Lawyer Compensation

International Edition

Clifford Chance hikes associate pay as salary arms race gathers pace

By Frances Ivens | June 6, 2014

Clifford Chance has announced salary increaseses of up to 7.4% for its junior lawyers for the coming year.

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Clifford Chance hikes associate pay as salary arms race gathers pace

By Frances Ivens | June 6, 2014

Clifford Chance has announced salary increaseses of up to 7.4% for its junior lawyers for the coming year.

1 minute read

Herbert Smith Freehills ups salaries for NQ to 3PQE lawyers

By Frances Ivens | June 2, 2014

Herbert Smith Freehills has increased its salary for newly qualified lawyers (NQ) by £2,000 to £65,000, after a pay review which has seen the firm raise its rates for all lawyers from NQ to three years' qualified.

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International Edition

Herbert Smith Freehills ups salaries for NQ to 3PQE lawyers

By Frances Ivens | June 2, 2014

Herbert Smith Freehills has increased its salary for newly qualified lawyers (NQ) by £2,000 to £65,000, after a pay review which has seen the firm raise its rates for all lawyers from NQ to three years' qualified.

1 minute read

International Edition

Bubble trouble – why Kirkland's latest hire has upped the stakes

By Georgina Stanley | May 22, 2014

Kirkland's hire of Weil banking partner Stephen Lucas is the latest example of US firms wielding ever-more hefty chequebooks to secure the right names...

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International Edition

Money talks – bank GCs need to prepare for more pay scrutiny

By Georgina Stanley | March 20, 2014

It's Budget week and one of the few certainties in life alongside death and taxes is that the general public share an unhealthy interest in how much other people earn.

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International Edition

Can't get no satisfaction – half-hearted rewards system is worse than none at all

By Charlotte Edmond | February 20, 2014

Associate lockstep is a simple way of making sure that junior lawyers are, by and large, remunerated according to their level of experience and client exposure. And it's easy to see the attraction for law firms given the degree of certainty that comes from knowing exactly how much your associate salary base will cost. The problem is it is also very crude. As many managers will attest, the standard of employees at any level of the lockstep can vary wildly. And while an individual may be outstanding at one part of their job, they may well be lacking in another. A further serious drawback in a tightly controlled system based on the number of years' experience a lawyer has is that there is no easy way to reward those who go the extra mile.

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International Edition

Bonus season – the pros of treating junior lawyers fairly, if not equally

By Charlotte Edmond | December 5, 2013

Back in May, Legal Week tallied up the number of law firm jobs placed at risk of redundancy over the previous 12 months. The figure reached was a rather shocking 1,300, including some 750 jobs that had actually been cut at that point. Since then, the number of firms announcing redundancy programmes has slowed dramatically, although not completely. Several firms including DWF, Taylor Wessing and Bond Dickinson have made cuts – particularly following mergers and back office outsourcing deals.

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International Edition

Down payment – should firms face up to reality and cut NQ pay?

By Georgina Stanley | March 21, 2013

A report this week by City recruitment company Edwards Gibson arguing that law firms need to reassess pay for junior lawyers is particularly timely, given our cover story today. The recruiter's claim that top law firms should consider substantially cutting newly qualified salaries comes as Legal Week research shows staff costs at the UK's leading law firms are continuing to soar, with total costs across the bulk of the top 30 up 7% year-on-year to a grand total of £4.5bn – well over a third of total fee income.

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International Edition

Money talks – why firms should be open about partner pay delays

By Georgina Stanley | March 14, 2013

For an industry so hung up on profits per equity partner (PEP), and for which information on salaries is widely available, law firms are remarkably cagey on the small matter of paying them. Given the ongoing challenges in the global financial markets over the past few years, it is unsurprising that law firms have been affected to some degree, whether in terms of seeing profits and therefore PEP fall, or having issues with cashflow.

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