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Nationwide Pay Raise Watch: Good News (and Bad) from Bingham McCutchen

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Yesterday we asked: “What’s Up With Bingham McCutchen?”
Associate salaries, that’s what. Last night, Bingham McCutchen sent around an email announcing that it “will be increasing 2007 base compensation in our domestic U.S. offices to match the base compensation structure in our New York office, consistent with the new national market.” The raise is retroactive to June 1.
That’s the good news. And the bad news?
Well, just check out this interesting (but depressing) article from The Recorder. The upshot: the litigation department is slow at Bingham, and the firm is offering buyouts to associates to leave.
We’ll probably do a more detailed write-up about the Bingham buyouts in a later post. If you have some information to share about the situation, please email us (subject line: “Bingham McCutchen”).
The Bingham pay raise memo, verified by multiple sources at the firm, appears after the jump.


BINGHAM MCCUTCHEN LLP ASSOCIATE PAY RAISE MEMO
From: Carbone, Anthony J.
Sent: Tuesday, June 05, 2007 6:45 PM
To: zz attorneys all
Cc: Zimmerman Jay S.; Bachman, William A.; zz directors all; zz atty dev team all; zz recruiting team
Subject: Associate & Counsel Salaries
As you are all aware, during the past several weeks there has been significant market activity related to associate and counsel compensation at major law firms across the country. That activity has varied greatly in the local markets where we have the greatest number of lawyers. Although we have a policy of remaining competitive with our peer firms in our local markets in terms of attorney compensation, we make these types of firmwide decisions with extreme care and always with a view toward attracting and retaining the best legal talent and preserving our unique culture. Among other reasons for a deliberate approach, we also want to avoid the impact that significant salary increases can have on clients. While we will always meet the market, we take all of these other responsibilities seriously. Following careful study, we will be increasing 2007 base compensation in our domestic U.S. offices to match the base compensation structure in our New York office, consistent with the new national market. That base compensation model is as follows:
Class Salary
Class I $160,000
Class II $170,000
Class III $185,000
Class IV $210,000
Class V $230,000
Class VI $250,000
Counsel I $265,000
Counsel II $280,000
Counsel III $290,000
Base increases will be paid to associates and counsel in good standing in the July 6 payroll, retroactive to June 1. Of Counsel compensation will be determined individually.
I want to thank everyone for their patience, since I have been traveling in Asia on business, and just returned to the office yesterday. If you have any questions regarding our new compensation structure, please do not hesitate to contact me or members of the COA leadership / Attorney Development team.
Tony Carbone
Bingham McCutchen Offers Buyouts to Some Associates [The Recorder via Law.com]

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