Milbank/Davis Polk/Cravath Scale: NYC to 215-415k Forum

[Anonymous User]

Source -- Second year in good standing with great reviews, who would either ignore your email until the morning or reply with a "will look in the morning."

Lol what even is a "great review" for a second year? Billed an adequate number of hours? Managed deadlines efficiently?

[Anonymous User]

What does DPW have against C/O 2021? First 202.5 and now this

Not to rehash the thread about junior availability, but if I’m a junior, I’m now even more incentivized to wait to respond any weekend and late night items until 9-5 business hours and say “sorry, my current workload does not allow for me to help with this request.”

Cool, then that junior should get fired. He/she just got a 10-15k raise (on top of their class year bump) for doing nothing more than continuing to work. He'll/she'll now make 215-250k base and maybe ~300k all-in depending on how special bonuses shake out. To essentially check commas. Junior associate worth is entirely about availability and working long hours. You're not getting paid these sums because of your great heart surgery technique.

they aren't getting paid for "availability" they are getting paid because that is what the market demands. what's "market" isn't constant availability on the part of juniors

(Guy from Kirkland's Salt Lake City office.) In all seriousness, the "market" for most biglaw firms in most cities has built in an expectation that if I e-mail you as a 27 year old 2nd year at 11pm at night you'll respond with a "will do" not a "sorry, you've reached me after ordinary business hours." That's a major reason the pay is what it is in biglaw. We all acknowledge attrition is up but it isn't up so significantly that that fundamental piece of the model has changed.

You sound miserable to work for. Other juniors, don't let people tell you you're worth so little. Unless you want to make partner. Then you have no worth and should grind until you can't take it.

Source -- Second year in good standing with great reviews, who would either ignore your email until the morning or reply with a "will look in the morning."

And if you think you're entitled to make 300k checking commas and working on a 9-5 schedule, you sound, well, horribly entitled. Also, in my experience, I've never seen an attorney have a successful long-term career in biglaw who made himself unavailable like you're describing. Drawing good boundaries? ("I'm not available; I'll be on my honeymoon. Thank") Sure. But that's different from checking out after 8 or whatever.

Also, this isn't about "worth." No one is denigrating the worth of juniors. It's about the expectations built into the compensation you're getting. And, news flash, all the senior people above you are also available on this schedule because e.g., senior partners or clients may be reaching out. The shit goes all the way to the top; no one is taking it easy in biglaw in 2022. If that sounds crappy then do your 2.5 years and bounce and more power to you but don't delude yourself.

[Anonymous User]

CSM/Kirkland are going to re-raise. I feel it in my bones.

[Anonymous User]

CSM/Kirkland are going to re-raise. I feel it in my bones.

Wouldn’t that be pretty rare for Kirkland?

[Anonymous User]

CSM/Kirkland are going to re-raise. I feel it in my bones.

CSM - maybe
Kirkland - hell no

[Anonymous User]

What does DPW have against C/O 2021? First 202.5 and now this

Not to rehash the thread about junior availability, but if I’m a junior, I’m now even more incentivized to wait to respond any weekend and late night items until 9-5 business hours and say “sorry, my current workload does not allow for me to help with this request.”

Cool, then that junior should get fired. He/she just got a 10-15k raise (on top of their class year bump) for doing nothing more than continuing to work. He'll/she'll now make 215-250k base and maybe ~300k all-in depending on how special bonuses shake out. To essentially check commas. Junior associate worth is entirely about availability and working long hours. You're not getting paid these sums because of your great heart surgery technique.

they aren't getting paid for "availability" they are getting paid because that is what the market demands. what's "market" isn't constant availability on the part of juniors

(Guy from Kirkland's Salt Lake City office.) In all seriousness, the "market" for most biglaw firms in most cities has built in an expectation that if I e-mail you as a 27 year old 2nd year at 11pm at night you'll respond with a "will do" not a "sorry, you've reached me after ordinary business hours." That's a major reason the pay is what it is in biglaw. We all acknowledge attrition is up but it isn't up so significantly that that fundamental piece of the model has changed.

