Biglaw

Jones Day Can't Even Raise Salaries Without Screwing Someone Over

Some people don't seem to understand the idiosyncrasies of Jones Day's compensation structure.

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Earlier this week, Jones Day announced, via memo to their incoming summer associates, that they’d be increasing first-year salaries by $10,000 and adjusting the summer pay scale accordingly. In other words, Jones Day would join the Milbank scale, at least until their notorious black box compensation system took over.

So far so good.

Then first-year tipsters starting complaining to us that Jones Day hadn’t raised salaries for first-years after all. Which isn’t true. They just forgot the Jones Day cardinal rule — the rule that motivates their shadowy black box system — “it’s all about cynicism.”

The memo couldn’t be more clear — first-year compensation is going up $10,000, so summer pay is going up by a prorated amount. But if you’re a current Jones Day first-year, don’t expect to see that money. They mean the next class of first-years will start at $190K. That’s all that matters when they show up to on-campus interviews. And at the end of the day, that’s all a salary increase is really about — not showing up to recruiting with your proverbial genitals in your hands. Paying the current crop of associates is purely gratuitous.

And Jones Day doesn’t do gratuitous or they’d be paying a transparent Biglaw scale all the way up. This is the life you’ve chosen, Jones Day associates!

Earlier: Jones Day’s Notorious Black Box Now Starts At $190K — For Summer Associates

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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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