Legal operations professionals are seeing broad salary growth, but compensation gaps tied to background, credentials, and gender remain pronounced, according to Brightflag’s newly released 2025 Corporate Legal Operations Compensation Report.

While heads of legal operations now average $226,000 in salary—a year-over-year increase of 18%—professionals with paralegal or administrative backgrounds continue to earn significantly less than their peers. The report found they make 35% less on average than legal ops employees from other professional paths, up from a 25% gap last year.

The report is based on survey data collected from legal operations professionals between January 14 and February 21. Brightflag has produced the annual comp report for four consecutive years.

“The legal profession is not immune to broader compensation and recognition disparities,” said Jason Winmill, managing partner of Argopoint, a consultancy that advises corporate legal departments. “I would encourage leaders to focus on outputs and value creation, not simply credentials.”

Lack of pay standardization continues to be a challenge across the sector. The relatively recent emergence of legal ops—many teams were formed within the past two decades—has led to widely variable salary bands for common titles. This year’s survey revealed that legal operations managers earn anywhere from $58,000 to $227,000, and directors from $72,000 to $358,000. Heads of legal ops reported compensation ranging from $124,000 to $468,000.

Brightflag’s chief customer officer and report author, Kevin Cohn, said department size is the key driver of compensation for leadership roles, while years of experience drive pay for other roles. “Compensation is highly varied right now,” Cohn noted. “But I expect this to standardize as the profession matures.”

He added that legal ops teams are increasingly drawing from adjacent disciplines to help define roles more clearly. “Some of the most forward-thinking leaders are borrowing frameworks from other departments—project management, data analysis, product ownership—to create better role clarity and pay consistency,” he said.

The 2025 data also shows a shift away from equity-based compensation. Equity made up 36% of base salary on average last year but has fallen to 24% this year, suggesting companies are relying more heavily on cash compensation amid shifting market conditions.

Credential-based disparities are widening. Legal ops professionals with law degrees earn 31% more than those without—up from a 10% gap reported in 2024. That shift indicates growing preference for JD-qualified talent, which may limit upward mobility for professionals from non-legal tracks.

Women continue to make up the majority of the field, comprising 75% of respondents. However, gender pay gaps persist: women in head of legal ops roles earn 24% less than men in similarly sized departments. For other legal ops roles, women earn 17% less than male peers with comparable experience—identical to the 2024 findings.

The report also noted a slight increase in the percentage of heads of legal ops reporting directly to general counsel or chief legal officers—74% this year, up from 68% in 2024. Winmill described the reporting relationship as a partial proxy for internal influence. “The rise of legal ops continues,” he said, “and proximity to legal leadership is a meaningful signal of its growing institutional importance.”