You sound miserable to work for. Other juniors, don't let people tell you you're worth so little. Unless you want to make partner. Then you have no worth and should grind until you can't take it.

Source -- Second year in good standing with great reviews, who would either ignore your email until the morning or reply with a "will look in the morning."

lol juniors telling juniors what is expected of juniors, rather like a "what men want" magazine article by women for women

"great reviews" where you've had one or two review cycles tops, all in a WFH pandemic amid crazy attrition, is not the great sample size you seem to think. besides, your "will look in morning" is a variant on OP's "will do," unless you're deliberately not responding to my hypothetical follow-up of "sorry for the rush but as you saw the client is chasing--can you look tonight? let me know if not and I will handle" in which case you have misjudged the requirements of your job. what if a client in Hong Kong asks you to schedule a call at 11pm (with notice)? Do you seriously think you can say it's outside of business hours? this is not an unusual scenario

i don't care about your normative claims about what boundaries should be tolerated but when you stray into the empirical question of what senior expectations actually are, you are out of your depth

[Anonymous User]

CSM/Kirkland are going to re-raise. I feel it in my bones.

Kirkland would never. They prefer to pay shit year end bonuses and massive signing bonuses.

Kirkland hasn’t set the market for regular compensation in years.

[Anonymous User]

CSM/Kirkland are going to re-raise. I feel it in my bones.

I think there's a real chance CSM bumps juniors a little and cleans up the other figures. There's 0 chance Kirkland does anything. People need to get this through their heads re what's happened to the culture there. The wealthier the partners get there the cheaper they get. They're like the opposite of Milbank / DPW. If they're going to spend money they do it through targeted lateral hires, practice group buy outs, insane equity partner deals. They do not give a fuck about general associate comp.

[Anonymous User]

What does DPW have against C/O 2021? First 202.5 and now this

Not to rehash the thread about junior availability, but if I’m a junior, I’m now even more incentivized to wait to respond any weekend and late night items until 9-5 business hours and say “sorry, my current workload does not allow for me to help with this request.”

Cool, then that junior should get fired. He/she just got a 10-15k raise (on top of their class year bump) for doing nothing more than continuing to work. He'll/she'll now make 215-250k base and maybe ~300k all-in depending on how special bonuses shake out. To essentially check commas. Junior associate worth is entirely about availability and working long hours. You're not getting paid these sums because of your great heart surgery technique.

they aren't getting paid for "availability" they are getting paid because that is what the market demands. what's "market" isn't constant availability on the part of juniors

(Guy from Kirkland's Salt Lake City office.) In all seriousness, the "market" for most biglaw firms in most cities has built in an expectation that if I e-mail you as a 27 year old 2nd year at 11pm at night you'll respond with a "will do" not a "sorry, you've reached me after ordinary business hours." That's a major reason the pay is what it is in biglaw. We all acknowledge attrition is up but it isn't up so significantly that that fundamental piece of the model has changed.

You sound miserable to work for. Other juniors, don't let people tell you you're worth so little. Unless you want to make partner. Then you have no worth and should grind until you can't take it.

Source -- Second year in good standing with great reviews, who would either ignore your email until the morning or reply with a "will look in the morning."

And if you think you're entitled to make 300k checking commas and working on a 9-5 schedule, you sound, well, horribly entitled. Also, in my experience, I've never seen an attorney have a successful long-term career in biglaw who made himself unavailable like you're describing. Drawing good boundaries? ("I'm not available; I'll be on my honeymoon. Thank") Sure. But that's different from checking out after 8 or whatever.

Also, this isn't about "worth." No one is denigrating the worth of juniors. It's about the expectations built into the compensation you're getting. And, news flash, all the senior people above you are also available on this schedule because e.g., senior partners or clients may be reaching out. The shit goes all the way to the top; no one is taking it easy in biglaw in 2022. If that sounds crappy then do your 2.5 years and bounce and more power to you but don't delude yourself.

Are you high? Third years aren’t checking commas - they’re taking first cuts of primary deal documents, drafting secondary seal documents, managing entire discrete workflows on larger deals and taking basic client calls.

Either your older juniors are incompetent or you’ve never actually worked with them.

