Nationwide Pay Raise Watch: Tying Up Loose Ends

We’re a little behind in our coverage of associate pay raises at large law firms. This post will attempt to bring everyone back up to speed.
Listed below are firms for which we have announcements that have been (1) confirmed and (2) not previously posted on ATL. We treat an announcement as confirmed only if we have received an email about it, from a source that we can verify as working at the firm in question. You don’t have to email us from your work account (and probably shouldn’t); but if you email us from a personal account, please tell us your real name, so we can look you up on the firm website. (We will keep you anonymous, unless you request attribution; but we do need to know who you are so we can verify your identity.)
If you have some pay raise news that you’d like to be reported in these pages, you need to email us. Rumors reported in the comments — which we no longer read through completely, due to their sheer volume — are not treated as confirmed. If we see an interesting rumor in the comments, sometimes we will nostra sponte reach out to our sources for confirmation; but we don’t always have the time to do that.
New and Confirmed Pay Raise Announcements (in alphabetical order)

1. Dechert LLP (Palo Alto)

2. Katten Muchin Rosenman (Chicago, Los Angeles, and Washington, DC)

3. Morgan Lewis & Bockius (Chicago, Washington, DC, and San Francisco)

Update: Please note the addition of Morgan Lewis in Chicago to the list. It was not mentioned in the first version of this post, but we have now confirmed their move to $160K.
Surely this list is incomplete. But we’re not adding to it until we get confirmations by email (preferably with memos, if available). We have been burned before by false information, and we would rather be slow and accurate than fast and wrong.
Memos for the Dechert and Katten announcements appear after the jump.


DECHERT LLP
From: Winokur, Barton
Sent: Friday, May 25, 2007 2:08 PM
To: PAL Associates
Cc: PAL Partners
Subject: Associate Salaries
Memorandum
DATE May 25, 2007
TO Palo Alto Associates
CC Palo Alto Partners
FROM Barton J. Winokur
RE Associate Salaries
We are pleased to announce the following increases in annual base salaries for associates in our Palo Alto office.
Palo Alto
Class Year 2007 Salary
1st Year $160,000
2nd Year $170,000
3rd Year $185,000
4th Year $210,000
5th Year $230,000
6th Year $250,000
7th Year $265,000
8th Year $280,000
These salaries will be retroactive to May 1, 2007 and will be reflected in the June 15th payroll for all associates who are in good standing on June 15th.
The Firm greatly appreciates your commitment and hard work. The skills, talents and hard work of our associates have been fundamental to the growth of our firm over the past few years.
Barton J. Winokur
Dechert LLP
KATTEN MUCHIN ROSENMAN
From: Sergi, Vincent A. F.
Sent: Tuesday, May 29, 2007 5:14 PM
To: FRM-Associate
Cc: FRM-All Partners
Subject: Associate Compensation
The Firm has always been committed to paying its Associates competitive compensation in each market. Accordingly, given recent pay increases for Associates in many of our markets, the Associate Compensation Committee has decided to increase base compensation for the Firm’s Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington Associates per the chart below effective June 1, 2007.
Class Base Salary
2006 $160,000
2005 $170,000
2004 $185,000
2003 $210,000
2002 $230,000
2001 $250,000
2000 $265,000
As always, Associates senior to the class of 2000 will be handled on a case-by-case basis.
We feel this compensation schedule, when combined with our bonus program, originations bonus and sabbatical, makes our Associate compensation package very competitive in these markets. New York and Charlotte will remain on the base compensation scale in place today for those offices.
Thanks again for your hard work.
Vince
_________________________________________________
Vincent A.F. Sergi, Esq.
National Managing Partner
Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP

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