Associate Salaries, Salary Freeze

Latham & Watkins: True-Up Raises Are Official

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Before the holidays, we reported that Latham & Watkins planned on making a true-up salary raise, putting its associates back on the level they would have been on had Latham never frozen salaries in the first place.
Today, Latham made it official. Multiple tipsters tell us the firm just announced its 2010 salary structure:

It was announced in a short e-mail from the executive committee that included a link to a secure PDF with the info.

The old new payscale, after the jump.


According to our sources, Latham’s new salary structure is one that will be very familiar to people who work for firms that never froze salaries:

Class of 2009: $160K
Class of 2008: $170K
Class of 2007: $185K
Class of 2006: $210K
Class of 2005: $230K
Class of 2004: $250K
Class of 2003: $265K
Class of 2002: $280K

Don’t let merit-based metrics confuse you — if you are not getting paid at least this much, you’re not working for a firm that pays top of the market associate salaries.
Of course, I imagine that first years at Latham would trade 10% – 15% of that salary in a heartbeat for a guarantee that they’ll have a job through February.
We previously mentioned that Latham would be repaying the money that associates lost because of the salary freeze. That payment still hasn’t come through, but we expect that it will be included in the 2009 bonus.
Is this the start of Latham’s comeback? Stay tuned.
Earlier: Latham & Watkins: We Have Good News

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