Big law equity partner salary

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That’s not true. At the true lockstep firms (Cravath, Devevoise and Cleary) the spread between the lowest and highest paid partners is about 3:1. This is based purely on seniority. With PPPs at over 3 million, this means that first year equity partners (8 years out of law school) are clearing about 1.5M.

Since we are looking at average/typical here, pulling out the handful of outliers who do lockstep comp isn’t meaningful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That’s not true. At the true lockstep firms (Cravath, Devevoise and Cleary) the spread between the lowest and highest paid partners is about 3:1. This is based purely on seniority. With PPPs at over 3 million, this means that first year equity partners (8 years out of law school) are clearing about 1.5M.

Since we are looking at average/typical here, pulling out the handful of outliers who do lockstep comp isn’t meaningful.

I agree. You can probably count on your fingers and toes the number of first year BigLaw partners only 9 years out of law school who are pulling in 1.5. I’m also not so sure if any firm is still purely lockstep and 3:1 anymore — even Cravath loses partners now — although I don’t know for sure.

I’m sticking with the high end of middle six figures.

[Anonymous]

i'm a first-year partner at a middling vault 100 firm in DC. All partners have some equity component to their comp (I am in the bottom tier, at 10%).

My base comp is $320k this year (which may go up or down a bit due to the 10% that is equity-based).

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I'm a 3rd year equity partner at a top firm. I made $1.6 mill last year.

Can't be a DC based firm Right? They're not paying that to third year partners.

It's not DC based. But has a large DC office.

Maybe Latham, Kirkland, Skadden, or Quinn.

I posted earlier and said that people were undershooting this -- this number sounds in the right ballpark to me and is right for the firms the Quoted poster mentioned -- as well as some others like Cleary, Simpson, Gibson, etc who have DC offices.

I appreciate what some others said about how sometimes the salary progression is not what people might imagine -- I do think that's true for some firms. But the very top firms really are operating in a different sphere and are compensating junior equity partners very well and much more than 700k. That's not true of the DC based firms like Covington, A&P, Akin Gump, etc but they don't pay top of the market. It's as simple as that.

All true, except there's a bit of an apples/oranges comparison goin on. Most of these firms either have two-tiered partnerships where partners start as non-equity or they promote far fewer partners to equity than the DC firms. Kirkland, for example, has at least twice as many non-equity partners as equity. I have a hunch that the "third year equity partner" here, who posted that s/he made $1.6 milion, has been out of law school several years longer than a typical third year equity partner at a DC-based firm.

PP equity partner here. I graduated in 2004.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That’s not true. At the true lockstep firms (Cravath, Devevoise and Cleary) the spread between the lowest and highest paid partners is about 3:1. This is based purely on seniority. With PPPs at over 3 million, this means that first year equity partners (8 years out of law school) are clearing about 1.5M.

I don’t think these firms are still making lock-step partners at a high rate. I have a friend who is of counsel at one of these. Re Hogan a couple of years ago I had a new partner confide he was making more as a senior associate before the promotion due to taxes. Another not-Hogan former partner told me there are more in the 400k range than you’d thiink. Rumor has it even a former agency GC got a guaranteed $1m a year for two years and that was considered a negotiation win.

Bottom line is I don’t think they have to pay over a million for a young partner unless that person brings in business. I would say there are more in the mid-high six figures, also given the lifestyles I see.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a 3rd year equity partner at a top firm. I made $1.6 mill last year.

Can't be a DC based firm Right? They're not paying that to third year partners.

It's not DC based. But has a large DC office.

Maybe Latham, Kirkland, Skadden, or Quinn.

I posted earlier and said that people were undershooting this -- this number sounds in the right ballpark to me and is right for the firms the Quoted poster mentioned -- as well as some others like Cleary, Simpson, Gibson, etc who have DC offices.

I appreciate what some others said about how sometimes the salary progression is not what people might imagine -- I do think that's true for some firms. But the very top firms really are operating in a different sphere and are compensating junior equity partners very well and much more than 700k. That's not true of the DC based firms like Covington, A&P, Akin Gump, etc but they don't pay top of the market. It's as simple as that.

All true, except there's a bit of an apples/oranges comparison goin on. Most of these firms either have two-tiered partnerships where partners start as non-equity or they promote far fewer partners to equity than the DC firms. Kirkland, for example, has at least twice as many non-equity partners as equity. I have a hunch that the "third year equity partner" here, who posted that s/he made $1.6 milion, has been out of law school several years longer than a typical third year equity partner at a DC-based firm.

PP equity partner here. I graduated in 2004.

good for you. that is a ton of money - i'll probably never make that (i am the PP above, first-year partner at middling v100 firm).