How to hire a legal consultant

How to hire a legal consultant, step by step

Here's a step-by-step legal consultant hiring guide:

• Step 1: Identify your hiring needs
• Step 2: Create an ideal candidate profile
• Step 3: Make a budget
• Step 4: Write a legal consultant job description
• Step 5: Post your job
• Step 6: Interview candidates
• Step 7: Send a job offer and onboard your new legal consultant
• Step 8: Go through the hiring process checklist

What does a legal consultant do?

Post a legal consultant job for free, promote it for a fee

Post free

1. Identify your hiring needs

   The legal consultant hiring process starts by determining what type of worker you actually need. Certain roles might require a full-time employee, whereas part-time workers or contractors can do others.

   Determine employee vs contractor status

   Is the person you're thinking of hiring a US citizen or green card holder?

   Yes

   No

   A legal consultant's background is also an important factor in determining whether they'll be a good fit for the position. For example, legal consultants from different industries or fields will have radically different experiences and will bring different viewpoints to the role. You also need to consider the candidate's previous level of experience to make sure they'll be comfortable with the job's level of seniority.

   This list shows salaries for various types of legal consultants.

   Type of Legal Consultant	Description	Hourly rate
   Legal Consultant	Lawyers advise and represent individuals, businesses, and government agencies on legal issues and disputes.	$19-66
   Attorney	Generally, an attorney's responsibility is to advise the client with an ongoing lawsuit on the legal procedures and provide strategies to resolve the case as early as possible. An attorney compiles necessary documents or any records for appeal and client's defense... Show more	$33-82
   Attorney At Law	An Attorney at Law is responsible for preparing and examining contracts involving leases, licenses, purchases, sales, etc. They advise clients concerning business transactions, claim liability, or legal rights and obligations.	$33-79

   Show more

2. Create an ideal candidate profile

   Common skills:

   • Litigation
   • Regulatory Compliance
   • Legal Research
   • Financial Statements
   • Client Relationships
   • Legal Issues
   • Legal Services
   • Intellectual Property
   • Law Firm
   • Legal Advice
   • Due Diligence
   • Real Estate Transactions
   • Service Agreements
   • Confidentiality Agreements

   Check all skills

   Responsibilities:

   • Manage day-to-day legal affairs of NYSE list airline.
   • Experience includes analysis and advice regarding claims relate to exotic securities agreements.
   • Represent individual and institutional clients in all aspects of commercial and residential real estate acquisition, financing and leasing and foreclosure.
   • Audit key financial and claim-relate regulatory processes including Medicare fraud.
   • Conduct discovery: documents productions, interrogatories, witness depositions.
   • Demonstrate expertise in preparing documents and discovery responses relate to interrogatories, request for admissions, and request for production.

   More legal consultant duties

3. Make a budget

   Including a salary range in your legal consultant job description is a great way to entice the best and brightest candidates. A legal consultant salary can vary based on several factors:

   • Location. For example, legal consultants' average salary in arkansas is 67% less than in district of columbia.
   • Seniority. Entry-level legal consultants earn 71% less than senior-level legal consultants.
   • Certifications. A legal consultant with a few certifications under their belt will likely demand a higher salary.
   • Company. Working for a prestigious company or an exciting start-up can make a huge difference in a legal consultant's salary.

   Average legal consultant salary

   $75,024yearly

   $36.07 hourly rate

   ---

   Entry-level legal consultant salary

   $40,000 yearly salary

   Updated December 29, 2025

   Average legal consultant salary by state

   Rank	State	Avg. salary	Hourly rate
   1	District of Columbia	$130,813	$63
   2	New York	$117,610	$57
   3	Illinois	$95,602	$46
   4	Virginia	$89,579	$43
   5	California	$85,702	$41
   6	Maryland	$85,212	$41
   7	Michigan	$84,726	$41
   8	New Jersey	$83,190	$40
   9	Washington	$78,090	$38
   10	Minnesota	$76,865	$37
   11	Nevada	$76,465	$37
   12	Pennsylvania	$76,305	$37
   13	Texas	$75,098	$36
   14	North Carolina	$70,248	$34
   15	Indiana	$67,752	$33
   16	Florida	$62,148	$30
   17	Georgia	$61,753	$30
   18	Missouri	$61,288	$29
   19	Mississippi	$51,539	$25

