at the 90th. That is 0.7% above the national median of $159,670. Illinois employs 33,590 lawyers at a location quotient of 1.14, one of the larger legal workforces in the country.

Chicago-Naperville-Elgin at $165,660, with Peoria unexpectedly close at $161,150 — then a sharp drop to Springfield $131,400, Champaign-Urbana $129,990 and Bloomington $124,100. The gap between Chicago and the smaller downstate markets is more than 25%, which makes this one of the most geographically concentrated legal economies in the country.

The Supreme Court of Illinois grants admission through its Board of Admissions to the Bar: a JD from an ABA-approved law school, a passing Uniform Bar Examination score and a character and fitness review. Because Illinois administers the UBE, a qualifying score from another UBE jurisdiction can be transferred rather than re-sat. After admission, lawyers register annually with the Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission, which also administers discipline and MCLE.

No — and that is a meaningful competitive point. Illinois applies a flat 4.95% state income tax with a $2,925 personal exemption allowance in 2026, and no Illinois municipality, Chicago included, levies a local income tax on wages. For an attorney at the $224,450 seventy-fifth percentile or the $330,200 ninetieth, that combination compares favourably with markets where a city income tax sits on top of a progressive state schedule.

For Chicago practice, yes. The state median of $160,800 edges the national figure, the top decile reaches $330,200, the flat 4.95% tax carries no municipal surcharge, and Illinois pro-rates to roughly 1,400 openings a year. The qualification is geographic: outside Chicago-Naperville-Elgin the picture changes substantially, with Springfield at $131,400 and Bloomington at $124,100, and those markets turn over slowly.

Because Chicago is the only Illinois market with a corporate client base at national scale. Large-firm transactional, finance and litigation practice follows headquarters, capital markets and complex disputes, and in Illinois those are almost entirely in Chicago-Naperville-Elgin. The downstate metros support competent general practice, state government legal work and university-adjacent employment, which pay on entirely different scales — hence Springfield at $131,400 against Chicago's $165,660, for lawyers holding the same licence.

A four-to-one band is not a career ladder, it is a set of separate markets sharing a SOC code. The $82,160 tenth percentile describes public-sector and legal-aid practice that many Illinois lawyers spend a whole career in by choice; the $330,200 ninetieth describes Chicago equity partnership and senior in-house roles that a small minority reach. Reading the median as a typical mid-career salary overstates the bottom half and understates the top.

Market first, practice area second, ownership third. Moving from a downstate practice to Chicago-Naperville-Elgin is worth more than 25% at the metro median alone. Within Chicago, corporate, finance, litigation and real-estate work for the business base is most of the distance from the $103,020 twenty-fifth percentile to the $224,450 seventy-fifth. Above that, the $330,200 top decile is equity participation and general counsel positions rather than salary — and Illinois's flat 4.95% rate, with no city tax, applies to all of it at one rate.