Rhode Island / Health and Human Services / Senior Legal Counsel
Job-title file
Provide legal advice, draft and review documents, and represent the agency in legal matters.
19 employees hold this title in Health and Human Services. Median total compensation for the role is $27,759, above the department median of $26,730.
What the records show
How total compensation varies among the 19 people in this role. Even for one job title, pay differs with seniority, step, overtime, and tenure. Each bar is a pay range; the far-right bar collects the highest earners.
Compared with the local labor market
Across all employers in Rhode Island, the median wage for Lawyers — about 1,840 people — is $138,960. Health and Human Services pays a median base salary of $29,020 for this role, 79% below that figure — below the 10th percentile of local pay for the occupation.
The bar is the range of annual wages for Lawyers across every employer in Rhode Island, from the 10th to the 90th percentile, with the middle 50% highlighted. The marker shows Health and Human Services’s median base salary for this role. Both figures are base pay only.
And across the country
Nationwide, the median wage for Lawyers — about 754,500 people — is $159,670. Health and Human Services’s median base salary is 82% below that national figure, below the 10th percentile of pay for the occupation nationally.
Local and national wages differ for reasons beyond how well a job pays — cost of living, the mix of employers, and local demand for the occupation all move the Rhode Island range relative to the national one.
Computed over the 12 of 19 people in this role paid at least $25,000in base salary. The rest are part-year or part-time records, whose actual pay isn’t comparable to a full-time annual wage.
Median total compensation for this role at Health and Human Services is $27,759, which includes overtime and employer-paid benefits. The benchmark above excludes both, so total compensation is deliberately not compared against it.
Benchmark: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (May 2025). BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics (OEWS) covers all employers in the area — private, non-profit, and government alike — so this is a comparison against the whole local labor market for the occupation, not against private-sector pay. OEWS wages are straight-time pay and exclude overtime, shift differentials, and employer-paid benefits, so the government figure shown here is base pay on the same basis. Total compensation is not comparable to it. Job titles are matched to the closest standard occupation, so the comparison is between similar work rather than an identical job classification.
Compare departments
Senior Legal Counsel is held in 9 Rhode Island departments. In Health and Human Services, the median of $27,759 ranks #1 of 9.
Median total compensation for the Senior Legal Counsel role in other Rhode Islanddepartments (highest first). Each bar links to that department’s page for this role.
Record list
Page 1
Senior Legal Counsel/Health and Human Services
Source-specific fields
Nicholas Butland is a Senior Legal Counsel at Health and Human Services. 2025 total compensation came to $98,603.
Senior Legal Counsel/Health and Human Services
Source-specific fields
Neville Bedford is a Senior Legal Counsel at Health and Human Services. 2025 total compensation came to $97,092.
Senior Legal Counsel/Health and Human Services
Source-specific fields
At Health and Human Services, Gregory Blasbalg serves as a Senior Legal Counsel. Their 2025 pay totaled $96,957.