Big Salaries, Big Bonuses, Big Billables: Are Firms Treating Lawyers Fairly?
Are your law firm's work expectations unreasonable? Many of your colleagues think so.
For more than a year and a half, lawyers and legal staff have largely worked from home thanks to the pandemic. Despite widespread vaccination protocols, the coronavirus crisis is still prominently featured in our lives due to the Delta variant, with firms across the country now putting their reopening plans on hold. But all the while, many lawyers have been living large, so to speak, with salaries hitting new heights, and special bonuses being handed out not once, but twice. On the flip side of the coin, law firms have become even more demanding, and in turn, their profits have soared.
This got us to wondering: do law firm personnel think they’re being treated fairly? We polled almost 400 attorneys and staff members across hundreds of Biglaw and boutique law firms from almost every state in America to find out. With all of this money being tossed around, the answer may surprise you.
As we all could have guessed, lawyers are working incredibly hard this year. According to our survey, those who actually record billable hours are doing a lot of heavy lifting, making the work-life balance line disappear while working remotely. The largest cohort of respondents who selected hours reported that they would be billing more than 2,399 in 2021. See the chart below.
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How many hours are you on track to bill in 2021?
That said, we asked those who took our poll to rate their firm’s work expectations. The largest cohort of respondents (almost 42%) reported that their law firm’s work expectations are somewhat unreasonable. The next largest cohort (almost 40%) reported work expectations to be fair.
So, is all of this hard work worth it? You’d think so, but let’s take a look at the details. How are lawyers and staff being compensated during the pandemic?
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Did you receive a salary raise in 2021?
The majority of respondents, approximately 80%, reported that they did receive a salary raise in 2021. Now, let’s break that down by law firm size.
As you can see, salary raises were prolific throughout the legal profession over the course of the past year, but the smaller the firm, the less likely it was that personnel would receive a raise (and definitely not a match of the now-prevailing Biglaw salary scale).
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Now let’s take a look at salary raises by job title, where associates ruled over everyone else by quite a bit, trailed by staff and counsel.
The “other” job titles represented here were senior financial analyst; analyst; paralegal; document review attorney; executive director; staff attorney; and senior counsel. As noted earlier, everyone got raises, with partners trickling in for last place among those who did. Don’t worry, their PPP will be way up.
Did you receive a bonus in 2021?
Once again, almost everyone received a bonus. Let’s break it down by law firm size, where again, the smaller the firm size gets, the less likely it was that personnel would receive a bonus.
Oof, more people working in small law firms did not receive a bonus in 2021 than those who did. Ouch. Let’s break this down further, this time by job title.
While the majority of counsel, associates, and staff received bonuses, it was a wash for partners and others. (But once again, partners don’t need to be worried about bonuses because their profits are sure to have skyrocketed this year.)
Let’s get down to brass tacks when it comes to compensation and the insane amounts of work that attorneys and staff have been doing this year.
Do you believe your overall compensation reflects your contribution to your firm?
Almost 60 percent of respondents reported that they did not believe their overall compensation was reflective of their contribution to their firm. Consider that alongside the fact that a majority of respondents (82%) reported that their firm’s work expectations were a mix between somewhat unreasonable and fair. Those polled really spoke their minds and some common themes emerged. Here are some select responses that we thought would really resonate with others.
- “They repeatedly tell us how much they care about our self-actualization, mental health, etc., but their compensation and treatment of “counsel” is hidden from scrutiny, unlike its compensation and treatment of associates, where everything is about keeping up with other top-tier law firms, and because how they treat us is hidden, they treat us very unfairly, and often reprehensibly.”
- “We’re carrying more weight than ever before, I’ve billed in excess of $2m and will take home after taxes far less than 10% of that.”
The majority of lawyers and staff polled do not think they’re being treated fairly when it comes to their compensation and the amount of work they’ve been doing during the pandemic years. Will this change? Some firms have been handing out additional financial and experience perks as thank-yous, but will that improve things? Sometimes money just isn’t enough, but only time will tell.
Staci 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.