King & Spalding and Alston & Bird’s associate pay increases this year, including in Atlanta, will place more pressure on Southeast law firms to match, legal industry observers say, but they don’t expect most firms in the region to move in lockstep with them.

Both King & Spalding and Alston & Bird sent internal memos in December that outlined their pay increases for associates, in line with the market scale adopted by many other top firms in New York.