Associate Salaries
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Associate Bonus Watch 2010, Associate Salaries, Biglaw, Bonuses, Money
Associate Bonus (and Salary) Watch: Goodwin Procter
Last month, the Boston Globe reported on an arbitrator’s finding that Goodwin Procter overcharged a real estate client by more than $540,000. (We mentioned the Globe story here and here.) Alas, some claim that Goodwin isn’t letting that extra gravy trickle down to its associates…. -
Associate Bonus Watch 2010, Associate Salaries, Biglaw, Bonuses, Cheapness, Holy Crap, Money
Cravath Bonuses Are Out: The 2010 Bonus Season Is Under Way!
We’ve had to wait a long time for this announcement. Last year, Cravath kicked off bonus season on November 2nd. This year, bonus news took longer to arrive. Was it worth the wait? Cravath just announced its bonuses, this afternoon. So, what are the Cravath year-end bonuses looking like for 2010? - Sponsored
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Associate Salaries, Biglaw, Billable Hours
Mayer Brown: Hours Requirements for Salary Increase
As we said yesterday, there’s still time left in the year for associates to crank out some billable hours to hit their targets. There’s still time to participate in our hours survey, where the early returns suggest that many of you are quite busy. That’s a good thing, especially if you are at Mayer Brown, […]
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Associate Salaries
Foley & Lardner: Back to $160K In Major Markets
It’s November 1. That’s supposed to mean it’s time for Biglaw bonus season. Here at Above the Law, we’re ready for it. Not only are we expecting emails to flow in about bonuses which should be better than last year (tips@abovethelaw.com), we’re also using our Google Voice account (646-820-TIPS) to accept text messages about bonuses. […] -
Associate Salaries, Bonuses, Boutique Law Firms, Job Survey, Money, Small Law Firms
A Small Firm Salary Survey: The Results (Part 2)
A recent study by economists at UC Berkeley gives employers a nice argument for keeping salaries a secret. Well, luckily for you, I’m not your employer. Therefore I have no qualms about sharing with you Part 2 of the results from our small-firm salary survey. In your emails following Part 1, many of you asked […] -
Associate Salaries, Bonuses, Boutique Law Firms, Job Survey, Money, Small Law Firms
A Small Firm Salary Survey: The Results (Part 1)
Over 650 of you responded to last week’s salary survey. In poring over the results, I learned several lessons: (1) Don’t make salary questions fill-in-the-blank. It creates a host of problems, including the inadvertent omitting/adding of zeroes, and makes data compilation and analysis unnecessarily difficult. (2) Do include open-ended “anything else” questions; people write all […] -
Associate Salaries, Bonuses, Boutique Law Firms, Job Survey, Money, Small Law Firms
Show Me the Money: A Small Firm Salary Survey
Biglaw salaries are no secret. You can find numbers all over the internet, including places like oh, I don’t know, Above the Law (not just the home page, but also the Career Center). But what about information for everyone else? You already know what I made during my time at a small firm, but that […] -
Associate Salaries, Biglaw, Bonuses, Money, Small Law Firms
Great Expectations (Part 3): Is It All About the Benjamins?A Comparison of Biglaw v. Small Firm Compensation
Yes, yes it is. At least that’s what I gather based on the relative volume of commentary I received on the subject since the inception of this column about small law firms. I’ve been avoiding the topic, mostly because salary discussions usually degenerate into little richard-measuring contests but, in addition to the comment wars that […] - Sponsored
Is The Future Of Law Distributed? Lessons From The Tech Adoption Curve
The rise of remote work has dramatically reshaped the relationship between Lawyers and Law Firms, see how Scale LLP has taken the steps to get… -
Associate Salaries, Biglaw, Money, NALP
The Salary Scale: Never Has Stagnant Looked So Sweet
On January 22, 2007, Above the Law reported that Simpson Thacher & Bartlett raised starting associate salaries in New York to $160,000. That was almost four years ago — 1,326 days ago, to be exact (2008 was a leap year). But here we are, in the fourth quarter of 2010, and a new NALP report […] -
Associate Salaries, Biglaw, Bonuses, Killing Lockstep
Nationwide Pay Raise Watch: Orrick
