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Career Center: Show Me the Money

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Our recent Career Center survey asked about compensation structure for salaries and bonuses at your firms.  The results reveal that reports of the death of lockstep compensation have been greatly exaggerated: a large majority of respondents — over 75% — say their firm still pays base salaries on a lockstep scale.  And despite the tough economy, over 96% of respondents expect a bonus this year.   
Check out the full survey results after the jump — and visit the Career Center, powered by Lateral Link — for more on which firm has announced an end-of-year salary freeze, the latest firm to join the hybrid-lockstep compensation bandwagon, and which firm is now rescinding offers to new associates.

Full survey results, after the jump.


Lockstep compensation may be losing favor these days, but it is still the leading model for base salary compensation at law firms:

  • 78% of respondents report that their firm uses a lockstep scale for base salary compensation;
  • 22% of respondents report that their firm uses a discretionary system for base salary compensation.

The compensation structure for bonuses is more evenly split between lockstep and discretionary:

  • 44% of respondents report that their firm uses a lockstep scale for bonus compensation;
  • 53% of respondents report that their firm uses a discretionary system for bonus compensation.

And although many associates have seen salary cuts and freezes this year, a majority of respondents report that starting salaries remain at $160,000.

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  • 60% of respondents report that their firm sets starting salaries at $160,000;
  • 9% of respondents report that their firm sets starting salaries at $145,000;
  • 31% of respondents report that their firm sets starting salaries at another amount.

We are building a comprehensive salary chart, so please share your salary information (this is completely confidential):

As always, we encourage to send information about your law firm experience to careercenter@abovethelaw.com.

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