Associate Salaries, Biglaw, Money

The Firms That Are Losing The Battle In Biglaw's Salary Wars

Pay your associates fairly now, or pay the price later. The choice is up to you.

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handful of moneyIt’s officially been more than one month since Cravath announced its new $180K salary scale. More than 100 firms began falling over themselves to match the now-prevailing market salary scale. Other firms, however, have lagged behind, refusing to get on board with the new realities of the market, effectively thrusting themselves and their associates into a second-class salary tier.

Associates at these firms are clearly very unhappy, but at this point, what’s to be done? Aside from waiting to see if their firms will ever offer market compensation, their only other option is to get in touch with a headhunter who they trust and make an effort to lateral to any one of the hundred-plus firms that have decided to raise associate salaries.

These firms stand not only to lose Biglaw’s salary wars, but potentially hundreds of their associates and new recruits. Law school on-campus recruiting is right around the corner, and these firms are doing themselves a major disservice. Who in their right mind would want to take a summer associate position at a firm that’s paying less-than market salary?

There are still hundreds of top-ranked firms that have refused to budge on associate salaries, but today, we’ll take a look at the few, the proud (for no reason, since they’re now offering subpar salaries to their employees), the firms with profits per partner of more than $900K to over $1 million that have failed to raise salaries.

It’s high time that partners at these firms spread the wealth. At this point, their refusal to step up their associate salaries is only solidifying their firms’ new home in the depths of shame and embarrassment. Pay your associates fairly now, or pay the price later.

The choice is up to you. Choose wisely, because your law firm’s fate depends on it.

Firm Am Law 100/200 Rank ’16 Vault 100 Rank ’17 Am Law 200 PPP Rank ’16
Perkins Coie 42 56 85: $1.10M
Holland & Knight 43 64 70: $1.25M
Foley & Lardner 49 72 81: $1.13M
McGuireWoods 52 81 89: $1.05M
Seyfarth 58 88 92: $1.02M
Hunton & Williams 62 82 101: $950K
Fragomen 65 N/A 39: $1.85M
Nixon Peabody 71 67 109: $910K
Duane Morris 72 95 112: $900K
Pepper Hamilton 82 92 91: $1.03M
Mintz Levin 92 91 87: $1.07M
Manatt 101 N/A 65: $1.39M
Arent Fox 113 79 104: $940K
Schiff Hardin 115 N/A 96: $980K
Loeb & Loeb 125 N/A 64: $1.43M
Vedder Price 126 N/A 105: $930K
Winstead 137 N/A 98: $980K
Wiley Rein 139 N/A 83: $1.11M
Moore & Van Allen 152 N/A 100: $970K
Robins Kaplan 154 N/A 78: $1.15M
Brownstein 156 N/A 112: $900K
Curtis 163 N/A 68: $1.35M
Allen Matkins 164 N/A 108: $910K
BuckleySandler 170 N/A 18: $2.62M
Morris Manning 175 N/A 86: $1.07M
McElroy Deutsch 176 N/A 96: $980K
Herrick 179 N/A 112: $900K
Jeffer Mangels 186 N/A 50: $1.69M

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Staci Zaretsky is an editor at Above the Law. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments. Follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

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