We have documented Greenberg Traurig’s salary shenanigans as the firm, first proudly and then sketchily, refuses to pay market salaries. We have warned you that recruiters are circling around the firm like sharks who smell blood in the water.
Greenberg management seems to think that associate unrest over the firm’s below market salaries is just a media narrative. But today we got a hold of a departure memo that puts that “narrative” into action. It’s an entirely normal memo, until you realize what’s really going on. Emphasis mine:
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Subject: Farewell and Thank you
As many of you know, today is my last day at GT. I am very grateful for the opportunity to have worked with and learned from so many of you during my three years with the firm. GT has been an incredible place to cut my teeth in real estate law and I would particularly like to thank all of the members of the Real Estate Group in New York for making the firm a great place to learn and practice.
Next month I am starting at Milbank. I do not have my new work contact info yet, but if you wish to reach me my personal email is [redacted]
Thank you all and I hope that our paths cross at some point in the future.
I’ve redacted the associate’s name. But I can confirm that it’s a real person whose Google footprint all points to working at GT. Except when you go to their GT bio page today, it’s a big “Page Not Found.”
For those who are uninitiated to the Biglaw departure cycle, it is highly unusual for a person to leave in August. The fall bonus only gets paid out if you are still at the firm on the day that it drops, so working 3/4ths of the way towards your bonus and then just leaving it on the table is not something that people usually do.
But, remember the note from our report on the RPN recruiter email. The firm said: “Many of our clients that are paying the new Cravath salaries are making associates whole on the bonus and not pro-rating it.”
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The message is that people who want to get out of Greenberg Traurig, can get out. And some people are getting out.
Leaving a firm that plays salary shenanigans for a firm that led the market in salary raises isn’t personal. It’s just business.
Elie Mystal is the Executive Editor of Above the Law and the Legal Editor for More Perfect. He can be reached @ElieNYC on Twitter, or at [email protected]. He will resist.