While New York firms tripped over themselves this week to match Cravath, Swaine & Moore’s new base pay scale for associates, most California firms took a more cautious approach.
Cravath announced Monday that it would raised base salaries to $180,000 for first-year associates and to $315,000 for associates in their eighth year. By the next day, East Coast giants including Cahill Gordon & Reindel; Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy; Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison and Weil, Gotshal & Manges said they would follow suit. The list continued to grow throughout the week.
