Font Size: 
Conn. Firms Pump Up Salaries
Wiggin, Day Pitney out front in first-year pay race
The Connecticut Law Tribune
October 05, 2007
image: Stephanie Carter, Getty Images
There's generally more money to be had by first-year associates, but there's no greater number of rookies grabbing that cash, as hiring numbers were fairly flat among Connecticut's largest law firms compared with last year.
A snapshot of the legal market indicates that entry-level lawyer salaries jumped about 9 percent over the past 12 months, with some local outposts of national firms dramatically increasing starting salaries to $160,000.
Of firms that reported their hiring figures by late last week, Wiggin and Dana had among the largest class, with eight first-years joining the firm, six of them in its New Haven office, where they'll earn $105,000 in annual base pay. That's the same salary that will be earned by the firm's lone first-year in Hartford, but not as much as the $125,000 that will go to the one rookie associate in Stamford.
Last year, Wiggin and Dana's starting salary in Stamford was $110,000. It was $95,000 in New Haven and Hartford.
Wiggin's first-year class contains one less lawyer than last year. Maureen Weaver, the firm's managing partner, said the new class is evidence of the firm's "successful summer program," from which all New Haven rookies were hired.
Day Pitney was one of the few local firms to report significant increases in both the size of its incoming class and its first-year base salary. The firm added eight new J.D.s to its Hartford office and three in Stamford, legal recruiting manager Jill E. Little said. Last year, it welcomed aboard eight first-years in Connecticut altogether.
The new Day Pitney recruits will receive hefty pay raises effective Jan.1, 2008. That's when starting salaries will jump to $120,000 in Hartford, New Haven and West Hartford ($20,000 more than the current starting salary) and $135,000 in Greenwich and Stamford, where the first-years currently are pulling in $120,000, Little said.
Tyler Cooper, also based in New Haven, increased its incoming associate class to three this year, one more than a year ago. The firm's starting base salary was bumped up to $95,000, or $8,000 more than last year. Two of the new hires fill a need in the firm's growing commercial litigation practice area, Tyler Cooper's executive director, Harold Cort, said.
"The last several years, we've relied on summer classes" to build our ranks, said Cort, whose 59-lawyer firm includes 13 associates. "It's a huge investment, but we feel it is vital. They want us, and we want them."
Shipman & Goodwin also is offering a starting salary of $95,000 to its six first-years in Hartford this year, though the firm is on the cusp of boosting salaries in reaction to national market forces, said Rachel Bartlett Rosado, its director of legal recruiting and professional development.
The class for the Hartford-based firm is three lawyers less than last year, due to more law school graduates taking clerkships with judges, Rosado said. There are no newly minted lawyers in the firm's Stamford office, where the entry level base wage is $110,000.
The six first-year lawyers are split evenly between Shipman's business-related practices -- such as tax, trusts-and-estates and real estate -- and its litigation and labor and employment practices.
Other firms have planned their growth strategies around lateral hires, at least for this year. R. Alisha Verdone, hiring partner at 53-lawyer Updike, Kelly & Spellacy in Hartford, said the emphasis on hiring first-years versus laterals can change from year to year.
LEANING TOWARD LATERALS
While Updike's three first-year associate hires are two more than a year ago, the firm also brought aboard three lateral hires to fill voids in its environmental, corporate and litigation practice areas. "We're looking to add two or three more laterals if the market is right," Verdone noted.
Starting salaries at Updike have increased $7,000 over the past year to $90,000.
For the past few years, Hartford-based Pepe & Hazard has relied more on experienced lateral hires, said the firm's executive director, David Urbanik. This year, two first-years were hired at a salary of $95,000, while 10 laterals have been added since the beginning of 2006, including three partners, two counsel and five associates.
"Certainly, for our transaction practice, we find hiring experienced attorneys to be more effective," Urbanik said. "In general, experienced people work [out] for us. We still look at new people and have strict hiring standards, but we like to fill in our needs throughout the year with laterals."
That's also been the M.O. for Axinn, Veltrop & Harkrider's Hartford office, as it has experienced considerable growth in life science patent litigation, spurred by major generic drug companies in recent years. The Hartford office has expanded to 22 lawyers, of which 15 are associates, said partner James D. Veltrop. None of them are new J.D.s.
"With the quick growth, we've done a lot of lateral hiring, but going forward we will be focusing more on the incoming class," Veltrop said. "We had a summer associate this year who will be joining us next fall."
Starting pay in Axinn's local office is $130,000, with eighth-year lawyers pulling in $200,000, he said.
McCarter & English hired four rookie lawyers at an annual base salary of $135,000 in Hartford, keeping in line with recent classes at the 45-lawyer office, said hiring partner Thomas J. Finn. While the firm remains on the lookout for talented laterals, its "future growth is planned around our summer program and the students we hire coming out of law school," Finn said.
Other national firms have matched the mercurial high-end pay of the legal market, which at the moment is $160,000.
HIGH-END PAY
Bingham McCutchen, headquartered in Boston, has added two first-years to its 54-lawyer Hartford office at that salary, plugging them into its financial restructuring and financial institutions practices. The class number is consistent with those of the past two years.
The 25-lawyer Stamford office of Kelley, Drye & Warren, which concentrates its lawyers in New York and Washington, D.C., also pays $160,000 locally and stayed consistent with recent incoming classes by hiring two first-year associates who will be unaffiliated with a practice area until early next year, said John T. Capetta, the firm's managing partner.
Joining Bingham and Kelley Drye at the $160,000 salary are the Hartford offices of Philadelphia-based Dechert and Boston-based Brown Rudnick Berlack Israels. Edwards, Angell, Palmer & Dodge added two rookie lawyers to its Hartford office, one more than last year, at a starting salary of $140,000, firm officials said.
Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker in Stamford also pays $160,000 to its first-years, but the firm recently announced that the office will soon close, with the lawyers there moving to its offices in Manhattan.