While expressing a commitment to maintain its new, incredibly transparent, merit-based salary structure, Orrick is moving its base salary back to reaffirming its commitment to $160,000 for first-year associates working in major markets. That’s right, the time for $145K in big offices is almost at an end. UPDATE: Initially spokespeople from Orrick termed the move […] -
Associate Salaries, Biglaw, Bonuses, Killing Lockstep
In Boston, Merit-Based Compensation Could Be Taking Hold
It must be a slow news week over in mainstream media land. Earlier this week, the New York Times did a survey piece about American salary cuts that tangentially touched on lawyer salaries — old news for people on top of the legal market, but probably new to a more general audience. Today, the Boston […] -
Associate Salaries, Biglaw, Money, New York Times, Salary Cuts
Don't Be So Quick to Lump Biglaw in with Corporate Salary Slashers
The New York Times has a nice survey piece about all the salary cuts imposed upon American workers. It’s a story that anybody holding down a job through this recession is probably aware of: Local and state governments, as well as some companies, are squeezing their employees to work the same amount for less money […] -
Associate Salaries, Killing Lockstep
Biglaw Salary Stragglers: Foley & Lardner
We’ve done a number of reports over the last few weeks on salary cuts of 2009 that are being reversed in 2010. Sure, some firms are still trying to be cute when it comes to associate pay. But many Biglaw firms are back on the $160K scale for associate salaries, at least in major markets. […]
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Early Adopters Of Legal AI Gaining Competitive Edge In Marketplace
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Associate Salaries, Sheppard Mullin
Sheppard Mullin Comes Back to the Light of $160K
As we’ve been trying to tell people, paying associates less than a $160K starting salary is just not something that Biglaw firms should be doing. Everybody got very excited in 2009 when they thought that there was an opportunity to keep profits high by squeezing entry level associates, but it turns out that pay cuts […] -
Associate Salaries, Killing Lockstep, Texas
Baker Botts Releases New Merit-Based Compensation Levels
Back in November, Baker Botts told us that they would be moving away from a lockstep associate compensation system and instituting a new merit-based system. Yesterday the firm released the base salary levels for its new four-tiered system. Here’s the statement from the firm regarding the basic changes: The next phase of a talent management […] -
Associate Salaries
Covington & Burling: Salaries Thawed in D.C.
When I wrote the open thread on the Vault top ten, I wanted to say that none of the top firms froze salaries during the recession. But I couldn’t, because back in November Covington & Burling surprised many people by freezing associate salaries outside of New York. But as we mentioned at the beginning of […] -
Associate Salaries, Biglaw, Bonuses, Hogan & Hartson, Lovells, Money
Nationwide Salary Thaw: Hogan Lovells Loves Its Associates
The prior reports of additional payments to some associates at Hogan Lovells, designed to reward these associates for making their billable-hours targets, were accurate — at least with respect to the New York office. And it turns out that these payments constitute what in ATL-speak we call “true-up payments” — i.e., payments designed to give […] -
Associate Salaries, Money, NALP, National Association for Law Placement (NALP)
NALP Gives More Information on Expected Lawyer Salary
I’ve been critical of the National Association for Law Placement (NALP) in the past, but you have to give them credit for at least one thing: they have been tirelessly trying to make people understand that most lawyers do not make $160,000 a year straight out of law school. In fact, NALP has been at […] -
Associate Salaries, Biglaw, Ho-Love, Hogan & Hartson, Lovells, Money
Nationwide Salary Thaw: Happy Happenings at Hogan?
Last Wednesday, the firm of Hogan Lovells — formerly known as Hogan & Hartson, before its recent merger with U.K.-based Lovells — made an announcement about associate salaries. So what went down? -
Akin Gump, Associate Salaries, Killing Lockstep
Akin Gump Back to $160K: Another Merit-Based Plan Offers Market-Level Base Salaries
It started with DLA Piper. After offering recession salaries to associates for a while under the guise of merit-based compensation, DLA relented earlier this month and restored the $160K base salary scale to its associates. Yesterday, WilmerHale announced that while it too is going forward with a merit-based compensation plan, it will be offering base […]