How many lawyers work in the US
Establishment counts and licensed-lawyer counts measure different populations, because a single office of lawyers can hold dozens of admitted attorneys.
What Is the NAICS Code for a Law Firm?
The NAICS code for a law firm is 541110, Offices of Lawyers, and the older SIC code is 8111, Legal Services. The Census Bureau defines 541110 as offices of legal practitioners known as lawyers or attorneys, the counselors-at-law, primarily engaged in the practice of law. Compare that against the neighboring codes for legal work lawyers do not do: 541191 for title abstract and settlement offices, and 541199 for notary, patent agent and paralegal firms.
Key facts
- NAICS 2022
- 541110 Offices of Lawyers
- SIC
- 8111 Legal Services
- Occupation code
- SOC 23-1011 Lawyers
- US law offices, 2023
- 165,491 establishments
- SBA small business ceiling
- $15.5 million in average annual receipts
- Related legal services codes
- 541120, 541191 and 541199
NAICS 541110
What is the NAICS code for a law firm?
A law firm's NAICS code is 541110, Offices of Lawyers. The 2022 definition covers offices of legal practitioners known as lawyers or attorneys, primarily engaged in the practice of law, and names criminal law, corporate law, family and estate law, patent law, real estate law and tax law as examples of what those offices handle.
The code sits 5 levels down the classification. Sector 54 is Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services, subsector 541 carries the same name, industry group 5411 is Legal Services, industry 54111 is Offices of Lawyers, and US industry 541110 repeats it at the 6-digit level that business databases store.
Scope is the practice of law, and nothing about size or specialty. Offices of Lawyers holds a 2-lawyer storefront and a 1,000-employee firm in one class, and it draws no line between a firm with 1 practice area and a firm with 12. A general practice attorney email list and a patent boutique therefore carry the identical code.
Practice-area detail is missing by design. The classification stops at the industry, so 541110 cannot separate a bankruptcy firm from an immigration firm, and a prospect file built on the code alone returns every kind of law office at once.
Code by code
Which industry codes cover law firms and legal services?
NAICS 5411 is the legal services group, 541110 is offices of lawyers and SIC 8111 is the older equivalent. Codes 541120, 541191 and 541199 cover notaries, title and settlement offices, and paralegal, patent agent and process serving firms, none of which is an office of lawyers.
Each row below gives the official wording, so a code can be checked against what a business actually does before it goes into a selection.
Only 541110 and SIC 8111 describe offices run by lawyers, so a file filtered on 5411 alone pulls in the 15,601 title, notary and paralegal establishments that are classified there precisely because they are not offices of lawyers.
| Code | System and title | What the official definition covers | Latest official count |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5411 | NAICS industry group, Legal Services | Establishments offering legal services, such as offices of lawyers, offices of notaries, title abstract and settlement offices, and paralegal services | 181,092 establishments, 2023 |
| 541110 | NAICS US industry, Offices of Lawyers | Offices of legal practitioners known as lawyers or attorneys, primarily engaged in the practice of law | 165,491 establishments, 2023 |
| 541120 | NAICS US industry, Offices of Notaries | Drafting, approving and executing legal documents such as real estate transactions, wills and contracts, and receiving, indexing and storing them, except by lawyers | Not published in the 2023 national file |
| 541191 | NAICS US industry, Title Abstract and Settlement Offices | Researching land records, preparing transfer documents, conducting real estate settlements and filing the papers, except by offices of lawyers | 9,825 establishments, 2023 |
| 541199 | NAICS US industry, All Other Legal Services | Notary public services, patent agent services, paralegal services and process serving services | 5,776 establishments, 2023 |
| 8111 | SIC industry, Legal Services | Establishments headed by members of the bar and primarily engaged in offering legal advice or services | Retired system, no current count |
| 23-1011 | SOC occupation, Lawyers | People who represent clients in criminal and civil litigation and other proceedings, draw up legal documents, or advise clients on legal transactions | Counts people, not offices |
SIC 8111
What is the SIC code for a law office?
A law office's SIC code is 8111, Legal Services. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration's SIC manual defines 8111 as establishments headed by members of the bar and primarily engaged in offering legal advice or services, filed under Division I, Services, Major Group 81 and Industry Group 811.
The entry names 8 kinds of establishment: attorneys, counselors at law, law offices, lawyers, legal aid services, legal services, patent solicitors' offices and referees in bankruptcy. That wording is older and blunter than the NAICS text, which is why files built on SIC tag a legal aid clinic and a commercial litigation firm the same way.
SIC is a retired system that refuses to disappear. NAICS replaced it for federal statistics in 1997, developed jointly by the US Economic Classification Policy Committee, Statistics Canada and Mexico's national statistics institute, yet the Occupational Safety and Health Administration still publishes the full SIC manual, so the codes remain easy to look up decades later.
SIC and NAICS codes for law offices do not translate 1 to 1. SIC 8111 gathers every legal service under a single number, while NAICS splits the same ground into 541110 for lawyers and 54119 for notary, title and paralegal work, so a list converted from 8111 needs that split applied afterward.
Counts
How many law offices does NAICS 541110 count?
County Business Patterns counted 165,491 US establishments in NAICS 541110 for 2023, with 1,093,331 employees and an annual payroll of $137.3 billion. The whole 5411 legal services group held 181,092 establishments, so offices of lawyers made up 91.4% of it.
NAICS 541110 establishment counts for law firms measure offices rather than attorneys. The 1,093,331 employees are everyone on those payrolls, paralegals, legal assistants and administrators included, and a firm that runs offices in 4 cities contributes 4 establishments to the total.
