It took exactly one day for two major law firms to follow in the footsteps of Cravath, Swaine & Moore and end the nine-year drought in salary increases for elite junior lawyers, The New York Times reported yesterday. Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy said on Tuesday that it would match the raise that Cravath announced on Monday, bringing the basic annual pay for new law school graduates to $180,000. On the heels of that announcement, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison also said that it would bump up its associates’ pay scale to match. The three leading firms will now pay associates on a scale that rises from $180,000 for first-year associates to $315,000 a year, or slightly more, after eight years of service. In addition, associates can earn annual bonuses, which range from $15,000 for the newest lawyers to as much as $100,000 for more seasoned ones. Even as the leading firms moved in near concert to increase salaries, this was not happy news for clients. Some have already lodged complaints over the raises, which can seem high to those outside Manhattan, according to some law firm partners.
