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If a Class of 2017 grad started at JD in fall 2017, do they receive their first pay raise in July 2018 or July 2019? (Obviously assuming they get a raise in the black box sys.)

Put another way, let's pretend a Class of 2016 associate at JD is paid market base + bonus on the major-market scale--after having her comp adjusted on July 1 (according to the ATL posts), is that associate currently making $225K or $270K?

Trying to figure out the timing mechanics on this because I'm thinking about applying as a lateral to JD in a secondary market where JD is beating up on the salary scales of the other players in town. I recognize that this is all hypothetical and that the black box means 90% of associates are getting paid in Big Red and OneCoin, but humor me on my questions for a minute please.

Class of 2016:

We got our first raise July 2018 (note: the summers, class of 2019, were bumped to 190k before we were ... just saying).

Oh, and forget about "market" -- different people got different amounts, but 200k was typical, but remember: JD doesn't pay bonus.

TLDR:

1. expect your comp to be roughly cravath base w/0 bonus

2.your raises are in effect delayed by 7 months every year -- all your friends get bumped in January and you get bumped in July.

Don't lateral to JD -- it's a shithole.

Anonymous User wrote:Class of 2016:

We got our first raise July 2018 (note: the summers, class of 2019, were bumped to 190k before we were ... just saying).

Oh, and forget about "market" -- different people got different amounts, but 200k was typical, but remember: JD doesn't pay bonus.

TLDR:

1. expect your comp to be roughly cravath base w/0 bonus

2.your raises are in effect delayed by 7 months every year -- all your friends get bumped in January and you get bumped in July.

Don't lateral to JD -- it's a shithole.

Does the process work the same for incoming clerks? So, for example, if a clerk started in October right after their clerkship, would they begin at 200k/market base for second years? And then get a raise to 3rd year that June, or the following June?

Anonymous User wrote:Class of 2016:

We got our first raise July 2018 (note: the summers, class of 2019, were bumped to 190k before we were ... just saying).

Oh, and forget about "market" -- different people got different amounts, but 200k was typical, but remember: JD doesn't pay bonus.

TLDR:

1. expect your comp to be roughly cravath base w/0 bonus

2.your raises are in effect delayed by 7 months every year -- all your friends get bumped in January and you get bumped in July.

Don't lateral to JD -- it's a shithole.

Sounds like OP falls into one of the exceptions: OP wants to lateral to a secondary market where JD's top dog. Agreed that it doesn't make sense to lateral to JD in a major market given the salary differential.

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:Class of 2016:

We got our first raise July 2018 (note: the summers, class of 2019, were bumped to 190k before we were ... just saying).

Oh, and forget about "market" -- different people got different amounts, but 200k was typical, but remember: JD doesn't pay bonus.

TLDR:

1. expect your comp to be roughly cravath base w/0 bonus

2.your raises are in effect delayed by 7 months every year -- all your friends get bumped in January and you get bumped in July.

Don't lateral to JD -- it's a shithole.

Sounds like OP falls into one of the exceptions: OP wants to lateral to a secondary market where JD's top dog. Agreed that it doesn't make sense to lateral to JD in a major market given the salary differential.

OP here. Yes, this is accurate -- I'm considering one of JD's $170K offices (i.e. Cleveland, Columbus, Detroit, Minneapolis, Pittsburgh), and even with the $170K starting salary and no bonuses, they are/should be somewhat higher than the other shops in town. The question, and why I'm asking about mechanics, is that I'm hoping to compare apples to apples on Class of [Year] salaries.

JD commenter--appreciate your response though. That's exactly what I was hoping to learn re: the raise timing. Of course, it's not the answer I wanted -- definitely seems wild that you're at a starting salary with no bonus for almost 2 years of practice.

holy crap, i didn't know you guys were bumped 6 months LATER than everyone else. I thought it was 6 months EARLIER.


