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

[Anonymous User]

Just to be clear since it’s apparently been a topic of conversation, GT pays the full old market scale across all class years for all of its US offices except small ones (Denver, etc.). So it’s not, and hasn’t been, a match for just the first few years (which is the case with many lower V100s). I suspect that is behind some of the angst here over Greenberg not matching but as others have pointed out the partners are greedy and the firm overall is over-leveraged and not super well-off financially.

Can you provide your sources? I thought only Miami and NY were full scale. I know someone who got an offer in a major market that was below market last year.

[Anonymous User]

^You won't find an official source for GT since it's done office by office, with memos sometimes shown at office-wide town halls depending on the office, and for whatever reason no one at this firm leaks anything aside from what the firm wants them to leak - for my part, I'm just not the rock the boat kind of person but if I left the firm eventually and didn't sign anything, I'd give over all the information to ATL, etc. So, the source is myself (I'm class of 2015 or higher, don't want to out myself too much) having experienced it and heard it from mid-levels/seniors/of-counsel. The ones I know of either because I work/worked in one of them or heard it from others are: NY, Chi, LA, one of the other CA offices (mostly patent/IP work), and most recently was Miami and that was purposefully leaked by the firm to ATL. Now that I'm recounting it, I don't know if any Texas office raised, and ofc at least Houston/Dallas could be considered large offices for GT. (All that said, I wouldn't be surprised if someone who lateraled was getting screwed over on comp, happens all too often that they screw laterals over. I have also heard of offices doing individualized salary raises by calls to associates rather than putting up a chart at a town hall.). Importantly, while Greenberg Traurig's salary scale may be the old market before the 2022 raises, GT's black-box comp system has screwed associates out of market bonuses every year so it's not truly "market" paying...unless - possibly - if you bill 2100+ (I know of many people, and in more than one of the aforementioned "market" offices, that had to bill 2200+ or 2300+ to get a "market" bonus). Ofc that's not true market because of the hours requirement and also not a standardized scale.

[Anonymous User]

^Same poster as above, forgot to mention DC office as well for old market salary. But I think that was individualized not town hall, would have to check.

[Anonymous User]

Can speak from experience that every non-Miami GT office in Florida pays far below market. It’s sad, considering that Holland & Knight and Foley consistently pay more outside Miami.

[Anonymous User]

Stroock matched Cravath scale.

[Anonymous User]

PBWT matched Cravath

[Anonymous User]

Vault rankings reward firms that are more known nationally. Tons of prominent NY firms have limited visibility in the rest of the country so lawyers there just don't rank them. JD has a lot of visibility and in many markets is the biggest player in town. Baker MacKenzie is another below market firm (compression) that is ranked higher than it should be simply by being huge and known.

This is also why WLRK is #2 not #1, why boutiques that pay market or above languish in the lower half of the V100, why Kirkland and Latham are v5/6.

Just curious, wasn't Latham a V30-40 ten years ago?? How did it manage to boost its ranking so quickly?

I've also been curious about Latham's associate perception success because over the last two decades Latham has rarely been in the top ten of PPP or RPL for large firms.

However, in this anonymous poster's opinion, Latham "deserves" the perception that it's at the top. I think they are like Covington - not the most profitable firm, but they are the best at their slightly lower profitability practice areas and maybe markets.

Latham has by far the most Chambers 1 and 2 rankings of any US firm (about 90 rankings. The other closest firm are Skadden and Kirkland at about 70 band 1 and 2 rankings). But many of the top rankings are in practices like Environment, Telecom, Climate Change, Media & Entertainment, Appellate, and Retail. Those areas do have the pound-for-pound profitability of M&A, Capital Markets, etc., and so firms that have a narrower focus will have higher profitability.

Also agree with the other posters that a large national footprint plays a strong role in associate rankings.

Skadden’s revenue and PPP are both less than Latham’s. It’s less grade selective at my T6. It’s not a white shoe either. Its ranking is even more inflated. It’s a mega firm like Latham but not doing as well. Wonder why Latham gets shit on more than skadden

Doesn't Skadden have a higher RPL than Latham?

It does by about $150k
https://www.law.com/law-firm-profile/?i ... tkins-LLP/
https://www.law.com/law-firm-profile/?i ... e=Skadden/

But I quibble with the bolded , not necessarily because I know anything about how Skaddy is doing, but rather because they only have like 2/3 the headcount. Sure, in 2008 Skadden was bigger, but the two firms have been on very different trajectories re: practice focus and footprint, and since then I wouldn't put Skadden in the same bucket as KE/Latham.