[Anonymous User]

CSM/Kirkland are going to re-raise. I feel it in my bones.

OP here.

Correction: CSM is going to re-raise. I feel it in my bones.

[Anonymous User]

CSM/Kirkland are going to re-raise. I feel it in my bones.

OP here.

Correction: CSM is going to re-raise. I feel it in my bones.

Let’s hope you got some pretty reliable bones

[Anonymous User]

What does DPW have against C/O 2021? First 202.5 and now this

Not to rehash the thread about junior availability, but if I’m a junior, I’m now even more incentivized to wait to respond any weekend and late night items until 9-5 business hours and say “sorry, my current workload does not allow for me to help with this request.”

Cool, then that junior should get fired. He/she just got a 10-15k raise (on top of their class year bump) for doing nothing more than continuing to work. He'll/she'll now make 215-250k base and maybe ~300k all-in depending on how special bonuses shake out. To essentially check commas. Junior associate worth is entirely about availability and working long hours. You're not getting paid these sums because of your great heart surgery technique.

they aren't getting paid for "availability" they are getting paid because that is what the market demands. what's "market" isn't constant availability on the part of juniors

(Guy from Kirkland's Salt Lake City office.) In all seriousness, the "market" for most biglaw firms in most cities has built in an expectation that if I e-mail you as a 27 year old 2nd year at 11pm at night you'll respond with a "will do" not a "sorry, you've reached me after ordinary business hours." That's a major reason the pay is what it is in biglaw. We all acknowledge attrition is up but it isn't up so significantly that that fundamental piece of the model has changed.

You sound miserable to work for. Other juniors, don't let people tell you you're worth so little. Unless you want to make partner. Then you have no worth and should grind until you can't take it.

Source -- Second year in good standing with great reviews, who would either ignore your email until the morning or reply with a "will look in the morning."

And if you think you're entitled to make 300k checking commas and working on a 9-5 schedule, you sound, well, horribly entitled. Also, in my experience, I've never seen an attorney have a successful long-term career in biglaw who made himself unavailable like you're describing. Drawing good boundaries? ("I'm not available; I'll be on my honeymoon. Thank") Sure. But that's different from checking out after 8 or whatever.

Also, this isn't about "worth." No one is denigrating the worth of juniors. It's about the expectations built into the compensation you're getting. And, news flash, all the senior people above you are also available on this schedule because e.g., senior partners or clients may be reaching out. The shit goes all the way to the top; no one is taking it easy in biglaw in 2022. If that sounds crappy then do your 2.5 years and bounce and more power to you but don't delude yourself.

LOL at this entire thread. At the end of the day, its a job. I will never reply to an 11 PM email. Why? Because I'm asleep. If they don't like it, fine, fire me. In this market, good luck.

[goanchors]

Not to rehash the thread about junior availability, but if I’m a junior, I’m now even more incentivized to wait to respond any weekend and late night items until 9-5 business hours and say “sorry, my current workload does not allow for me to help with this request.”

Cool, then that junior should get fired. He/she just got a 10-15k raise (on top of their class year bump) for doing nothing more than continuing to work. He'll/she'll now make 215-250k base and maybe ~300k all-in depending on how special bonuses shake out. To essentially check commas. Junior associate worth is entirely about availability and working long hours. You're not getting paid these sums because of your great heart surgery technique.

they aren't getting paid for "availability" they are getting paid because that is what the market demands. what's "market" isn't constant availability on the part of juniors

(Guy from Kirkland's Salt Lake City office.) In all seriousness, the "market" for most biglaw firms in most cities has built in an expectation that if I e-mail you as a 27 year old 2nd year at 11pm at night you'll respond with a "will do" not a "sorry, you've reached me after ordinary business hours." That's a major reason the pay is what it is in biglaw. We all acknowledge attrition is up but it isn't up so significantly that that fundamental piece of the model has changed.

You sound miserable to work for. Other juniors, don't let people tell you you're worth so little. Unless you want to make partner. Then you have no worth and should grind until you can't take it.

Source -- Second year in good standing with great reviews, who would either ignore your email until the morning or reply with a "will look in the morning."

