JD advantage jobs: what they are and how to get one

The labels come from two places: NALP’s reports on the jobs law graduates take, and the wording employers put on postings.

• Bar admission required. These are lawyer jobs: they need a law license, or admission soon. NALP calls them bar admission required or anticipated and describes them as attorney positions. In the Class of 2025 [1], 84.6% [2] of graduates took one, the highest share since NALP introduced its current job categories.
• JD advantage. NALP and the ABA use the label for jobs for which bar passage is not required but for which a JD degree provides a distinct advantage [3], starting with the Class of 2011 [4]. In NALP’s full definition, JD advantage jobs are those for which the employer sought an individual with a JD, and perhaps even required a JD, or for which the JD provided a demonstrable advantage in obtaining or performing the job, but are jobs that do not require bar passage, an active law license, or involve practicing law [5].
• JD required. On a posting, this can mean either of the above. If the job needs a license, it is a lawyer job. If the employer wants the degree but not a license, NALP counts it as JD advantage, because its definition covers jobs where the employer "perhaps even required a JD".
• JD preferred. On a posting, it means the employer wants a law degree but will consider people without one, so you may compete with candidates who have years in the field. It is also NALP’s older label: before 2011, NALP called these jobs JD Preferred jobs, and while the two definitions are not identical, the kinds of jobs they cover are largely the same [6].

NALP sorts each new graduate’s job into one of four types: Bar Admission Required/Anticipated, JD Advantage, Other Professional and Other Position [7]. The last two cover other professional jobs and all other work.

Employers choose their own words, so search for "JD preferred", "law degree preferred" and the job titles below, not only "JD advantage".

NALP gives these examples: corporate contracts administrator, alternative dispute resolution specialist, government regulatory analyst, FBI agent, and accountant [8]. It says the category might also include jobs in personnel or human resources, jobs with investment banks, jobs with consulting firms, jobs doing compliance work for business and industry, jobs in law firm professional development, and jobs in law school career services offices, admissions offices, or other law school administrative offices [9].

Grouped by the kind of work, the common job families look like this:

2,086 [10] graduates of the Class of 2025 [1] took JD advantage jobs, 5.9% [11] of those whose outcome NALP knew. Their median full-time salary was $85,000 [12], against $100,000 [13] in jobs that required bar admission, and the middle half earned between $65,000 [14] and $110,000 [15].

The sector matters more than the label:

Business took the most JD advantage graduates and paid them the most. There, the JD advantage median matched the median for business jobs that required bar admission. JD advantage jobs inside law firms and in education paid the least. In the sources at the end of this page, each NALP row reads: jobs, percent, jobs with a reported salary, then the first quartile, median, third quartile and mean salary.

Three cautions before you lean on these numbers:

• They describe first jobs. An experienced lawyer moving into compliance or contracts is hired at a different level. BLS medians for whole occupations, at every experience level and not only for lawyers, give a rough guide: in May 2025 [26] the median annual wage was $80,730 [27] for compliance officers, $75,530 [28] for arbitrators, mediators and conciliators, $101,860 [29] for management analysts, $149,280 [30] for human resources managers and $104,590 [31] for postsecondary education administrators. The last two are management jobs, so ask people in the field what your level pays.
• Salaries are incomplete. NALP reports salaries only for graduates employed in full-time, long-term jobs [32], and it had a salary for 927 [33] of the 2,086 [10] JD advantage jobs.
• The share moves with the market for new lawyers. It was 12.5% of the Class of 2011 [34], in what NALP called the persistently weak entry-level job market for law school graduates that followed the 2008 recession [35]. If you are comparing law schools, read a school’s JD advantage rate next to its rate for jobs that require bar admission.

Every job family above is open to you without a license. The line you cannot cross is practicing law: giving legal advice to clients, representing them, or holding yourself out as a lawyer. Where that line sits depends on the state. As a comment to the ABA’s model ethics rules puts it, the definition of the practice of law is established by law and varies from one jurisdiction to another [36]. So read a job’s duties, not only its title.

If one of these describes you:

• Waiting on bar results. A lawyer job you start before admission still counts as bar admission anticipated in NALP’s categories, not as JD advantage.
• Not planning to take the bar. Say so early, and give the reason in terms of the work you want, not the exam you are skipping.
• After a failed attempt. Employers in these fields hire for the skills in the posting. If bar status comes up, answer plainly and bring the conversation back to the work.

1. Pick one or two job families. "JD, open to anything" reads as a fallback. "I want to build compliance programs" reads as a candidate.
2. Talk to people who do the job. Ask what a normal week looks like, what their employer hired them for and what the role is called there. Titles vary from one employer to the next.
3. Translate your resume. Swap legal shorthand for the field’s words, and lead with what you did, not with case names. "Drafted and negotiated supply agreements" speaks to contracts roles; "advised on consumer protection rules" speaks to compliance.
4. Add a credential only if postings ask for one. If your target postings name one, such as the IAPP's CIPP/US [37] in privacy or the CCEP from the Society of Corporate Compliance and Ethics [38] in compliance, consider it. If they do not, skip it.
5. Use the free channels first. Your law school’s career office may serve alumni, professional associations in each field run job boards, and bar association job boards carry some of these roles. For federal jobs, search USAJOBS.
6. Explain the move as a pull, not an escape. Employers want to hear why their field, not why you are leaving law.
7. Negotiate from the field’s pay, not your last salary. Government pay scales are public, and some fields publish their own salary surveys.

It can make a return harder the longer you stay away, but you can keep the door open:

• Keep your license active and your CLE current. If you switch to inactive status to save on dues, learn how reactivation works in your state first.
• Do not resign your license casually. In California, coming back after resigning takes a reinstatement petition in the State Bar Court, an expensive and time-consuming process which usually entails retaking most of the bar exam [39].
• Staying active also matters if you may move states. A state can admit a lawyer licensed elsewhere on motion, which NCBE defines as admission without any additional testing except, where required, the MPRE [40], and each state sets its own practice requirement. Arizona, for example, requires that applicants have held a law license in active status for 3 out of the 5 years immediately preceding application [41], among other rules.
• Choose work that stays close to legal analysis, such as compliance, contracts or regulatory roles, and keep a recent writing sample.
• Stay in touch with lawyers who can vouch for your work.
• Have a one-sentence reason for leaving practice and another for coming back.

The guide to returning to law after a break covers the return itself.

A coach is most useful when you know you want out of practice but not where to go, when you need help translating your experience for another field, or when the search keeps losing to client work. In this directory, 43 of the 198 listings name leaving law and career change as a specialty. If you are still in school or just out, see coaches for law students and new associates. The three-question matcher narrows the list by goal and format and puts coaches who work with your career stage first.

Before you pay anyone, ask your law school’s career office what it offers alumni at no cost, then read how to choose a career coach and what a lawyer coach costs.

Related guides: what you can do with a law degree, alternative careers for lawyers, going in-house and leaving Big Law.

Counts from the directory are as of October 16, 2026.