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  1. Home/
  2. Salaries/
  3. AI Hubs/
  4. AI Legal & Policy Roles
Salaries

Industry vertical.

AI Legal & Policy Roles.

Where AI meets law and policy.

29
Tracked roles
$139K
Median salary
$46K to $347K
Full range

Source.

By Justin Bartak, Founder & Chief AI Officer·Updated May 2024·Q2 2024 benchmarks

AI legal and policy roles sit at one of the rarest skill intersections in the labor market: legal training plus machine learning fluency. Patent attorneys for AI systems, governance leads, regulatory analysts, ethics officers, policy researchers. Demand is real and growing as AI regulation matures. Pay reflects the scarcity of qualified candidates. Roles below are sorted by base salary.

Roles in ai legal & policy roles.

AI Legal & Policy Roles ranked by base median salary, sourced from Orbyt Intelligence Q2 2024.
RoleLowMedianHigh
Director of AI Governance$227K$267K$347K
Head of AI Governance$227K$267K$347K
Chief AI Ethics Officer$207K$265K$345K
AI Compliance Director$195K$229K$298K
AI Policy Director$195K$229K$298K
Lead Legal AI Specialist$170K$209K$270K
AI Patent Attorney$140K$185K$240K
AI Data Governance Manager$129K$171K$223K
AI Ethics Officer$125K$170K$225K
AI Governance Manager$125K$160K$208K
Senior Legal AI Specialist$129K$156K$190K
AI Compliance Analyst$105K$145K$195K
AI Ethics Researcher$97K$141K$187K
AI Policy Analyst$98K$139K$177K
Government AI Policy Analyst$98K$139K$177K
AI Regulation Compliance Manager$95K$137K$186K
AI Governance Lead$113K$136K$171K
LegalTech AI Engineer$99K$133K$174K
AI Tax Compliance Engineer$99K$133K$174K
AI Legal Research Engineer$99K$133K$174K
AI Legal Tech Specialist$78K$113K$162K
AI Patent Analyst$78K$113K$162K
AI Data Governance Engineer$72K$105K$137K
Senior AI Governance Analyst$88K$105K$125K
AI Governance Analyst$56K$78K$109K
AI Regulatory Analyst$56K$78K$109K
AI Compliance Engineer$56K$78K$109K
AI Model Governance Analyst$56K$78K$109K
AI Legal Analyst$46K$61K$81K

Top cities.

Median ai legal & policy roles salary across the top U.S. metros for AI compensation. Multiplier reflects local cost of living relative to the national median.

San Francisco, CA

$188K

+35% vs. national

New York, NY

$178K

+28% vs. national

Seattle, WA

$172K

+24% vs. national

Boston, MA

$170K

+22% vs. national

Austin, TX

$143K

+3% vs. national

Denver, CO

$150K

+8% vs. national

Los Angeles, CA

$164K

+18% vs. national

Chicago, IL

$149K

+7% vs. national

Atlanta, GA

$142K

+2% vs. national

Washington DC, DC

$174K

+25% vs. national

Common questions.

Yes, plus USPTO bar admission for patent prosecution work. The role demands JD plus USPTO plus technical fluency in ML, which is one of the rarest credential combinations in the entire labor market. That is why the pay is high.

Increasingly no. Frontier labs (Anthropic, OpenAI, Google DeepMind) hire AI policy researchers in San Francisco and New York at compensation that significantly outpaces think-tank rates. State-level AI regulation work also drives hiring in Sacramento, Albany, and Austin.

Not necessarily. AI compliance engineers are often technical people with regulatory training, not lawyers. Compliance analysts (more interpretive work) often have JDs. Governance leads usually have one credential or the other plus 5+ years in a regulated industry.

Related AI hubs.

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Where AI meets medicine.

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Where AI meets capital.

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Where AI meets adversaries.

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Where AI meets the physical world.

AI Consumer & Commerce Roles

Where AI meets the consumer.

AI Creative Roles

Where AI meets craft.

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Where AI meets the C-suite.

AI Research Roles

Where AI meets the frontier.

AI Product Roles

Where AI meets the roadmap.

AI Design Roles

Where AI meets the interface.

AI Operations Roles

Where AI meets production.

AI Engineering Roles

Where AI meets the codebase.

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