   Average legal consultant salary by company

   Company

   Rank	Company	Average salary	Hourly rate	Job openings
   1	Alston & Bird	$205,712	$98.90	10
   2	Hughes Hubbard & Reed	$197,108	$94.76
   3	Latham & Watkins	$196,050	$94.25	4
   4	Sidley Austin	$194,450	$93.49	8
   5	Willkie Farr & Gallagher	$193,184	$92.88
   6	Loeb & Loeb	$193,037	$92.81
   7	Morgan Lewis	$192,076	$92.34	4
   8	Davis Polk & Wardwell	$185,847	$89.35
   9	Schulte Roth & Zabel	$182,738	$87.85
   10	Apple	$176,892	$85.04	15
   11	Clifford Chance	$173,556	$83.44	4
   12	Covington & Burling	$171,390	$82.40	1
   13	Chadbourne & Parke	$171,115	$82.27
   14	Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner	$168,047	$80.79
   15	Crowell & Moring	$166,790	$80.19	6
   16	Mayo Clinic	$163,752	$78.73	6
   17	Fish & Richardson	$155,762	$74.89
   18	Arent Fox	$155,725	$74.87
   19	Yahoo	$155,040	$74.54
   20	Sills Cummis & Gross P.C.	$148,964	$71.62

4. Writing a legal consultant job description

   A good legal consultant job description should include a few things:

   • Summary of the role
   • List of responsibilities
   • Required skills and experience

   Including a salary range and the first name of the hiring manager is also appreciated by candidates. Here's an example of a legal consultant job description:

   Legal consultant job description example

   Forward is on a bold mission to make high-quality healthcare available to a billion people across the globe. We're building the world's most advanced healthcare platform from the ground up, combining hardware, software, and doctors under one roof.
   
   Forward was founded in January 2016 by former executives and engineering leaders from Google and Uber. We are funded by some of the world's best investors and entrepreneurs, including Founder's Fund, Khosla Ventures, First Round Capital, Eric Schmidt (Google/Alphabet Chairman), Marc Benioff (Salesforce Founder), Joe Lonsdale (Palantir Founder), and Garrett Camp (Uber co-Founder).
   Press and Videos:
   Virtual Tour of Forward [YouTube]
   "Health Moves Forward" [CEO Blog Post]
   Series D Funding Funds Doctor-led Programs [TechCrunch]
   Forward - What Quality Healthcare Should Look Like [Mashable]
   Primary Care Start-ups Vying for 170B Market [Business Insider]
   “The Pivot to Virtual Care” [Chief Medical Officer @ Stanford Medicine]
   The Meaning of Trans Broken-Arm Syndrome [USA Today]
   
   As a critical member of our growing Legal team, you will play a key role in designing and setting-up processes for scale to support Forward's quickly growing business and footprint, in addition to playing a central role for our day-to-day operations.
   
   Please submit a cover letter with your application.
   You Will:Design and implement processes within legal, and between legal and teams across the company to support our quickly growing business Lead project planning, tracking, follow-up and execution of key legal projects, ensuring key deadlines and milestones met, and dependencies surfaced Develop, utilize, and act on legal metrics for measuring impact and productivity, and applying insights to inform key decisions Assist with identifying and integrating key legal operations tools, software, and / or external partners Improve processes and systems for organizing, tracking and storing key legal documents Lead knowledge management efforts to scale documentation and dissemination efforts, and maintain repository of knowledge (ensuring recency) Improve the onboarding, engagement and management processes related to our strategic firms and service providers Lead research projects, and prepare legal documents and correspondences as needed
   You Are:Impact-Driven - You're deeply mission-driven, and you think there's more to life than software that enables puppy ears to be superimposed in photos. (Although we concede those are cute.) A Trusted Partner - Teammates want to be in the trenches with you.Detail-Oriented - You have exceptional organizational and analytical skills; Builder-for-the-Future - You enjoy thinking of ways to build and scale, efficient and impact-focused operational processes.A Problem Solver - You love breaking down highly complex problems into their easily explainable building blocks.Scrappy - You're a hustler who will get your hands dirty, working hand-in-hard with others.Intrigued by the law - You are excited by the depth and breadth of the law, and would enjoy helping others understand the law.
   Minimum Qualifications:Bachelor's degree2+ years work experience Proficient in Google Suite or Microsoft Office Suite
   Preferred Qualifications:Legal Operations or Paralegal experience a plus, but not required Experienced in fast-paced environment
   WHY JOIN FORWARD?
   
