Biglaw

One Of The Top 40 Largest Law Firms In The Country Is Cutting Associate Salaries

There's a little twist of the knife on these salary cuts.

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BakerHostetler is a pretty big law firm, with over 900 attorneys they clock in at 39 on the National Law Journal’s 2019 ranking of firms based on size. With that many attorneys it’s not a surprise the firm also does well when it comes to gross revenue, making $732,494,000 last year. But as we well know at this point in the COVID-19 crisis, that means nothing when talking about austerity measures.

So what’s going on at the firm? Sources report there are pay cuts across the board with associates and staff (making more than $80,000 or $70,000 depending on the market) seeing a 10 percent cut, 15 percent for counsel, and partners will see unspecified reduced distributions. But BakerHostetler’s take on the the cuts is different than at most firms.

Because they say it’s a 10 percent cut, but then you have to read the fine print. It’s 10 percent annualized, meaning in upcoming paychecks greater than 10 percent is being taken out (roughly a 16 percent cut going forward) in order to lead to a 10 percent cut for the year. Which is the opposite of how most Biglaw firms are announcing their pay cuts, most places are saying associates will have a X percent pay cut which is a number less than X annualized.

This is how the firm explained the cuts in an internal slide:

At least the firm is not laying anyone off at this point.

We reached out to the firm for comment, but have yet to hear back.

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headshotKathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, and host of The Jabot podcast. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

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