Attorney Salary in Virginia 2026,
$167,210 Median | BLS Data by City

The published Virginia figure is $167,210 a year, or $80.39 an hour, per BLS OEWS May 2025, with a band from $79,330 at the 10th percentile to $320,220 at the 90th. That is 4.7% above the national median of $159,670. Virginia employs 18,580 lawyers at a location quotient of 0.93, slightly below the national employment rate.

Of the published rows, Charlottesville at $149,430 — then Richmond $144,910, Roanoke $134,440, Virginia Beach-Chesapeake-Norfolk $133,380 and Harrisonburg $127,070. But all five sit below the statewide $167,210, because northern Virginia's lawyers are counted in the Washington metropolitan area rather than in any Virginia-only metro row. The state's best-paid legal work does not appear in this table.

No. The Virginia Board of Bar Examiners administers Virginia's own bar examination, and the state has not adopted the UBE — so a qualifying UBE score earned in another jurisdiction cannot be transferred into Virginia. Admission requires a JD from an approved law school, a passing Virginia examination and a character and fitness review, followed by membership of the Virginia State Bar. For a lawyer relocating from a UBE state into northern Virginia or Richmond, that is a real additional step.

Because the highest-paying part of the state's legal market has no Virginia metro row. The northern Virginia counties fall within the Washington-Arlington-Alexandria metropolitan area, and the government contracts, procurement, national security and corporate practice concentrated there is where Virginia's $207,480 seventy-fifth percentile and $320,220 ninetieth actually live. The published Virginia metros — from Charlottesville at $149,430 down to Harrisonburg at $127,070 — describe the rest of the state.

Favourably, and materially so at the top. Virginia's schedule is progressive to 5.75% with the top bracket beginning at a modest income, so it behaves almost like a flat rate for this occupation. The District of Columbia's schedule reaches 10.75% for its highest earners. For an attorney working in the northern Virginia and Washington market at the $207,480 seventy-fifth percentile or the $320,220 ninetieth, where you reside is a decision with a substantial annual value attached to it.

Because a state boundary cuts through a single labour market. Northern Virginia's legal economy is functionally part of Washington's — the same clients, the same firms, often the same buildings — and BLS reports those workers within the Washington-Arlington-Alexandria metro rather than in a Virginia-only row. The consequence is a state median of $167,210 that no Virginia metro reaches, and a set of published metros from $127,070 to $149,430 that accurately describe Richmond, Hampton Roads and the smaller markets but not the state as a whole.

It describes two different legal economies averaged together. One is a federal-facing, high-rate market in northern Virginia; the other is conventional state practice in Richmond, Hampton Roads, Roanoke and the university towns, where the published metro figures of $133,380 to $149,430 are the real benchmarks. A lawyer evaluating an offer in Richmond should not measure it against $167,210; a lawyer evaluating one in Tysons or Arlington should not measure it against Richmond's $144,910.

Proximity to the federal government, then practice area. Government contracts, procurement, national security, technology and regulatory practice in northern Virginia pay on a different scale from general commercial practice elsewhere in the state, and that gap is most of the distance from the $107,710 twenty-fifth percentile to the $207,480 seventy-fifth. Above that, equity participation and general counsel roles drive the $320,220 top decile. Virginia's own bar examination, meanwhile, is a friction that keeps out-of-state entry slower than in UBE jurisdictions.