Adjunct law professor pay per course
From real law adjunct and lecturer postings across U.S. colleges and universities, refreshed daily. Live and recently closed listings both count.
- Median per course · law
- $7,363
- Middle half of listings (25th–75th)
- $5,347 – $8,504
- Typical range (5th–95th)
- $2,720 – $11,092
- Institutions disclosing pay
- 9
Based on only 10 listings with disclosed pay — treat as indicative, not a benchmark.
Highest-paying institutions
Median per course among institutions with at least three disclosed-pay law listings.
Not enough listings yet.
By state
States with at least five disclosed-pay law listings.
Not enough listings yet.
Twelve-month trend
Trend appears once three months of listings have accumulated.
What the median means per year
Adjuncts are paid per course, so annual income depends on load. At $7,363 per course:
- 2 courses × 2 terms
- $29,452
- 3 courses × 2 terms
- $44,178
- 4 courses × 3 terms
- $88,356
Before tax, no benefits. Most institutions cap adjuncts below the load that would trigger benefits eligibility.
Frequently asked questions
- How much do adjunct law professors make per course?
- Across 10 law adjunct postings that disclose pay, the median is $7,363 per course; the middle half of listings fall between $5,347 and $8,504.
- Do online adjunct law jobs pay less?
- Institutions generally pay online and in-person sections of the same course at the same rate. Differences in the data reflect which kinds of institutions hire online, not a remote discount.
- What would that be per year?
- At the $7,363 median, three courses a term over two terms is about $44,178 before tax, with no benefits. Loads are usually capped below the level that would trigger benefits eligibility.
Where these numbers come from
- Every figure is computed from adjunct, lecturer, and part-time faculty postings that OpenLecture tracks across 4,000+ U.S. institutions, refreshed daily. Closed listings stay in the sample, so the picture covers roughly the past year.
- Only postings that state a per-course amount are compared. Hourly and annual quotes are reported separately and never converted.
- Where a range is posted, the top of the range is used. Figures below $500 or above $25,000 per course are excluded as mislabelled periods.
- Medians are shown, not averages, so a handful of outliers cannot move them. Pages with fewer than 25 disclosed-pay listings carry a warning.
- Roughly a quarter of adjunct postings disclose pay at all; these numbers describe the institutions that do.