Thats why I always thought the no bonus/lowercomp wasn't such a big deal bc you guys get bumped earlier....

Class of 2017.

Received a salary bump to over $190k in July 2018. Don’t know why this timing is different than the other anon.

Anonymous User wrote:Class of 2017.

Received a salary bump to over $190k in July 2018. Don’t know why this timing is different than the other anon.

preivous poster here. okay that makes more sense.

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:Class of 2017.

Received a salary bump to over $190k in July 2018. Don’t know why this timing is different than the other anon.

preivous poster here. okay that makes more sense.

It definitely makes more sense that they would bump the first July after starting, but it doesn't really make sense that associates one year apart would have had different experiences with this, does it? This is why it's so hard to gather any info on JD comp--there might not even be consistency in the mechanics of the raises, much less the amounts of the raises.

Is talking about the timing of raises against JD's "policy" (informal or otherwise) that attorneys don't talk about their salaries?

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:Class of 2016:

We got our first raise July 2018 (note: the summers, class of 2019, were bumped to 190k before we were ... just saying).

Oh, and forget about "market" -- different people got different amounts, but 200k was typical, but remember: JD doesn't pay bonus.

TLDR:

1. expect your comp to be roughly cravath base w/0 bonus

2.your raises are in effect delayed by 7 months every year -- all your friends get bumped in January and you get bumped in July.

Don't lateral to JD -- it's a shithole.

Sounds like OP falls into one of the exceptions: OP wants to lateral to a secondary market where JD's top dog. Agreed that it doesn't make sense to lateral to JD in a major market given the salary differential.

OP here. Yes, this is accurate -- I'm considering one of JD's $170K offices (i.e. Cleveland, Columbus, Detroit, Minneapolis, Pittsburgh), and even with the $170K starting salary and no bonuses, they are/should be somewhat higher than the other shops in town. The question, and why I'm asking about mechanics, is that I'm hoping to compare apples to apples on Class of [Year] salaries.

JD commenter--appreciate your response though. That's exactly what I was hoping to learn re: the raise timing. Of course, it's not the answer I wanted -- definitely seems wild that you're at a starting salary with no bonus for almost 2 years of practice.

OP: I'm class of 2017 at one of the markets you're looking to lateral into. It's my understanding that the above poster is correct that first years don't typically get bumped until two julys after starting, but they made an exception this year with the market changes. So, we started at 160k in 2017, then when milbank raised, we were raised to 180k in July 2018. So, I'm about a second year now, 180k, and next raise will be July 2019.

I don't know the exact scale for older associates, but I know for the first couple years it's about 10k bumps. After that I understand it's much more individualized and can range from the 10k bump to 20k-30k/year.

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:Class of 2016:

We got our first raise July 2018 (note: the summers, class of 2019, were bumped to 190k before we were ... just saying).

Oh, and forget about "market" -- different people got different amounts, but 200k was typical, but remember: JD doesn't pay bonus.

TLDR:

1. expect your comp to be roughly cravath base w/0 bonus

2.your raises are in effect delayed by 7 months every year -- all your friends get bumped in January and you get bumped in July.

Don't lateral to JD -- it's a shithole.

Sounds like OP falls into one of the exceptions: OP wants to lateral to a secondary market where JD's top dog. Agreed that it doesn't make sense to lateral to JD in a major market given the salary differential.

OP here. Yes, this is accurate -- I'm considering one of JD's $170K offices (i.e. Cleveland, Columbus, Detroit, Minneapolis, Pittsburgh), and even with the $170K starting salary and no bonuses, they are/should be somewhat higher than the other shops in town. The question, and why I'm asking about mechanics, is that I'm hoping to compare apples to apples on Class of [Year] salaries.

JD commenter--appreciate your response though. That's exactly what I was hoping to learn re: the raise timing. Of course, it's not the answer I wanted -- definitely seems wild that you're at a starting salary with no bonus for almost 2 years of practice.

