Last month, magic circle firm Clifford Chance announced unexpectedly that it intended to reduce base pay for newly qualified lawyers from £50,000 to £48,000. Salaries in each of the assistant pay bands will also be cut by a similar level. The driver for this initiative is cost cutting and the firm expects to make an annual saving of about £2m.
The move has triggered pay-related announcements from other major law firms. SJ Berwin has since launched a firm-wide review of assistant salary bands and has delayed the announcement of its newly-qualified salaries until early June, to coincide with the end of its review. It has been speculated that pay bands will be lowered. Similarly, it has been reported that Simmons & Simmons will announce new salary bands for assistants in the summer. These decisions are a further step by the legal profession towards controlling relatively high salary bills as the downturn in the market is forcing firms to take a long, hard look at what they can get for their money.
