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Why The Milbank Raise Is Not That Big Of A Deal -- And Why It Is

The aftermath of this increase will tell us a lot, just not about the firms you think.

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When Milbank chairman Scott Edelman explained the firm’s thinking when it came to the latest round of salary increases, he was straightforward that the firm wasn’t trying to shock the market, they just wanted to stay on top of cost-of-living and inflation changes.

But is he right about that? Does inflation really justify this raise?

The short answer is… yes. A tipster yesterday took to the CPI calculator to figure out just what’s going on:

180K in July 2016 is 187K in today’s dollars. 1.6% raise woohoo!!!!!

It’s true, though only through April 2018 — the latest date with available data on the system — so if anything it’s an even smaller “raise” and even more of a cost-of-living adjustment. Not that this is a criticism of Milbank. On the contrary, this fact should prompt every firm that raised salaries in 2016 to follow Milbank’s suit quickly. There’s really no reason not to.

Unless, of course, those firms have realized that they couldn’t really afford their 2016 raises. That may be the primary lesson to divine from the course of the next few weeks: which firms are ready to admit they jumped the gun in 2016.

Like the old pretentious saying about jazz that “it’s the notes they don’t play,” when it comes to following Milbank, the firms that hold out will be much more interesting (dare we say “the notes they don’t pay”).

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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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