Am Law Top 20 Firm Announces... Raises? It's Hard To Tell From This Announcement
Big firm issues raises for one class in one office. So far everything else is up in the air.
We’ve had firms announce raises, we’ve had firms preach caution, we’ve had firms preach caution and then realize which way the wind blows, and we’ve had firms try to clumsily pull off radio silence. Now we have a complete mixed bag — akin to what we heard from K&L Gates yesterday.
Honestly, we had given up hope on Greenberg Traurig. First, we got reports out of some of its smaller market offices that the partners considered raises and opted against them. Then even tipsters in New York expressed gloom and doom at the prospect of raises:
We received an email this morning that there will be an associates meeting with managing partners this afternoon to discuss “important issues.”
Wouldn’t be surprised if they say no and are trying to deal with optics.
Law Firm Business Development Is More Than Relationship Building
But this afternoon we’ve learned that Greenberg Traurig matched the $180K salary for its New York first years. The raises are effective July 1. The firm declined to issue a memo and opted to inform associates directly in an office meeting.
Beyond that though, associates are at the whim of the firm’s black box policy of determining pay based on productivity, group needs, etc. Tipsters seem pretty confident that this is the firm’s way of claiming matching status without really matching. As we hear more from individual associates we’ll get a clearer picture, but early reactions suggest they expect to be shortchanged compared to their peers going forward.
In an earlier post on leverage, I raised Greenberg Traurig as a firm whose leverage may be an obstacle in the raise process. One tipster took issue with this, noting that Greenberg maintains tiers of partnership that all have varying levels of equity, while the reported figures reflect only those partners on the top rung. In other words, the figures artificially inflate the associate to partner ratio. And that’s fair… but it still means the people with the most equity to lose heavily outnumber the associates. So while 4.4:1 may be high, this is still a leveraged firm.
And this just might be how a leveraged firm splits the baby, with raises only where they were absolutely necessary — first-year associates in the New York office — giving a little to the NYC mid-levels and seniors, and then nothing everywhere else.
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As of this moment we’ve only been hearing of $180K raises in New York office and affirmative statements of “no raise” in other markets. As this story develops with news from other offices, we’ll update.
UPDATE (6/21/16 5:01 p.m.): We’ve now heard from Chicago:
GT Chicago to $180,000. No announcement as to when. No announcement as to Summers. Individual raises communicated individually.
Sounds basically in line with NYC.
UPDATE (6/21/16 4:37 p.m.): An associate in another non-NYC office notes:
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Law Firm Business Development Is More Than Relationship Building
No official announcement has been made or will be made…. It’s not been communicated to us when or if those decisions will be coming but lots of anxious/potentially unhappy folks here.
It seems gloom and doom really is the default setting for GT associates.
You know the drill people! 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.
Earlier: Don’t Just Shame Firms Based On Profits Per Partner — Consider Leverage
One Firm Decides To Pump The Brakes On This Whole ‘Raise’ Thing
Biglaw Firm Changes Course On Associate Compensation
These Partners Desperately Don’t Want Us To Know They Aren’t Raising Salaries
A Biglaw Behemoth’s Weak-Sauce Raise
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.