And if you think you're entitled to make 300k checking commas and working on a 9-5 schedule, you sound, well, horribly entitled. Also, in my experience, I've never seen an attorney have a successful long-term career in biglaw who made himself unavailable like you're describing. Drawing good boundaries? ("I'm not available; I'll be on my honeymoon. Thank") Sure. But that's different from checking out after 8 or whatever.

Also, this isn't about "worth." No one is denigrating the worth of juniors. It's about the expectations built into the compensation you're getting. And, news flash, all the senior people above you are also available on this schedule because e.g., senior partners or clients may be reaching out. The shit goes all the way to the top; no one is taking it easy in biglaw in 2022. If that sounds crappy then do your 2.5 years and bounce and more power to you but don't delude yourself.

Are you high? Third years aren’t checking commas - they’re taking first cuts of primary deal documents, drafting secondary seal documents, managing entire discrete workflows on larger deals and taking basic client calls.

Either your older juniors are incompetent or you’ve never actually worked with them.

Never meant for this to actually turn into a knife fight. It was supposed to be a troll post based on the parallels I saw to DPW waiting a month to ultimately not announce reraises over Milbank for juniors.

[Anonymous User]

Not to rehash the thread about junior availability, but if I’m a junior, I’m now even more incentivized to wait to respond any weekend and late night items until 9-5 business hours and say “sorry, my current workload does not allow for me to help with this request.”

Cool, then that junior should get fired. He/she just got a 10-15k raise (on top of their class year bump) for doing nothing more than continuing to work. He'll/she'll now make 215-250k base and maybe ~300k all-in depending on how special bonuses shake out. To essentially check commas. Junior associate worth is entirely about availability and working long hours. You're not getting paid these sums because of your great heart surgery technique.

they aren't getting paid for "availability" they are getting paid because that is what the market demands. what's "market" isn't constant availability on the part of juniors

(Guy from Kirkland's Salt Lake City office.) In all seriousness, the "market" for most biglaw firms in most cities has built in an expectation that if I e-mail you as a 27 year old 2nd year at 11pm at night you'll respond with a "will do" not a "sorry, you've reached me after ordinary business hours." That's a major reason the pay is what it is in biglaw. We all acknowledge attrition is up but it isn't up so significantly that that fundamental piece of the model has changed.

You sound miserable to work for. Other juniors, don't let people tell you you're worth so little. Unless you want to make partner. Then you have no worth and should grind until you can't take it.

Source -- Second year in good standing with great reviews, who would either ignore your email until the morning or reply with a "will look in the morning."

And if you think you're entitled to make 300k checking commas and working on a 9-5 schedule, you sound, well, horribly entitled. Also, in my experience, I've never seen an attorney have a successful long-term career in biglaw who made himself unavailable like you're describing. Drawing good boundaries? ("I'm not available; I'll be on my honeymoon. Thank") Sure. But that's different from checking out after 8 or whatever.

Also, this isn't about "worth." No one is denigrating the worth of juniors. It's about the expectations built into the compensation you're getting. And, news flash, all the senior people above you are also available on this schedule because e.g., senior partners or clients may be reaching out. The shit goes all the way to the top; no one is taking it easy in biglaw in 2022. If that sounds crappy then do your 2.5 years and bounce and more power to you but don't delude yourself.

Are you high? Third years aren’t checking commas - they’re taking first cuts of primary deal documents, drafting secondary seal documents, managing entire discrete workflows on larger deals and taking basic client calls.

Either your older juniors are incompetent or you’ve never actually worked with them.

Are there even first-years checking commas at this point? Do other firms not have legal assistants/paralegals/executive assistants?

[Anonymous User]

Cool, then that junior should get fired. He/she just got a 10-15k raise (on top of their class year bump) for doing nothing more than continuing to work. He'll/she'll now make 215-250k base and maybe ~300k all-in depending on how special bonuses shake out. To essentially check commas. Junior associate worth is entirely about availability and working long hours. You're not getting paid these sums because of your great heart surgery technique.

they aren't getting paid for "availability" they are getting paid because that is what the market demands. what's "market" isn't constant availability on the part of juniors

(Guy from Kirkland's Salt Lake City office.) In all seriousness, the "market" for most biglaw firms in most cities has built in an expectation that if I e-mail you as a 27 year old 2nd year at 11pm at night you'll respond with a "will do" not a "sorry, you've reached me after ordinary business hours." That's a major reason the pay is what it is in biglaw. We all acknowledge attrition is up but it isn't up so significantly that that fundamental piece of the model has changed.

