Administrative Law Judges, Adjudicators, and Hearing Officers

$117,860 puts Administrative Law Judges, Adjudicators, and Hearing Officers among the highest medians BLS publishes, roughly 136% above the $50,020 all-occupation midpoint. Pay at this level always has a gate in front of it: a residency, a bar exam, a clearance, or a decade.

16,370 people work as Administrative Law Judges, Adjudicators, and Hearing Officers. That is enough for a functioning national market and not enough for a functioning local one — in most metros this is a few employers rather than a field you can move around inside.

Legal practice suits people who read closely, argue in writing, and can live with an adversarial structure where someone competent is paid to defeat them.

No verified preparation time is on file for Administrative Law Judges, Adjudicators, and Hearing Officers. The wage survey behind every figure on this page asks employers what they pay, not what they required, so the honest answer here is that we do not know.

A quarter earn under $81,140, a quarter over $159,680: $6,545 a month between them at a 2.0x ratio. Planning around the midpoint of a spread this wide is planning around a number very few people in Administrative Law Judges, Adjudicators, and Hearing Officers actually earn.

Even at the 25th percentile Administrative Law Judges, Adjudicators, and Hearing Officers pays $81,140, $31,120 clear of the $50,020 national midpoint. Almost the entire distribution sits above the typical American wage, which is rare and worth weighing against the entry cost.

Avoid it if the adversarial format is draining rather than energising; the hours are long and the format does not soften.

No failure rate is shown, and the absence is deliberate: the 16,370 figure counts people already working as Administrative Law Judges, Adjudicators, and Hearing Officers, not everyone who trained and never got hired. Without a licensing register to divide by, a rate here would be an invented denominator.

From $81,140 to $159,680 at 2.0x: something inside this occupation sorts people a long way apart. Identifying what it is — sector, employer, credential — is worth more than any general advice about Administrative Law Judges, Adjudicators, and Hearing Officers.

In cash terms the middle half of Administrative Law Judges, Adjudicators, and Hearing Officers runs $81,140 to $159,680 — $78,540 a year between the 25th and 75th percentiles, against a midpoint of $117,860.

Between $81,140 and $159,680 — the two ends of the middle half — sits $117,860. Moving from the midpoint to the upper quarter is worth $41,820; the whole climb from the lower quarter is $78,540.

$117,860 sits almost exactly in the middle of its own range — $36,720 above the bottom quarter, $41,820 below the top one. A symmetric distribution like this is the case where the median genuinely does describe the typical person.

Per hour at a standard full-time year that is $56.66 at the midpoint for Administrative Law Judges, Adjudicators, and Hearing Officers, $39.00 at the 25th percentile and $76.76 at the 75th, against $24.04 for the typical American job.