Biglaw

Finally, A Biglaw Firm With A Gender Pay Gap That Favors Women

Male associates are being paid less than women at this firm.

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Could it be? A Biglaw firm where female associates are making more than their male colleagues in terms of both salary and bonus payouts? Is this for real?

Under the Equality Act 2010, companies in the United Kingdom with more than 250 employees must submit data to the government each year on their gender pay gaps. Law firms are not required to submit data on their equity partners. Earlier this week, Slaughter & May released data on its 2017 wage information for men and women, and it seems like this firm may be a unicorn as the numbers reveal that the firm’s female associates have higher salaries and get bigger bonuses than their male counterparts. Female associates at the firm, on average, are paid 2.1 percent more and receive 2.7 percent higher bonuses than male associates. For women in law, that’s something worth celebrating.

What’s not worth celebrating is the fact that the firm broke down its employees between associates and staff to cover up the fact that, on the whole, there is a 14.3 percent pay gap in favor of men, with a bonus gap of 33.3 percent. Slaughters even went so far as to entirely exclude secretarial roles, held almost exclusively by women, from its business services figures to show that women on the business side of the firm are paid 7.6 percent more and receive 5 percent higher bonuses than their male colleagues. This all seems a bit… deceptive… but we suppose it’s for a good cause.

Here’s what executive partner Paul Stacey had to say about the firm’s gender pay gap:

Our analysis of the underlying figures shows that our one-firm culture remains strong, with the gender pay gap for associates and business services professionals yielding encouraging results. That culture values remunerating our employees in a less differentiated and more egalitarian way, and is supported by no billable hours targets.

At least the true gender pay gap at Slaughter & May compares favorably to those of Linklaters (23.2 percent), Allen & Overy (19.8 percent), and Herbert Smith Freehills (19 percent). With three weeks left for firms to submit their reports, at this rate, we wonder if S&M will be the firm with the smallest gender pay gap in the UK.

Slaughters gender pay gap report reveals female associates are paid more than men [Legal Week]

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Staci ZaretskyStaci Zaretsky has been an editor at Above the Law since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

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