Hot Litigation Firm Matches Cravath Salary Scale -- Are Boutiques The Big Salary Bump Winners?
High-end boutique blows away some lagging Biglaw competitors.
Another boutique makes the move to join the Cravath pay scale. Holwell Shuster & Goldberg, the young boutique founded in 2012 by former Southern District of New York Judge Richard Holwell, along with litigators Mike Shuster, Dan Goldberg, and Dorit Ungar Black, announced last night that it would also match the Cravath scale. The National Law Journal put the firm on its “Hot List” and now we know why — they’re moving with the leaders of the Biglaw pack.
You may know Holwell Shuster for its epic rap prowess — perhaps this post should be titled “Dollar Dollar Bills Y’all” — but the rapidly growing firm is not to be messed with. The firm is now boasting upwards of 50 associates peeled away from Biglaw mainstays, including a pair of Supreme Court clerks (Daniel Sullivan/Scalia and Vincent Levy/Ginsburg). And with this move, it’s not going to lose its star recruiting power any time soon.
So are boutiques just killing it this salary increase cycle, or what? Remember, it was litigation boutique Hueston Hennigan that first matched Cravath’s new benchmark. With some of the traditional, full service firms either dragging their feet or affirmatively opting out of this round of increases, it’s worth recognizing that the elite boutiques are displacing some of the old guard giants. And, yes, “displacing” is the right word — if you’re a “Biglaw” firm and don’t match this right away, you’re telling the market you’re not playing with the grown-ups anymore.
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It makes a lot of sense. In-house counsel don’t want their money wasted training a bunch of wet-behind-the-ears first-years. That’s why they’ve been moving more and more work to smaller firms. Boutiques that recruit heavily from the mid-level ranks of Biglaw firms get all the talent without spending valuable resources on litigation bootcamp. That’s a good deal for any client.
In any event, congratulations to the whole Holwell Shuster & Goldberg team!
Remember, when your firm matches, please text us (646-820-8477) or email us (subject line: “[Firm Name] Matches Cravath”). Please include the memo if available. You can take a photo of the memo and send it via text or email if you don’t want to forward the original PDF or Word file.
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Joe Patrice is an editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news.
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