Associate Salaries, Killing Lockstep

Drinker Biddle: Merit-Based Pay Means Cuts to 53% of Associates

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It’s not surprising that Drinker Biddle is moving to a full merit-based pay scale. Back in May, we reported that Drinker Biddle decided to change the nature of the first-year associate experience. We reported that Drinker would turn its associates’ first six months at the firm into an intensive training period. During that time, first years would be paid $105,000 — but clients would be charged reduced rates for any billable work the first years did during that time.
Sources at Drinker Biddle report that the new first year program has been a “tremendous” success, and the firm plans on repeating the program with next year’s incoming class.
On Friday, Drinker Biddle fleshed out the rest of its associate pay scale. Lockstep is a thing of the past, and the firm’s new merit-based system follows the general trend of splitting associates out into different tiers. Tipsters report that Drinker Biddle is now on the following pay scale:

Philadelphia, New Jersey, Delaware and other smaller offices:
Level I: $130k
Level II: $145k
Level III: $165k
Level IV (expected p-ship w/in 24 months): $185k
New York, Chicago, D.C., and California:
Level I: $145k
Level II: $165k
Level III: $185k
Level IV (expected p-ship w/in 24 months): $205k

Most firms have adopted a three-tier system, so Drinker Biddle’s four-tier system — or five tiers, if you count how they are handling first years for their first six months — is an interesting little wrinkle.
What does this mean for associates at the firm? Details and a statement from the firm, after the jump.


According to tipsters, the firm was forthcoming about what the new merit-based system would mean for associates — especially when they go to the ATM machine. Drinker tipsters broke down the new salary structure like this:

  • 13% of associates got raises
  • 34% stayed flat
  • 53% got salary cuts (“the average was $7,500”)

A spokesperson for Drinker Biddle gave Above the Law these additional details:

I can confirm that the Level I salaries are correct … and that they are considered to be our “starting salaries,” which our new associates who started in September 2009 will rise to on March 1 at the successful completion of the new training program.
As for the other salaries you quote, I can only say that we don’t comment on our associates salaries beyond the starting salary. We do, in fact, have different salaries for different levels, but I need to stress that they are minimums. So, I can only say that there are associates who are making the minimum salary for a particular level and that there are other associates in that same level who are making more than the minimum. Each individual associate’s salary has been set using a variety of factors, including the minimum salary set for his/her particular level.
In regards to salary cut information that you’ve been given, I can only refer to the fact that we have reduced our starting salary levels. That has had a ripple effect throughout our salary structure for associates just like the increases in starting salaries did in prior years. The net effect of the drop in starting salaries has been that some associates have seen a cut in their pay, with the average cut being less than 5 percent. Other associates saw no change in their pay, and some have gotten raises. That’s no different than in any other year since we have never had a “lockstep” compensation system at Drinker.

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Will this have an effect on the firm’s recruiting? Some associates think so:

Yet somehow Drinker will still be “competing for top-tier talent” and is “at the top of the market” in its various cities. Looks like they will have their pick of the bottom half of the Penn, George Washington, or Northwestern classes, or the top 1/3 at Temple, George Mason, or Loyola-Chicago.

Well, maybe not Temple.
Earlier: Salary Cut Watch: Drinker Biddle Cuts Salaries AND Rates

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