OP: I'm class of 2017 at one of the markets you're looking to lateral into. It's my understanding that the above poster is correct that first years don't typically get bumped until two julys after starting, but they made an exception this year with the market changes. So, we started at 160k in 2017, then when milbank raised, we were raised to 180k in July 2018. So, I'm about a second year now, 180k, and next raise will be July 2019.

I don't know the exact scale for older associates, but I know for the first couple years it's about 10k bumps. After that I understand it's much more individualized and can range from the 10k bump to 20k-30k/year.

OP here. That's extremely helpful and helps make sense of the discrepancy between earlier posters. Thanks for the info.

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:Class of 2016:

We got our first raise July 2018 (note: the summers, class of 2019, were bumped to 190k before we were ... just saying).

Oh, and forget about "market" -- different people got different amounts, but 200k was typical, but remember: JD doesn't pay bonus.

TLDR:

1. expect your comp to be roughly cravath base w/0 bonus

2.your raises are in effect delayed by 7 months every year -- all your friends get bumped in January and you get bumped in July.

Don't lateral to JD -- it's a shithole.

Sounds like OP falls into one of the exceptions: OP wants to lateral to a secondary market where JD's top dog. Agreed that it doesn't make sense to lateral to JD in a major market given the salary differential.

OP here. Yes, this is accurate -- I'm considering one of JD's $170K offices (i.e. Cleveland, Columbus, Detroit, Minneapolis, Pittsburgh), and even with the $170K starting salary and no bonuses, they are/should be somewhat higher than the other shops in town. The question, and why I'm asking about mechanics, is that I'm hoping to compare apples to apples on Class of [Year] salaries.

JD commenter--appreciate your response though. That's exactly what I was hoping to learn re: the raise timing. Of course, it's not the answer I wanted -- definitely seems wild that you're at a starting salary with no bonus for almost 2 years of practice.

OP: I'm class of 2017 at one of the markets you're looking to lateral into. It's my understanding that the above poster is correct that first years don't typically get bumped until two julys after starting, but they made an exception this year with the market changes. So, we started at 160k in 2017, then when milbank raised, we were raised to 180k in July 2018. So, I'm about a second year now, 180k, and next raise will be July 2019.

I don't know the exact scale for older associates, but I know for the first couple years it's about 10k bumps. After that I understand it's much more individualized and can range from the 10k bump to 20k-30k/year.

This is dependent on which office you are in. I’m a 3rd year in a major market and my raise was $55k from second year to third year.

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:Class of 2016:

We got our first raise July 2018 (note: the summers, class of 2019, were bumped to 190k before we were ... just saying).

Oh, and forget about "market" -- different people got different amounts, but 200k was typical, but remember: JD doesn't pay bonus.

TLDR:

1. expect your comp to be roughly cravath base w/0 bonus

2.your raises are in effect delayed by 7 months every year -- all your friends get bumped in January and you get bumped in July.

Don't lateral to JD -- it's a shithole.

Sounds like OP falls into one of the exceptions: OP wants to lateral to a secondary market where JD's top dog. Agreed that it doesn't make sense to lateral to JD in a major market given the salary differential.

OP here. Yes, this is accurate -- I'm considering one of JD's $170K offices (i.e. Cleveland, Columbus, Detroit, Minneapolis, Pittsburgh), and even with the $170K starting salary and no bonuses, they are/should be somewhat higher than the other shops in town. The question, and why I'm asking about mechanics, is that I'm hoping to compare apples to apples on Class of [Year] salaries.

JD commenter--appreciate your response though. That's exactly what I was hoping to learn re: the raise timing. Of course, it's not the answer I wanted -- definitely seems wild that you're at a starting salary with no bonus for almost 2 years of practice.

OP: I'm class of 2017 at one of the markets you're looking to lateral into. It's my understanding that the above poster is correct that first years don't typically get bumped until two julys after starting, but they made an exception this year with the market changes. So, we started at 160k in 2017, then when milbank raised, we were raised to 180k in July 2018. So, I'm about a second year now, 180k, and next raise will be July 2019.