Skadden isn't on the same "trajectory" as KE/Latham because it tried but failed to do what both those firms have done. To give Skadden its credit, it was KE/Latham before those firms were those firms, if that makes sense--meaning in many ways it pioneered the model that KE and Latham took and ran with to an extreme. But where Skadden petered out those firms took the torch and have run with it. I think one of the more telling statistics evincing this point is that Skadden's headcount has never returned to its 2008 peak, even 14 years after the fact. Nothing wrong with any of that--Skadden is still a great firm, highly profitable, and has billions in revenue; but I think it's fair to say it didn't achieve what it thought it would achieve if you talked to firm leadership circa 2005 and asked them to predict the next 15 years.

[Sackboy]

Skadden isn't on the same "trajectory" as KE/Latham because it tried but failed to do what both those firms have done. To give Skadden its credit, it was KE/Latham before those firms were those firms, if that makes sense--meaning in many ways it pioneered the model that KE and Latham took and ran with to an extreme. But where Skadden petered out those firms took the torch and have run with it. I think one of the more telling statistics evincing this point is that Skadden's headcount has never returned to its 2008 peak, even 14 years after the fact. Nothing wrong with any of that--Skadden is still a great firm, highly profitable, and has billions in revenue; but I think it's fair to say it didn't achieve what it thought it would achieve if you talked to firm leadership circa 2005 and asked them to predict the next 15 years.

Kind of silly to say that Skadden pioneered the KE/Latham model when it only has equity partners that are promoted after 8-12 years and they have a very securities/pubco oriented practice. Skadden is much closer to the white shoe firms than it is to Latham/KE, imo.

[Anonymous User]

Skadden isn't on the same "trajectory" as KE/Latham because it tried but failed to do what both those firms have done. To give Skadden its credit, it was KE/Latham before those firms were those firms, if that makes sense--meaning in many ways it pioneered the model that KE and Latham took and ran with to an extreme. But where Skadden petered out those firms took the torch and have run with it. I think one of the more telling statistics evincing this point is that Skadden's headcount has never returned to its 2008 peak, even 14 years after the fact. Nothing wrong with any of that--Skadden is still a great firm, highly profitable, and has billions in revenue; but I think it's fair to say it didn't achieve what it thought it would achieve if you talked to firm leadership circa 2005 and asked them to predict the next 15 years.

Kind of silly to say that Skadden pioneered the KE/Latham model when it only has equity partners that are promoted after 8-12 years and they have a very securities/pubco oriented practice. Skadden is much closer to the white shoe firms than it is to Latham/KE, imo.

Yea, Skadden's def considered more in line with the typical white shoe firms than KE/Latham are. All great firms to be sure, but just saying. They're also a lot more grade/fit selective at my T-14 than KE/Latham

[Anonymous User]

Skadden isn't on the same "trajectory" as KE/Latham because it tried but failed to do what both those firms have done. To give Skadden its credit, it was KE/Latham before those firms were those firms, if that makes sense--meaning in many ways it pioneered the model that KE and Latham took and ran with to an extreme. But where Skadden petered out those firms took the torch and have run with it. I think one of the more telling statistics evincing this point is that Skadden's headcount has never returned to its 2008 peak, even 14 years after the fact. Nothing wrong with any of that--Skadden is still a great firm, highly profitable, and has billions in revenue; but I think it's fair to say it didn't achieve what it thought it would achieve if you talked to firm leadership circa 2005 and asked them to predict the next 15 years.

Kind of silly to say that Skadden pioneered the KE/Latham model when it only has equity partners that are promoted after 8-12 years and they have a very securities/pubco oriented practice. Skadden is much closer to the white shoe firms than it is to Latham/KE, imo.

Talking about Skadden's general model for firm growth which KE / Latham very much took as a playbook and accelerated, even if the promotion / practice structure is different (and might even explain some of the reason for the stall out). Also Skadden never was and never will be a white shoe firm (tho who cares, it's surpassed many of the white shoe firms in all meaningful respects regardless of what some twit at Willkie will say).

