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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The numbers posted here are low.   You do realize that Big law firms are in the middle of a salary war as we type and that the base salary for a 8th year Associate will now be 340k PLUS a special 25k summer bonus PLUS a "regular" year end bonus around 100k?   Yes, total comp for a 8th year associate is hovering around 500k.  When you figure that equity partners are many steps above 8th year associates in the food chain ....

Not all biglaw firms in DC can match this but the very best firms can and will.

https://abovethelaw.com/2018/06/sullivan-cromwell-matches-salaries-we-think/[/quote]

You are not necessarily correct about a second or third year equity partner being many steps above an 8th year associate. First, you can't look at associate salary wars as an indication of what's happening in the partner ranks, because often times associate comp wars come at the expense of bigger partner comp increases, which is why you typically see reluctance on the part of many firms to follow the early movers until a critcial mass of firms has followed suit so that everyone else needs to as well.

Second, if, at the end of your associate ladder, your firm isn't making you partner but is putting you in a nonequity holding pen to look at you again in a few years, you often won't get a meaningful increase in compensation. That 8th year who was making $450k might get bumped to around $500k when they become whatever their firm calls the nonequity holding pen. If they stay there for two or three years, maybe they're making $550-580k when they get another look. If they make partner at that point, they'll see another jump, maybe to as much as $650-700k (which would be a generous jump). Depending on how your firm does it, you may be eligible for a share/comp increase in anywhere from one to three years afterward, but even with more frequent share reallocations, there tends not to be a lot of comp movement in the first few years while people are still establishing themselves and their books of business (because it's easier to hold back upfront and increase more later than to increase more upfront and then have to cut later) and might leave to go elsewhere once they have "partner" next to their name instead of "nonequity person."

Given that the associate salary ranges you put out are at the top of the scale, this points to around $700k being at the top of the pay scale for typical second and third year equity partners, which plenty of firms paying significantly less.[/quote]

This is true at some firms, but not universally true.   It really depends on a lot of factors including whether your firm uses a lock step partner compensation model or more of a eat what you kill model.   There can be major variances.    But some of the first posters here were saying throwing out 300-400k as a number -- that definitely undershoots it by a lot and even the 700k number might undershoot it at some firms.

[/quote]

Are you a partner at a firm that pays second and third year equity partners more than $700k?[/quote]

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