You sound miserable to work for. Other juniors, don't let people tell you you're worth so little. Unless you want to make partner. Then you have no worth and should grind until you can't take it.

Source -- Second year in good standing with great reviews, who would either ignore your email until the morning or reply with a "will look in the morning."

And if you think you're entitled to make 300k checking commas and working on a 9-5 schedule, you sound, well, horribly entitled. Also, in my experience, I've never seen an attorney have a successful long-term career in biglaw who made himself unavailable like you're describing. Drawing good boundaries? ("I'm not available; I'll be on my honeymoon. Thank") Sure. But that's different from checking out after 8 or whatever.

Also, this isn't about "worth." No one is denigrating the worth of juniors. It's about the expectations built into the compensation you're getting. And, news flash, all the senior people above you are also available on this schedule because e.g., senior partners or clients may be reaching out. The shit goes all the way to the top; no one is taking it easy in biglaw in 2022. If that sounds crappy then do your 2.5 years and bounce and more power to you but don't delude yourself.

Are you high? Third years aren’t checking commas - they’re taking first cuts of primary deal documents, drafting secondary seal documents, managing entire discrete workflows on larger deals and taking basic client calls.

Either your older juniors are incompetent or you’ve never actually worked with them.

Are there even first-years checking commas at this point? Do other firms not have legal assistants/paralegals/executive assistants?

Those are the people who can say "sorry you've reached me outside of normal business hours." Except paralegals, who in my experience are at least as valuable to the firm's work product (but not its bottom line, because of their reduced billing rates) as first and second years. It's more about who is responsible for making sure the commas are checked properly than who actually does the checking.

[Anonymous User]

LOL at this entire thread. At the end of the day, its a job. I will never reply to an 11 PM email. Why? Because I'm asleep. If they don't like it, fine, fire me. In this market, good luck.

What practice group are you in? If litigation are you literally never pressing to make a midnight filing deadline? If transactional do you literally never have a closing / print / other major deal event that requires the entire team to stay up late? Or do those things happen and you just sign off and let the rest of your team handle it without you?

[Anonymous User]

LOL at this entire thread. At the end of the day, its a job. I will never reply to an 11 PM email. Why? Because I'm asleep. If they don't like it, fine, fire me. In this market, good luck.

What practice group are you in? If litigation are you literally never pressing to make a midnight filing deadline? If transactional do you literally never have a closing / print / other major deal event that requires the entire team to stay up late? Or do those things happen and you just sign off and let the rest of your team handle it without you?

I think everyone here needs to take a deep breath. I don't think anyone is saying that if there is an ongoing matter they clock out at 5 and become non-responsive. I also don't think anyone is saying that they expect people to be up staring at their phones until midnight if they aren't expecting work. I do, however, think everyone here has "litigate everything" syndrome and are just picking each other's positions apart because we're lawyers and that's what we do with everything.

[Anonymous User]

I'm a first year ('21) and I've drafted a lot of secondary docs, and have been on deals with 2d/3d years drafting primary docs. I also fix commas and do various diligence stuff, and of course we have a lot to learn. But the notion that we are useless is outdated and dumb.

[Anonymous User]

LOL at this entire thread. At the end of the day, its a job. I will never reply to an 11 PM email. Why? Because I'm asleep. If they don't like it, fine, fire me. In this market, good luck.

What practice group are you in? If litigation are you literally never pressing to make a midnight filing deadline? If transactional do you literally never have a closing / print / other major deal event that requires the entire team to stay up late? Or do those things happen and you just sign off and let the rest of your team handle it without you?