   We don't want to just move dollars around the healthcare industry - we want to rebuild it and fix it. All of it. You'd be a major part of the story behind one of the most ambitious startup attempts of the past decade and you'd work with a team of people who want to use their talents for good.
   
   Our Commitment to Diversity and Inclusion: We deeply understand the value of bringing together a team with different perspectives, educational backgrounds, and life experiences, and we prioritize diversity within our team. We encourage people from underrepresented backgrounds to apply.
   
   We are an equal opportunity employer. In accordance with anti-discrimination law, it is the purpose of this policy to effectuate these principles and mandates. We prohibit discrimination and harassment of any type and affords equal employment opportunities to employees and applicants without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability status, protected veteran status, or any other characteristic protected by law. We conform to the spirit as well as to the letter of all applicable laws and regulations. Pursuant to the San Francisco Fair Chance Ordinance and the Los Angeles Fair Chance Initiative for Hiring, we will consider for employment qualified applicants with arrest and conviction records.

   Copy this example

   

5. Post your job

   There are a few common ways to find legal consultants for your business:

   • Promoting internally or recruiting from your existing workforce.
   • Ask for referrals from friends, family members, and current employees.
   • Attend job fairs at local colleges to meet candidates with the right educational background.
   • Use social media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter to recruit passive job-seekers.

   Post your job online:

   • Post your legal consultant job on Zippia to find and recruit legal consultant candidates who meet your exact specifications.
   • Use field-specific websites.
   • Post a job on free websites.

6. Interview candidates

   Recruiting legal consultants requires you to bring your A-game to the interview process. The first interview should introduce the company and the role to the candidate as much as they present their background experience and reasons for applying for the job. During later interviews, you can go into more detail about the technical details of the job and ask behavioral questions to gauge how they'd fit into your current company culture.

   You should also ask about candidates' unique skills and talents to see if they match the ideal candidate profile you developed earlier. Candidates good enough for the next step can complete the technical interview.

   The right interview questions can help you assess a candidate's hard skills, behavioral intelligence, and soft skills.

7. Send a job offer and onboard your new legal consultant

   Once you've decided on a perfect legal consultant candidate, it's time to write an offer letter. In addition to salary, it should include benefits and perks available to the employee. Qualified candidates may be considered for other positions, so make sure your offer is competitive. Candidates may wish to negotiate. Once you've settled on the details, formalize your agreement with a contract.

   It's equally important to follow up with applicants who don't get the job with an email letting them know that the position has been filled.

   Once that's done, you can draft an onboarding schedule for the new legal consultant. Human Resources should complete Employee Action Forms and ensure that onboarding paperwork is completed, including I-9s, benefits enrollment, federal and state tax forms, etc. They should also ensure that new employee files are created for internal recordkeeping.

8. Go through the hiring process checklist

   • Determine employee type (full-time, part-time, contractor, etc.)
   • Submit a job requisition form to the HR department
   • Define job responsibilities and requirements
   • Establish budget and timeline
   • Determine hiring decision makers for the role
   • Write job description
   • Post job on job boards, company website, etc.
   • Promote the job internally
   • Process applications through applicant tracking system
   • Review resumes and cover letters
   • Shortlist candidates for screening
   • Hold phone/virtual interview screening with first round of candidates
   • Conduct in-person interviews with top candidates from first round
   • Score candidates based on weighted criteria (e.g., experience, education, background, cultural fit, skill set, etc.)
   • Conduct background checks on top candidates
   • Check references of top candidates
   • Consult with HR and hiring decision makers on job offer specifics
   • Extend offer to top candidate(s)
   • Receive formal job offer acceptance and signed employment contract
   • Inform other candidates that the position has been filled
   • Set and communicate onboarding schedule to new hire(s)
   • Complete new hire paperwork (i9, benefits enrollment, tax forms, etc.)

   Sign up to download full list

   Sign up

How much does it cost to hire a legal consultant?