The new market standard salary may have taken effect — most places anyway — on July 1, but the real deadline was always July 13. That’s the day that most of these firms on biweekly or semi-monthly (they are different) pay schedules deposit the pay from July 1 on. So a firm that moved a tad slower than the rest of the pack could still make good by its team with raises effective July 1 paid out at the end of this week.
That’s where real-estate boutique Duval & Stachenfeld — in the interest of disclosure, Bruce Stachenfeld is a longtime Above the Law columnist — comes in. In a memo sent around yesterday, the firm announced their much-anticipated raises and put smiles on associate faces.
| YEAR | CURRENT D&S | ADJUSTED D&S |
| 1st | $ 180,000.00 | $ 190,000.00 |
| 2nd | $ 190,000.00 | $ 200,000.00 |
| 3rd | $ 210,000.00 | $ 220,000.00 |
| 4th | $ 235,000.00 | $ 255,000.00 |
| 5th | $ 260,000.00 | $ 280,000.00 |
| 6th | $ 280,000.00 | $ 300,000.00 |
| 7th | $ 285,000.00 | $ 300,000.00 |
| 8th | $ 300,000.00 | $ 300,000.00 |
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So that’s a perfect match through the first five years. Associates in their sixth, seventh, and eighth years are off the market pace and the gap grows a lot. That said, the firm is noted for advancing senior attorneys to partnership relatively quickly, so there may not be very many people sitting at that figure for long.
Remember everyone, we depend on your tips to stay on top of this stuff. So when your firm matches, please text us (646-820-8477) or email us (subject line: “[Firm Name] Raises Salaries”). 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.
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(For context, the full memo is on the next page.)
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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.