Law firms in Des Moines: the market in numbers, Iowa's lawyer count and how to check a firm

This page is for anyone looking at Des Moines law firms: residents and businesses choosing a lawyer, law graduates, analysts and companies that sell to firms. It covers the Census count, Iowa's official lawyer statistics, how to check an Iowa lawyer and how to prospect a market this size.

Des Moines law offices in Census data

County Business Patterns (CBP) 2023 counts offices of lawyers (NAICS 541110) in the Des Moines-West Des Moines, IA Metro Area (CBSA 19780).

Grouped: 340 offices have 1 to 19 employees, 21 have 20 to 99 and three have 100 or more. The published classes add up to all 364 offices, so no Des Moines law office has 250 or more employees. At 67%, the share of offices under five employees is below the US share of 72%, and the 5 to 9 class is relatively large: 68 offices, 19% of the market.

Warren and Madison counties' employee totals aren't shown because the Census Bureau flags them as high-noise: the noise it adds for confidentiality moved them by 5% or more. Two more offices are elsewhere in the metro area. Polk County, with downtown Des Moines, has 86% of the offices and 88% of the jobs.

The count's limits: it covers offices with paid employees, not firms, and leaves out lawyers without staff. The Census Bureau's Nonemployer Statistics found 418 legal services businesses with no paid employees in the metro area in 2024, a broader category that includes solo lawyers. In-house and government lawyers, including those at the state agencies in the capital, are counted in their employers' industries. No Des Moines law firm is an SEC-registered public company.

How many lawyers Iowa has

Iowa publishes a yearly lawyer count through the Iowa Supreme Court's Client Security Commission. As of 31 December 2025, 21,565 attorneys were licensed or registered to practice law in Iowa, and 9,765 of them were active and able to practice.

The total has held steady, but the mix has moved: resident active lawyers fell 3.8% over four years while nonresident active lawyers rose 11.4% (our calculations). In 2025, 73% of active Iowa lawyers lived in the state. For anyone hiring, that's a reason to confirm the lawyer you're talking to practices in Iowa; for anyone selling, it's a market that isn't growing in headcount, so growth comes from share.

Checking an Iowa lawyer

1. Search the state's attorney records. The Iowa Judicial Branch's Office of Professional Regulation links a public "Search Iowa Attorneys" tool from its attorneys page.
2. Look for complaints and discipline through the Office of Professional Regulation's attorney discipline pages.
3. Find names through the Iowa State Bar Association's Find-A-Lawyer service, or ask a lawyer you trust for a referral.
4. Ask about the trust account. The Client Security Commission's auditors run routine examinations of active lawyers' trust accounts, aiming to examine each every three to four years. A firm that handles client money should be relaxed about the question.

Selling to Des Moines law firms

In a market of 364 offices, most firm leaders know each other, so references travel fast and a poor first impression travels further. The 245 offices under five employees buy like any small business: the owning lawyer decides. The 21 offices of 20 to 99 and the three largest usually have an administrator or COO who runs evaluations. Selling to law firms covers who decides at each size.

The Iowa State Bar Association is the main channel. Its site lists sponsors and member-benefit providers, including Clio, LawPay, Lockton Affinity, USI, vLex Fastcase and IowaDocs, which tells you both how to reach members and who you're competing with. For the business context, the Greater Des Moines Partnership calls itself the largest regional business, economic development and talent development organization in Iowa, with more than 7,200 regional chamber members and a major employers list.

Illustrative example. The company, prices and results are invented.

Raccoon River Books (raccoonriver.example) does monthly trust-account reconciliation and bookkeeping for small law firms. It targets Des Moines offices of 1 to 19 employees: 245 + 68 + 27 = 340. It skips offices of firms based out of state and those with in-house accounting staff, about 25% on its review, leaving 255. One contact each (the owning or managing lawyer) at a 6% reply rate gives about 15 conversations. If one in three books a review of last quarter's records and half of those sign at $600 a month, that's two or three new clients, or about $18,000 a year in new recurring revenue per cycle. In a small market, the second cycle matters more than the first: each client is a reference to the next firm down the hall.

Subject: [Firm]'s trust account reconciliations

Hi [first name],

The Client Security Commission aims to examine every Iowa trust account every three to four years. Most small firms we meet reconcile monthly but couldn't produce three years of three-way reconciliations in a hurry.

We do the monthly reconciliation and keep the file audit-ready for [number] Des Moines practices. Would a free review of one month's records be useful?

[Your name]

Local sources

For the industry code, see the NAICS code for a law firm; for local businesses that hire outside counsel, see the insurance companies in Des Moines.

Next step: build a named list of firms and owners with how to build a prospect list.