Attorney Salary in Dallas, TX 2026,
$168,510 Median | BLS + Market Data

Dallas attorneys earn a BLS median of $168,510/yr, or $81.02 an hour, published for the combined Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington metro, with a band of $81,360 to $347,260. That is 9.3% above the Texas statewide median and 5.5% above the US median. The band's width reflects a bimodal profession rather than a smooth seniority ladder.

Yes, by 9.3%. The metroplex holds the largest concentration of corporate headquarters in Texas, and corporate transactional and litigation work commands the state's highest rates. Houston's energy bar is comparable in value but narrower in sector; the rest of Texas is small-firm and government practice, which pays close to the national base.

Because BLS publishes a single wage estimate for the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington metropolitan area with no metropolitan divisions. There is no separately published Fort Worth attorney median. What differs between the two cities is the client base — Fort Worth's bar leans toward energy, defence and insurance work — not the survey figure.

Corporate transactional, private equity and energy finance, followed by complex commercial litigation. Those practices are what reach the $347,260 top of the published band. Family, criminal and immigration practice, though large by headcount across the metroplex, sits in the lower half.

A Texas law licence, admitted through the Texas Board of Law Examiners under the authority of the Supreme Court of Texas: a JD from an accredited law school, the Texas bar examination, the MPRE and a character and fitness review. Admission is statewide and there is no separate metroplex requirement.

Over the past decade the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington metro has absorbed an unusual number of corporate headquarters relocations, and legal work followed. National firms expanded their offices here, in-house departments grew, and the compensation those employers offer is benchmarked nationally rather than locally. That is the mechanism behind a Texas metro clearing the US attorney median — not local cost of living, which remains moderate.

OEWS covers wage and salary employment, so equity partners taking distributions and solo practitioners are inconsistently represented, likely understating both ends. Large-firm bonuses, a formulaic and substantial part of associate compensation, are also outside base wages. And the estimate blends Dallas, Fort Worth and the suburban corridor into one figure covering markets with genuinely different practice mixes.

The median on this page describes relatively few actual attorneys. Large-firm and in-house work clusters well above it; small-firm, solo and public practice clusters well below. For someone choosing a path in this metroplex, the practical question is which population you are entering, because movement between them after the first few years is difficult — national-scale employers recruit from a narrow set of credentials and firms.