Average compensation for solo and small-firm attorneys decreased slightly in 2018, and female attorneys reported earning 36% less than their male counterparts, according to a study released by Martindale-Avvo.

The legal marketing company released its second annual Attorney Compensation Report on Tuesday, which included results from 6,891 respondents who work solo or at small firms full time.

“Nobody really played in this space, and we thought it was an interesting opportunity” to detail compensation among this group, said Kelly Newcomb, Martindale-Avvo's chief marketing officer. Newcomb noted that analysis of the legal industry is largely focused on Big Law, and this report was an opportunity to provide solo and small-firm attorneys a “benchmark” to see how they compared with the industry.

From 2017 to 2018, the average attorney compensation fell slightly, from $198,000 to $194,000. The earning decline comes as revenue per lawyer and profits per partner are both on the rise in Big Law, with revenue per lawyer reaching $975,982 on average for the Am Law 100 in 2018, a 4.2% increase from the previous year. Leading firms in major markets raised their starting associate salaries to $190,000 last year.

A gender pay gap persisted in 2018, although it shrunk slightly from the previous year—female attorneys reported incomes that were 36% lower than their male counterparts. In 2017, they reported compensation 39% less than male attorneys. Sixty-one percent of female survey respondents reported feeling fairly compensated for their work, unchanged from the previous year.

Attorneys in the western region, which Martindale-Avvo defines as California, Hawaii and Arizona, earned the most last year and, on average, billed $52 per hour more than attorneys in the northwest—Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.

Medical malpractice attorneys, on average, earned the highest compensation in 2018, making $267,000. This practice unseated last year's top earners, intellectual property lawyers, who saw their average compensation fall 6.6%.

Newcomb said compensation volatility is more pronounced at small firms compared with Big Law.

“A lot probably reflects, to some extent, that there's less predictability when you're a small business owner or part of a small firm,” she said. “There's more of a cushion for large firms.”

Newcomb said Martindale-Avvo will continue releasing this report every year as well as other surveys that focus on lawyers practicing solo or at small firms.

“Our goal is to keep getting more granular, and this will become even more valuable,” she said. “it's information that helps attorneys benchmark themselves and understand how they're doing.”