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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm a 3rd year equity partner at a top firm.  I made $1.6 mill last year.[/quote]

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

It's not DC based.  But has a large DC office.[/quote]

Maybe Latham, Kirkland, Skadden, or Quinn.[/quote]

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.  
[/quote]

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.[/quote]

I don't think that's true.   [b]Most of the DC based firms have an intermediate step too -- either they promote you to non equity partner or worse they promote you to some "of counsel" type position.    I believe that Kirkland has no of counsel middle ground for junior attorneys and non equity partners are usually up for equity after 3-4 years -- so it is basically the same track to equity as others.[/b]

DC based firms are primarily focused on practice areas such as litigation, regulatory, white collar defense, government contracting, etc.    The other firms mentioned in this thread that pay more are corporate firms.   There is a major difference between the two types of firms and what they can charge and how fee sensitive clients are. [/quote]

Do you actually work at any of the firms you're talking about.  Because I have -- and what you're saying in absolutely not true.  While it's true that the big DC-based firms like Covington and A&P have counsel positions and Kirkland does not, the counsel position at these firms is not a necessary stepping stone to an becoming an equity partner.  The standard route to partnership in these firms is still eight years an associate, then equity partner.  Counsel is more often than not a position offered to associates whom the firm would like the keep but never wants to make equity partner, or lateral hires who the firm brings in as counsek for a couple years to feel them out before promoting.

At Kirkland and other firms, all associates going through the evaluation process are first promoted to non-equity around the sixth year, then after three or four years (and sometimes more) a lucky few are promoted from non-equity to equity.  What these means as a practical matter is that the path to equity at K&E is 10 or 11 years, while at firms like Covington and A&P it's eight.  So a third year equity partner at K&E is probably a fifth or sixth year equity partner at Covington, etc.

I'm not suggesting that the third year Kirkland partner isn't making more than the fifth or sixth year DC-based firm partner.  I'm sure s/he is.  But is also true that many, many non-equity partners at Kirkland are never promoted to equity at all.     [/quote]

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