First-Year Associate Salaries Are Up, But Is It Time For Another Raise?

The pandemic couldn't stop salaries from climbing. Is it time for a $200K first-year salary?

The pandemic gave rise to a year of uncertainty across the legal profession, but one thing COVID didn’t bring crashing down was first-year associate salaries. Yes, Biglaw firms of all stripes instituted austerity measures during 2020, but according to a new report from the National Association for Law Placement, first-year associate salaries are actually up despite all of the financial chaos.

NALP’s 2021 Associate Salary Survey report notes that as of January 1, 2021, the median base salary for first-year associates was $165,000, which is up $10,000 from 2019, the last time this survey came out. Of the 572 responses received, 78% of them came from law firms of more than 250 lawyers.

James G. Leipold, NALP’s Executive Director, had this to say about the report:

Despite widespread media reports of austerity measures implemented by law firms during the pandemic, including delays in partner draws and in some cases temporary salary reductions for lawyers, the findings from NALP’s latest Associate Salary Survey show that associate compensation has continued to grow over the last two years, with first-year associate compensation of $190,000 now measured as the most common starting salary, reflecting the continued strength of the legal sector despite a difficult year.

$190K may now be the most common starting salary — after the Great Associate Salary Increase of 2018, where firms of more than 700 lawyers doled out $10,000 raises from $180,000 — but not all firms were able to bump their first-years to such salary heights. As it turns out, the greatest salary growth was seen at firms of 101-250 lawyers, where median first-year salaries increased by $15,000, from $115,000 in 2019 to $130,000 in 2021. At firms of 251-500 lawyers, base salaries for first-years grew by $10,000, from $160,000 in 2019 to $170,000 in 2021.

The NALP survey did have this interesting nugget of information on salaries:

Geography continues to have a considerable impact on salary differences across regions, cities, and states. This year’s report contains analyses for 23 individual cities as well as additional states and regions not encompassed by those cities. These analyses reveal a wide spectrum of law firm compensation, with median first-year salaries by city ranging from $115,000 to $190,000. Outside some of the largest markets, $190,000 salaries were still not the norm. Regionally, the highest median first-year associate base salaries were in the Northeast ($175,000), followed by the South and West, both at $170,000. The lowest salaries were in the Midwest ($130,000).

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So, with all of these inventive bonuses and a hot lateral market, we’ve got to ask: is it time for another Biglaw salary increase? We saw one in 2016, one in 2018, and 2020 and 2021 have turned out to be big bonus years. Is now the time for a $200K first-year salary? Should associates be expecting a raise sometime later this year or in 2022? We guess they’ll have to stick around to find out.

First-Year Associate Salaries Show Modest Growth at Large Firms [NALP]


Staci ZaretskyStaci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.

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