Firm Offers Raises Retroactive To July 1
It's not perfect, but some pretty good news about raises.
A couple weeks ago, we learned that Perkins Coie delivered a cryptic message to its associates about impending “nuanced” raises. What did that even mean? We’re talking about raises, not becoming a Go grand champion! Hell, we’re not even talking about becoming a Pokémon Go grand champion.
Last week, while I was off listening to substantive Supreme Court talk and writing pieces like this and this, Perkins Coie went ahead and issued raises for its offices. And yet none of our tipsters were dishing out any specifics.
This brings me to an aside for law firm management teams: go ahead and put out a memo. This whole cloak and dagger hogwash just makes you look silly. We’re going to find out anyway, so be upfront if you’re matching, and don’t try to sugar coat it if you’re not. Keeping a lid on this stuff only increases the risk that recruits and laterals develop the wrong impression of the firm. Own who you are!
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Back to the story. So, Perkins Coie doesn’t put out a memo and offers salary bumps that vary across offices, so it’s taken some time to get a full picture, but here’s basically what we know:
Two Bay Area offices are full Cravath matches.
So San Francisco and Palo Alto are matching the $180K scale up to — one presumes — at least $315K.
Major markets are full Cravath 1-4 years, then ranges 5-8 with top end being Cravath.
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Presumably “major markets” excludes the two Bay Area offices that we just covered. Without knowing the exact requirements of each range, it looks like this keeps almost everyone on the Cravath scale (hours requirements at Perkins Coie haven’t traditionally been draconian).
One smaller market office actually got an interesting offer:
Seattle was given a choice of staying on
1800[ed. note, another tipster says the correct number is 1850] minimum billable requirement or moving to 1950. If 1950, then major market scale.
There’s your work/life balance! UPDATE: Pics of the whole scale, for either hour total, available here.
One last bit of happy news — all raises are retroactive to July 1. None of that “wait until October” garbage here.
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On the other hand…
But they expressly said merit bonuses would be impacted and we may not even get bonuses — so that’s sh**ty.
Indeed.
But it wouldn’t be very “nuanced” if you got everything you wanted.
(Seattle ranges available on the next page…)
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: What The Hell Is Perkins Coie Doing?
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.
