So Thursday (2 April) proved to be the day the phoney debate on City associate salaries finally ended. After all, you could have still made a case that a course of action wasn’t entirely set when Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer led the market by announcing that it was to halt the associate track back on 9 February, holding assistant salaries at 2008 rates. But by the time Allen & Overy announced it was freezing salaries later that month, any genuine debate was over. That still left most of the City ‘reviewing’ their salaries. This week that ‘process’ finished with Clifford Chance following suit on Monday (30 March). When even Slaughter and May - perhaps the one firm that could conceivably have made a business case for bucking the trend - announced a freeze yesterday, the fat lady had not only sung but made it home and put her feet up.
But while the market is set, there remains the matter of Linklaters’ response, and this should be interesting. This is the one firm that looks the least enthusiastic about the whole pay freeze concept. (Please, ranting posters, don’t start hyperventilating about pay cuts - I’m fully aware that halting the track effectively reverses the 2007 hikes in underlying pay bands, but it still does still not constitute a pay cut back on Planet Reality).
