Just when you thought the associate salary raises were completely behind us and we’d moved on entirely to bonuses, Santa decided to drop some associate salary increase news on us before we head out the door for Christmas.
This comes from Venable, a firm that dodged the summer flurry of raises, sticking to its existing pay scale which amounted to the $180K scale for the first three years followed by a “range” of salaries for more senior associates that maxed out at the market rates. It created the weird quirk where fourth and fifth year associates could theoretically make less than third years prompting a lot of discontent, but at the very top of the scale, people were happy. Still, when the firm stayed pat over the summer, there was an appropriate amount of grumbling.
But as the work week comes to an end before Christmas Eve, Venable has a new compensation scale for everyone! But is it a present or coal?
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So the lockstop process is limited to first and second years now meaning third years have joined the ranks of those braving the ranges. What’s not clear here is whether or not the firm is offering any movement at the bottom of the salary range. Pushing the top up doesn’t necessarily mean much if the floor isn’t moving commensurably. It wouldn’t be a big deal if this hadn’t been the exact same complaint the firm faced in 2016. One would have thought they’d have learned from that experience.
And that floor makes a huge difference because, as one tipster points out, no one is really getting the maximum:
Venable announced new comp. Associates are pissed. Firm Chairman Stu Ingis made a big deal months ago that the firm would do right by associates and this is what we get. A $10k bump to the top of your class year range. Literally no one gets the maximum – no one. It’s a big joke. Not retroactive. No special bonus. Even regular bonus sucks. You can kill yourself and only get around $25k. PPP of $1MM+ and this the best they can do? They just don’t care about associates.
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While the memo says salary bumps are effective as of January 1, associates aren’t going to see their salaries until February, meaning there must be a big retroactive bump coming for Valentine’s Day.
Congrats… I guess.
Joe Patrice is a senior 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.