Associate Salaries, Biglaw, Money

Biglaw Firm Finally Announces Below-Market Raises For First-Years, May 'Completely Screw' Everyone Else

Uh-oh. Are associates in trouble at this firm?

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Man Worried MoneyWhen it comes to firms that have made their associates irate this raise season, McGuireWoods is one that tops the list. First, partners buried their heads in the sand with their asses in the air, hoping that the media (read: we here at Above the Law) wouldn’t notice the fact that they’d yet to make a decision on raising salaries for their hard-working associates. Then, partners decided to announce an associate conference call where they wouldn’t discuss associate salaries, but instead reveal the winners of the “McGuireWoods Excellence Award.” It looks like the firm decided to change course on partners’ reluctance to discuss raises, because today during that fateful associate awards call, the topic of salaries finally came up.

Unfortunately, only first-year associates at the firm received good news, and after all of that painful waiting, that good news didn’t even come in the form of a full Cravath match. Thomas Cabaniss, the firm’s managing partner, announced that first-year associates in large markets would see their salaries rise from $155K to $175K. First-year associates in the firm’s middle-market offices would see their salaries increased from $140K to $155K. As for first-year associates in the firm’s small markets… well, there’s no specific raise information available — either because those associates won’t receive raises at all, or because their raises will be highly individualized, just like they will be for all of McGuireWoods’ more senior associates. Everyone will find out what their new salaries will be later this week, retroactive to July 1. “We’re all tentatively excited pending getting completely screwed over in individual memos,” said one frustrated associate.

Here’s what we heard from some other McGuireWoods associates about the comp news:

• I think one of the reasons they’ve been hesitant to react is there are some groups that are just really slow (all associates have access to firmwide numbers for billables — so it’s easy to see what groups are slow), and they were probably struggling with how to deal with that. My guess would be the associates in slow groups get small (or no) bumps. We’ll find out soon enough.

• The raises were actually announced during the Excellence Award conference call by the firm’s managing partner. He also explicitly said the firm would not be making a public announcement about the raises and kind of implied such practices were a little gauche, so I wouldn’t expect any official response from the firm. He said we’ll tell our incoming first years (and interview candidates) directly about the raise in comp.

Congratulations on your raises, McGuireWoods first-years, and to everyone else, we’d congratulate you on your prospective raises, but who knows what they’ll look like. We hope that not too many of you get “completely screwed.”

Remember, we are covering this trend extensively, so please drop us a line — text (646-820-8477) or email (subject line: “[Firm Name] Matches Cravath”) — when you know of another firm making a compensation move. 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. All sources are kept strictly confidential.

Earlier: ‘No Raises, But Here’s A Made-Up Award For Your Trouble!’
These Partners Desperately Don’t Want Us To Know They Aren’t Raising Salaries

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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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