[Anonymous User]

Skadden isn't on the same "trajectory" as KE/Latham because it tried but failed to do what both those firms have done. To give Skadden its credit, it was KE/Latham before those firms were those firms, if that makes sense--meaning in many ways it pioneered the model that KE and Latham took and ran with to an extreme. But where Skadden petered out those firms took the torch and have run with it. I think one of the more telling statistics evincing this point is that Skadden's headcount has never returned to its 2008 peak, even 14 years after the fact. Nothing wrong with any of that--Skadden is still a great firm, highly profitable, and has billions in revenue; but I think it's fair to say it didn't achieve what it thought it would achieve if you talked to firm leadership circa 2005 and asked them to predict the next 15 years.

Kind of silly to say that Skadden pioneered the KE/Latham model when it only has equity partners that are promoted after 8-12 years and they have a very securities/pubco oriented practice. Skadden is much closer to the white shoe firms than it is to Latham/KE, imo.

Yea, Skadden's def considered more in line with the typical white shoe firms than KE/Latham are. All great firms to be sure, but just saying. They're also a lot more grade/fit selective at my T-14 than KE/Latham

The small group of people who actually care about "white shoe" (so we're talking about a sub-class of a sub-class primarily in NY) would imo laugh at the idea of Skadden being considered a true "white shoe" firm. Having said that, as I said in my prior post, who cares since to most of the world (I fit in this category) that's not a meaningful metric of anything and Skadden has blown past most of the traditional "white shoe" firms just like KE and Latham have.

[Anonymous User]

If we're quizzing 80 year old retired S&C partners, they would probably agree that Debevoise is more prestigious than Skadden. Most modern-day associates would say Skadden is better.

The "white shoe" debate is, even by TLS standards, a horrendously dumb circle jerk. Any debate where White & Case is winning has a bad premise.

[Anonymous User]

Skadden isn't on the same "trajectory" as KE/Latham because it tried but failed to do what both those firms have done. To give Skadden its credit, it was KE/Latham before those firms were those firms, if that makes sense--meaning in many ways it pioneered the model that KE and Latham took and ran with to an extreme. But where Skadden petered out those firms took the torch and have run with it. I think one of the more telling statistics evincing this point is that Skadden's headcount has never returned to its 2008 peak, even 14 years after the fact. Nothing wrong with any of that--Skadden is still a great firm, highly profitable, and has billions in revenue; but I think it's fair to say it didn't achieve what it thought it would achieve if you talked to firm leadership circa 2005 and asked them to predict the next 15 years.

Kind of silly to say that Skadden pioneered the KE/Latham model when it only has equity partners that are promoted after 8-12 years and they have a very securities/pubco oriented practice. Skadden is much closer to the white shoe firms than it is to Latham/KE, imo.

Yea, Skadden's def considered more in line with the typical white shoe firms than KE/Latham are. All great firms to be sure, but just saying. They're also a lot more grade/fit selective at my T-14 than KE/Latham

The small group of people who actually care about "white shoe" (so we're talking about a sub-class of a sub-class primarily in NY) would imo laugh at the idea of Skadden being considered a true "white shoe" firm. Having said that, as I said in my prior post, who cares since to most of the world (I fit in this category) that's not a meaningful metric of anything and Skadden has blown past most of the traditional "white shoe" firms just like KE and Latham have.

+1 it’s heavily market dependent. Latham CA is significantly harder to get than either DPW/STB there. GPA cutoff was a tenth or two higher at my t14. KE, yes, less grade selective than those others but still quite sought after.

[Anonymous User]

If we're quizzing 80 year old retired S&C partners, they would probably agree that Debevoise is more prestigious than Skadden. Most modern-day associates would say Skadden is better.

The "white shoe" debate is, even by TLS standards, a horrendously dumb circle jerk. Any debate where White & Case is winning has a bad premise.

But Debevoise is much more sought after at HYS...

[Anonymous User]

Skadden isn't on the same "trajectory" as KE/Latham because it tried but failed to do what both those firms have done. To give Skadden its credit, it was KE/Latham before those firms were those firms, if that makes sense--meaning in many ways it pioneered the model that KE and Latham took and ran with to an extreme. But where Skadden petered out those firms took the torch and have run with it. I think one of the more telling statistics evincing this point is that Skadden's headcount has never returned to its 2008 peak, even 14 years after the fact. Nothing wrong with any of that--Skadden is still a great firm, highly profitable, and has billions in revenue; but I think it's fair to say it didn't achieve what it thought it would achieve if you talked to firm leadership circa 2005 and asked them to predict the next 15 years.

Kind of silly to say that Skadden pioneered the KE/Latham model when it only has equity partners that are promoted after 8-12 years and they have a very securities/pubco oriented practice. Skadden is much closer to the white shoe firms than it is to Latham/KE, imo.