I think everyone here needs to take a deep breath. I don't think anyone is saying that if there is an ongoing matter they clock out at 5 and become non-responsive. I also don't think anyone is saying that they expect people to be up staring at their phones until midnight if they aren't expecting work. I do, however, think everyone here has "litigate everything" syndrome and are just picking each other's positions apart because we're lawyers and that's what we do with everything.

I mean the post flatly said "I will never reply to an 11PM email" so while I appreciate that your description makes everyone sound much more reasonable it isn't consistent with the boundaries this poster is taking (and encouraging other juniors to take to preserve their "worth")

[Anonymous User]

What does DPW have against C/O 2021? First 202.5 and now this

Not to rehash the thread about junior availability, but if I’m a junior, I’m now even more incentivized to wait to respond any weekend and late night items until 9-5 business hours and say “sorry, my current workload does not allow for me to help with this request.”

Cool, then that junior should get fired. He/she just got a 10-15k raise (on top of their class year bump) for doing nothing more than continuing to work. He'll/she'll now make 215-250k base and maybe ~300k all-in depending on how special bonuses shake out. To essentially check commas. Junior associate worth is entirely about availability and working long hours. You're not getting paid these sums because of your great heart surgery technique.

they aren't getting paid for "availability" they are getting paid because that is what the market demands. what's "market" isn't constant availability on the part of juniors

(Guy from Kirkland's Salt Lake City office.) In all seriousness, the "market" for most biglaw firms in most cities has built in an expectation that if I e-mail you as a 27 year old 2nd year at 11pm at night you'll respond with a "will do" not a "sorry, you've reached me after ordinary business hours." That's a major reason the pay is what it is in biglaw. We all acknowledge attrition is up but it isn't up so significantly that that fundamental piece of the model has changed.

Just out of curiousity, expecting a “will do” from an email at 11pm doesn’t make sense unless your juniors have reason to know work is coming to them, right?

[VentureMBA]

I'm a first year ('21) and I've drafted a lot of secondary docs, and have been on deals with 2d/3d years drafting primary docs. I also fix commas and do various diligence stuff, and of course we have a lot to learn. But the notion that we are useless is outdated and dumb.

First years are not practicing law.

Name one thing a first year does that a good paralegal couldn't do?

[Anonymous User]

I'm a first year ('21) and I've drafted a lot of secondary docs, and have been on deals with 2d/3d years drafting primary docs. I also fix commas and do various diligence stuff, and of course we have a lot to learn. But the notion that we are useless is outdated and dumb.

First years are not practicing law.

Name one thing a first year does that a good paralegal couldn't do?

Draft a motion to dismiss. Like our first years do. Not every firm treats first years as glorified paralegals.

[Anonymous User]

Just out of curiousity, expecting a “will do” from an email at 11pm doesn’t make sense unless your juniors have reason to know work is coming to them, right?

Yeah. I get plenty of emails after 9pm, and even if I am at my computer, more than half the time I don't reply until the next morning unless it concerns a filing that's due the same night or the next day. Zero of the partners I work for care when they get the "will do" email (if at all).

With the exception of tight deadlines that we are all aware of, partners IME send 10/11pm emails simply because they haven't gotten around to the email until they do a bunch of other day's work first; it's not because they are looking for a response same-night.

[Anonymous User]

I'm a first year ('21) and I've drafted a lot of secondary docs, and have been on deals with 2d/3d years drafting primary docs. I also fix commas and do various diligence stuff, and of course we have a lot to learn. But the notion that we are useless is outdated and dumb.

First years are not practicing law.

Name one thing a first year does that a good paralegal couldn't do?

Send a formal extension deadline email? Generally act on behalf of the client?

"a good paralegal" is also worth a lot! If that's your barometer, a lot of transactional law doesn't technically require an attorney. And yet we do it and bill anyway. If you don't need us, why does it make you mad when you can't reach us.

[MergerQueen]

I'm a first year ('21) and I've drafted a lot of secondary docs, and have been on deals with 2d/3d years drafting primary docs. I also fix commas and do various diligence stuff, and of course we have a lot to learn. But the notion that we are useless is outdated and dumb.

First years are not practicing law.

Name one thing a first year does that a good paralegal couldn't do?

HE JUST SAID "I ALSO FIX COMMAS." CAN YOU READ???