I don't know the exact scale for older associates, but I know for the first couple years it's about 10k bumps. After that I understand it's much more individualized and can range from the 10k bump to 20k-30k/year.

This is dependent on which office you are in. I’m a 3rd year in a major market and my raise was $55k from second year to third year.

Yeah I was just talking about secondary city raises, and my knowledge of that is admittedly limited. But thank you for this data point, that's helpful generally

Anonymous User wrote:
This is dependent on which office you are in. I’m a 3rd year in a major market and my raise was $55k from second year to third year.

This is very helpful! Did you get this raise in July 2018? And are you Class of 2016? 2015? Appreciate the insight on how this works.

Class of 2016 in a major market office here. Started at $180k and got bumped to $190k January 2018. Received a much more sizable bump July 2018. My current comp is at or above market + bonus at lockstep firms.

Anonymous User wrote:Class of 2016 in a major market office here. Started at $180k and got bumped to $190k January 2018. Received a much more sizable bump July 2018. My current comp is at or above market + bonus at lockstep firms.

So you’re saying that your current salary is at or above roughly $232,500 ($200k base, $7500 summer bonus, $25k market bonus for this year under the current scale)?

If so, that’s great. Obviously nicer to have it as a base over a bonus

Anonymous User wrote:Class of 2016 in a major market office here. Started at $180k and got bumped to $190k January 2018. Received a much more sizable bump July 2018. My current comp is at or above market + bonus at lockstep firms.

Are the January bumps a normal thing? I thought JD only did July bumps?

It would be useful if someone put together a chart of what jd salary is as compared to market. Because of July raises and no bonuses (and no anxiety about making a bonus) I think there is broader misunderstanding about what constitutes “market.”

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:Class of 2016 in a major market office here. Started at $180k and got bumped to $190k January 2018. Received a much more sizable bump July 2018. My current comp is at or above market + bonus at lockstep firms.

Are the January bumps a normal thing? I thought JD only did July bumps?

Just for first-years, and it happens in January of your second full year. So for class of 2016, it happened in January 2018. I believe it's a uniform bump for everyone, but I'm not 100% positive about that. July 2018 was when we started being included in the regular evaluation/raise cycle.

2013 wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:Class of 2016 in a major market office here. Started at $180k and got bumped to $190k January 2018. Received a much more sizable bump July 2018. My current comp is at or above market + bonus at lockstep firms.

So you’re saying that your current salary is at or above roughly $232,500 ($200k base, $7500 summer bonus, $25k market bonus for this year under the current scale)?

If so, that’s great. Obviously nicer to have it as a base over a bonus

OP here. Yes, it's in that neighborhood.

Anyone have insight on what a third year makes at a 170k office (Pitt, Detroit, Cleveland, etc )?

And can anyone speak to the bonus for two clerkships? Dist and COA

Anonymous User wrote:Anyone have insight on what a third year makes at a 170k office (Pitt, Detroit, Cleveland, etc )?

And can anyone speak to the bonus for two clerkships? Dist and COA

I didn't clerk and am only a second year but for purposes of adding a data point I'm in one of the 170k offices and am 190k right now. From what I have heard third years can be anywhere from 200-225.

Tagging onto this - can anyone in a JD major market talk about whether you're being paid market as the years progress? Also, for those who clerked, what was your clerkship bonus and did you come in at a second year salary? Thanks!!

Tagging. Will be interested in any info people can pass along

Anonymous User wrote:Tagging onto this - can anyone in a JD major market talk about whether you're being paid market as the years progress? Also, for those who clerked, what was your clerkship bonus and did you come in at a second year salary? Thanks!!

Bumping this old thread because I'm wondering if anyone can answer this question - do clerks come in at 2nd year market salary?