If you’re a young Biglaw litigator at a top firm, you’re excited about that hefty raise, but still hankering to move on to a job that gives you some opportunity to, you know, really litigate. It’s a tried and true career path to cut your teeth at a Biglaw factory before lateraling to a boutique so you can actually take some depositions before you get your AARP card. But that new raise can become a golden handcuff, anchoring you to a sweatshop where “cog” is a generous description of your day-to-day.
Traditionally, you bought that increased responsibility with a pay cut, but the top litigation boutiques are breaking that model.
San Francisco’s Keker & Van Nest — who some may remember was The American Lawyer’s inaugural Litigation Boutique of the Year — joined Hueston Hennigan and Holwell Shuster & Goldberg in raising associate salaries up to match the Biglaw leaders. For boutiques, the name of the game is talent. Sheer muscle power doesn’t get the job done at the lean and mean shops and keeping pay in line with the top Biglaw firms is the only way to secure that top talent.
In the coming days, I suspect we’ll start getting reports of boutiques jumping salaries to some point just below the Cravath scale — when I moved to a boutique, my salary just moved back a class, which seemed like a fair trade — or “crunching” with the gap between Cravath and the boutique growing with seniority. But for now, we’re only getting reports from the boutiques really eager to fight on that top-tier.
So go ahead Keker & Van Nest associates… have your cake and eat it too.
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.
Earlier: Another Firm Bumps Associate Salaries To The $180K Scale
Hot Litigation Firm Matches Cravath Salary Scale — Are Boutiques The Big Salary Bump Winners?
Introducing LexisNexis Protégé™ in Lex Machina®
Lex Machina harnesses generative AI capabilities to revolutionize the way legal professionals interact with data to improve bottom line for their business.
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.