Biglaw Associate Raises
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Anonymous
| Cravath just raised. Have to assume of the other top Biglaw firms will follow. But, I wonder if some firms finally admit that they can't afford to keep up with the Cravaths of the world and don't follow -- or at least don't follow fully. In years past, firms would be more likely to match for the junior years (to keep up with law school recruiting) but then skimp on more senior associates. But more senior folks are in greater demand and clients are really pushing back on paying for first year work. Curious to see how this all shakes out, but at least a lot of lawyers in the area are going to have something in celebrate in the coming days. |
Anonymous
| I am at a firm in the bottom half of the Vault 100. It is definitely Biglaw, but no where near the prestige or PPP of Cravath. I think they will match, but I bet it takes some time and I wouldn't be shocked if they fall short on some of the more senior folks. I assume Davis, Skadden, etc will match this week. Would hurt morale if we come up short, but not sure how many people think they would have better options. Will be interesting to see how things shake out. |
Anonymous
| Every time a raise comes up, there's speculation that this will be the one that separates law firms more distinctly into salary tiers. I'm less convinced. Sure, my firm pays me a lot, but my total comp is still 1/8th of my realization. My firm's going to raise, they'd just prefer not to. |
Anonymous
| The market has been hot for experienced laterals for quite some time, surprised it has taken firms this long to respond. In the end, it probably just means fewer junior associates, because partners will not eat this raise out of their compensation. Unfortunately, this might just encourage more people to go to lawschool despite few actual Biglaw junior associate positions being available. Suckers. |
Anonymous
|
It is preposterous! Who in their right mind honestly thinks that a 1st year is worth 180K?
OK. You're smart enough to get into a good school and dumb enough to go into debt. With zero experience and no practical skill, what does a 1st year bring to the table that gives 180K worth of value? |
Anonymous
On the other hand, partners can bill them out at $400+/hour (to be glorified document monkeys). So they are definitely providing value to the law firm, if not to the clients. |
Anonymous
Eventually, there will be more and more people who pay these bills, people like me on the client side, who simply refuse to pay for this crap. No billing for first or second years without prior approval. If you don't like it, too bad. There's always another firm who will do so. |
Anonymous
I've been hearing that for years! |
Anonymous
| I am sure you have. And it's sad more clients don't grow a backbone. |
Anonymous
| This is 2006 all over again, I remember. My offer from Biglaw was 125K, bumped to 135K before I started, soon after jumped to 160K. |
Anonymous
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Try and think of this from the client's perspective. (I am transactional, so doc production doesn't apply).
I have something that needs attending to. It would take a 4th year plus no more than 3 hours. So let's assume 700 an hour MAX. That's max 2100. You guys assign it to a 1st year. We have a first year and a senior meeting to assign the project. 1 hour. The two lawyers bill me a total of 1000 just to assign the work. Then the first year spend 8 hours figuring it out. Not dumb, just starting from zero. That's 3200 more. Then another couple hours for the senior to review and the first year to revise. Another 1500. Now I have a 5700 dollar bill for something that should have cost me 2000 max. How are you defending that? And I pick and pay lawyers who provide value to me. So I am more likely to pick a senior associate or a mid over contacting a partner. It builds your book. |
Anonymous
They bring to the table the fact that you can make them bill your client close to a million a year and pay them 1/5th of that. This isn't some statement about their fundamental worth. |
Anonymous
I agree. As a client, simple wouldn't pay. |
Anonymous
You could be right, but a lot has ch aged since 2007 and the last raise. There seems to be more stratification among firms and profit. Back then associates largely did large doc reviews without as much reliance on vendors/contractors and certainly without predictive coding and the like. Tech has also allowed some somewhat higher end work to be at least partly commoditized. There are more boutiques that are capable of doing a lot of mid market work and in some cases high end work as long as massive scale isn't needed. There is also more lateraling among rain makers, putting more pressure to maintain PPP. Mid to bottom tier Biglaw just seems to be under a lot of pressure that will cause some firms to think twice about matching. Maybe all or most will ultimately come through, but at some point McDermott, Pillsbury (chosen randomly), or the like might have to admit they can't keep up with Cravath, Skadden, etc |
Anonymous
I agree with you that the standard law firm model of "push the work down to the lowest hourly rate person who can do the work competently" is not always in the client's interest. Now that I'm fairly senior, there is rate compression at my level and the most prominent attorneys at my firm cost only a few hundred dollars more per hour than me. A client would be theoretically better off if they just did my work themselves. Fortunately for us, those partners are in far more demand than they have time, so they have leverage to tell clients that to hire them, they need to hire our team. Work that doesn't require their expertise we can't keep at our firm. |