diff --git a/hbase-client/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/filter/ByteArrayComparable.java b/hbase-client/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/filter/ByteArrayComparable.ja
index 4642ab9..81d595a 100644
--- a/hbase-client/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/filter/ByteArrayComparable.java
+++ b/hbase-client/src/main/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/filter/ByteArrayComparable.java
@@ -82,7 +82,7 @@ public abstract class ByteArrayComparable implements Comparable<byte[]> {

   @Override
   public int compareTo(byte [] value) {
-    return compareTo(value, 0, value.length);
+    return compareTo(value, 0, value==null ? 0 : value.length);
   }

   /**