Biglaw, Money, Skaddenfreude

Nationwide Pay Raise Watch: Official Comment from Simpson

By  
on

When we debunked the Simpson Thacher raise rumor earlier today, it was based on information from associates who work at the firm. But now, straight from the horse’s mouth, we have comment from a Simpson partner.
Corporate partner James D. Cross is co-chair of the firm’s personnel committee. We emailed him about the raise rumor, and he kindly gave us this response (reprinted with his permission):

Dear David,

Thanks for the inquiry. You’re right: we’re not currently considering an increase in associate salaries. Best regards,

James

Mr. Cross’s wording is interesting: the firm is “not currently considering” a pay raise.
How should this language be interpreted? Does it mean that Simpson, which kicked off the last round of New York pay raises back in January, wants someone else to lead the way next time around? Or will Simpson, along with the other NYC Biglaw shops, just pay especially generous bonuses this year?
If you’d like to take a stab at parsing James Cross’s statement, please do so in the comments. Thanks.
Update: The commenters who point out that we should have included our original message to Mr. Cross make a very good point. We now reprint our message to him, after the jump.


Here is the complete email exchange. First, our message to James Cross:

From: David Lat
Sent: Thursday, June 07, 2007 1:50 PM
To: Cross, James D
Subject: Associate compensation rumor

Dear Mr. Cross:

Greetings. My name is David Lat, and I’m the editor of Above the Law, an online legal tabloid. We cover associate salary developments extensively at ATL.

There is a rumor currently going around that Simpson Thacher has raised associate salaries yet again, to a scale starting at $190,000 for first-years. This rumor strikes me as false; but I don’t know for certain.

Would you be able to confirm or deny? Thank you for any information you might be able to provide.

Best regards,
David

**********************
David Lat
Editor, Above the Law
http://www.abovethelaw.com

Then, about ten minutes later, his response:

From: Cross, James D
Sent: Thursday, June 07, 2007 2:01 PM
To: David Lat
Subject: RE: Associate compensation rumor

Dear David,

Thanks for the inquiry. You’re right: we’re not currently considering an increase in associate salaries. Best regards,

James

Sponsored

We thank Mr. Cross for his prompt response to our message.
Earlier: Nationwide Pay Raise Watch: The Simpson Rumor

Sponsored

Topics