Back in 1999, one daring law firm laid the groundwork for associate salaries to soar. This firm made huge waves when it offered new associates a starting salary of $125,000 — significantly higher than the $100,000 that was standard at the time. The pay raise soon spread to firms across the country, and nothing has ever been the same since.
The firm we’re speaking about is Silicon Valley powerhouse Gunderson Dettmer, and last night, managing partner David T. Young, notified associates that they would be matching new Milbank salary scale. Here’s a nice little note from the firm:
[W]e thank you for your extraordinary efforts to provide clients with outstanding service, recruit talented new colleagues and contribute to the firm’s growth.
This is what the new $215K salary scale looks like at Gunderson:
It looks like the firm has taken note of what Choate did and its offering even higher salaries to its senior associates instead of sticking with $385K across the board for its most experienced attorneys.
Salary increases at the firm will be retroactive to January 1, and associates will receive catch-up payments at the end of the month.
Congratulations to all U.S. associates at Gunderson!
(Flip to the next page to read the full memo from Gunderson Dettmer.)
Remember everyone, we depend on your tips to stay on top of this stuff. So when your firm matches, please text us (646-820-8477) or email us (subject line: “[Firm Name] Matches”). Please include the memo if available. You can take a photo of the memo and send it via text or email if you don’t want to forward the original PDF or Word file.
And if you’d like to sign up for ATL’s Bonus Alerts (which is the alert list we’ll also use for salary announcements), please scroll down and enter your email address in the box below this post. If you previously signed up for the bonus alerts, you don’t need to do anything. You’ll receive an email notification within minutes of each bonus announcement that we publish.
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.