A second Census program counts businesses instead of locations. Statistics of US Businesses put 156,583 employer firms in 541110 for 2022, operating 166,972 establishments between them and taking $356.2 billion in receipts. Firms come out lower than establishments in both programs, because 1 business can run several offices.
Neither series counts the profession. Both cover establishments and firms with paid employees, so a solo practice with no payroll sits outside them, and the population of licensed lawyers is a separate measure with a separate source.
Size classes
What do the NAICS 541110 employee size classes show?
Small offices dominate: 118,754 of the 165,491 US law offices had fewer than 5 employees in 2023, and 14 had 1,000 or more. County Business Patterns publishes 9 employee size classes for 541110, and the smallest 3 hold 155,873 establishments between them.
NAICS 541110 size classes for law offices count employees, not attorneys. A 30-employee office holds lawyers and support staff together, so a size band measures the scale of the business rather than its attorney headcount.
Federal contracting applies a different yardstick to the same code. The Small Business Administration's size standard table at 13 CFR 121.201 sets the ceiling for 541110 at $15.5 million in average annual receipts, below the $19.5 million standard for title abstract and settlement offices and the $20.5 million standard for all other legal services.
Prospecting reads those bands directly. Firms with an in-house technology or marketing budget cluster above the 20-employee break, and a law firm email list by employee size class follows the same Census bands so a selection lines up with the published counts.
- Fewer than 5 employees
- 118,754 establishments
- 5 to 9 employees
- 24,921 establishments
- 10 to 19 employees
- 12,198 establishments
- 20 to 49 employees
- 6,619 establishments
- 50 to 99 employees
- 1,849 establishments
- 100 to 249 employees
- 893 establishments
- 250 to 499 employees
- 193 establishments
- 500 to 999 employees
- 50 establishments
- 1,000 or more employees
- 14 establishments
Using the codes
How do prospect lists use NAICS and SIC codes?
Codes set the universe and the other fields do the targeting. NAICS 541110 and SIC 8111 separate law offices from every other kind of business, then practice area, state, city, ZIP code, role and firm size cut that universe down to a list worth sending to.
Codes reach commercial files through tax and procurement paperwork. The Internal Revenue Service's instructions for Form 1065, dated January 14, 2026, list 541110 Offices of Lawyers among the principal business activity codes, state that those codes are based on NAICS, and ask a partnership to report the activity producing the largest share of total receipts.
The IRS list runs close to NAICS without matching it. Its legal services block offers 541110 and 541190, Other Legal Services, so a title company that the Census Bureau puts in 541191 files under the older 541190 number, and code-matched files drift apart at the edges.
The limits are worth stating plainly. An industry code establishes that a business practices law. It says nothing about the practice area, the partner's name, the direct phone number or whether an email address still accepts mail, and those are record-level fields drawn from directories, bar records and verification tools.
That gap between a classification and a contact file is the whole job. A law offices email list under NAICS 541110 starts from the same class the Census Bureau counts, then adds the firm name, website, rating and size beside the attorneys who work at each office, which is what an outreach campaign can actually use.
Related lists and guides
Where this segment connects
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Questions
Frequently asked questions
What NAICS code covers paralegal and notary services?
541199, All Other Legal Services, covers notary public, patent agent, paralegal and process serving services. Its definition excludes offices of lawyers and attorneys, settlement offices and title abstract offices.
Those roles have their own segment in the legal assistant email list.
Is there a separate NAICS code for a solo law practice?
No. Offices of Lawyers, 541110, covers law offices of every size. County Business Patterns then splits the class by employees, and 118,754 of the 165,491 offices had fewer than 5 in 2023.
What NAICS code should a law group or law practice use?
541110, where the practice of law produces the largest share of receipts. A law group, a law practice and a law office all fall under the same 6-digit Offices of Lawyers code.
Which code does the IRS want on a partnership return?
541110 for offices of lawyers. The Form 1065 instructions base their principal business activity codes on NAICS and keep a single 541190 entry for other legal services.
Why does the SBA size standard matter to a law firm?
It decides small business status for federal contracting. A firm in 541110 counts as small at or below $15.5 million in average annual receipts, measured together with its affiliates.
Sources
- North American Industry Classification System, United States, 2022 (manual), pages 455-457, US Census Bureau, 2022. Accessed 2026-09-16.
- 2022 NAICS search result for 541110, Offices of Lawyers, US Census Bureau, North American Industry Classification System, 2022. Accessed 2026-09-16.
- Description for 8111: Legal Services (SIC Manual), Occupational Safety and Health Administration, US Department of Labor. Accessed 2026-09-16.
- Introduction to NAICS, US Census Bureau. Accessed 2026-09-16.
- County Business Patterns 2023, complete US file (cbp23us.zip), US Census Bureau, 2023. Accessed 2026-09-16.
- Statistics of US Businesses 2022, US and states by 6-digit NAICS (us_state_6digitnaics_2022.txt), US Census Bureau, 2025-04-10. Accessed 2026-09-16.
- 13 CFR 121.201 – What size standards has SBA identified by North American Industry Classification System codes?, Electronic Code of Federal Regulations (Small Business Administration). Accessed 2026-09-16.
- Instructions for Form 1065 (2025), Codes for Principal Business Activity and Principal Product or Service, Internal Revenue Service, 2026-01-14. Accessed 2026-09-16.
- Lawyers, 23-1011.00, O*NET OnLine, US Department of Labor, 2026. Accessed 2026-09-16.