Biglaw

Are You There Cravath? It's Me, Milbank.

Where this raise goes from here is in one firm's hands.

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Listen, Milbank’s done everything it can from its own, vulnerable position.

It stuck its neck out there as the firm willing to embrace a cost of living increase for its associates and only Proskauer and Winston — another pair of powerful but not quite elite players — have matched. (And litigation boutique Hueston Hennigan, but no one is looking to them to set the market rate.)

The silence from the rest of the field can only be chalked up to the industry’s cartel-ish impulse to follow Cravath’s lead in all things compensation. There’s a somewhat cynical view circulating in Biglaw that Proskauer and Winston moved when they did in a desperate bid to set the market before Cravath goes over the top and creates a $200K scale.

But will they? We’re just in this eerie holding pattern right now, waiting on Cravath to set the market. No one seriously believes Proskauer is going to be paying associates more than Cravath in New York when it comes time for on-campus interviews. So Cravath has to at least match… but if that’s the plan, why have they kept mum for two days?

Right now, the whole industry seems to be waiting on Cravath to make the call. Will this round of salary wars be the modest cost of living adjustment that every firm should join or the start of the market fragmentation that Cravath thought it was buying two years ago?

The legal world is waiting.

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HeadshotJoe 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.

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