Yea, Skadden's def considered more in line with the typical white shoe firms than KE/Latham are. All great firms to be sure, but just saying. They're also a lot more grade/fit selective at my T-14 than KE/Latham

The small group of people who actually care about "white shoe" (so we're talking about a sub-class of a sub-class primarily in NY) would imo laugh at the idea of Skadden being considered a true "white shoe" firm. Having said that, as I said in my prior post, who cares since to most of the world (I fit in this category) that's not a meaningful metric of anything and Skadden has blown past most of the traditional "white shoe" firms just like KE and Latham have.

+1 it’s heavily market dependent. Latham CA is significantly harder to get than either DPW/STB there. GPA cutoff was a tenth or two higher at my t14. KE, yes, less grade selective than those others but still quite sought after.

For what it's worth, Skadden's business model in its 80s and 90s rapid growth was quite different than Kirkland and Latham today. Skadden's business model remained quite New York-centric and the firm has never been interested in taking over other cities the way that Kirkland has in Texas and elsewhere. And Skadden was built on public M&A, banks, shareholder litigation, etc., not PE and mid-market transactions like Kirkland and Latham. I also don't believe Skadden was hiring hordes of lateral partners.

[Anonymous User]

If we're quizzing 80 year old retired S&C partners, they would probably agree that Debevoise is more prestigious than Skadden. Most modern-day associates would say Skadden is better.

The "white shoe" debate is, even by TLS standards, a horrendously dumb circle jerk. Any debate where White & Case is winning has a bad premise.

If my recollection of old Vault rankings is correct, W&C wasn't considered more prestigious decades ago. It was Shearman that used to be a top 10 firm in the 90s but started to decline rapidly after the burst of the dotcom bubble. W&C actually has been on the rise since mid 2010s in terms of its standing.

The term "white she" ceased to mean prestige a long time ago. Even Cadwalader is a white shoe firm.

[Sackboy]

If we're quizzing 80 year old retired S&C partners, they would probably agree that Debevoise is more prestigious than Skadden. Most modern-day associates would say Skadden is better.

The "white shoe" debate is, even by TLS standards, a horrendously dumb circle jerk. Any debate where White & Case is winning has a bad premise.

If my recollection of old Vault rankings is correct, W&C wasn't considered more prestigious decades ago. It was Shearman that used to be a top 10 firm in the 90s but started to decline rapidly after the burst of the dotcom bubble. W&C actually has been on the rise since mid 2010s in terms of its standing.

The term "white she" ceased to mean prestige a long time ago. Even Cadwalader is a white shoe firm.

I always hear Shearman's decline tied to the dotcom bubble, which may be true, but it was a V12 as recently as like 2011 or 2012. The dotcom bubble burst in 2000. It more looks like it was the GFC that destroyed their reputation.

[Anonymous User]

WSGR (finally) matched.

[Anonymous User]

Even Cadwalader is a white shoe firm.

Wasn't Cadwalader in the V20 not too long ago? Shearman and Cadwalader seem like similar stories -- solidly prestigious, until the great recession and (at the time) excellent ATL reporting on layoffs, etc., set both reputations on fire from a Vault perspective.

[Anonymous User]

The term white shoe dates to the days when firms were populated by WASPs and refused to hire catholics and Jews (let alone Blacks, Asians, etc). Skadden was a Jewish firm so by definition will never be white shoe. Ditto Wachtell, Proskauer, Fried Frank, Paul comma Weiss, and a whole bunch of other firms that today are indistinguishable from the formerly racist firms (that TBF haven't been openly bigoted for an entire half century now yay).

But that just means that the term white shoe needs to be consigned to the dustbin of history.

[Anonymous User]

The term white shoe dates to the days when firms were populated by WASPs and refused to hire catholics and Jews (let alone Blacks, Asians, etc). Skadden was a Jewish firm so by definition will never be white shoe. Ditto Wachtell, Proskauer, Fried Frank, Paul comma Weiss, and a whole bunch of other firms that today are indistinguishable from the formerly racist firms (that TBF haven't been openly bigoted for an entire half century now yay).

But that just means that the term white shoe needs to be consigned to the dustbin of history.

The term white shoe refers to a shoe popular on Ivy League campuses during the mid-20th century. People probably like it because of that old-timey prestige connotation and not for ethnic reasons. Also, firms like S&C and STB had Jewish partners pre-WWII. Catholics were a part of many pre-WWII NY partnerships.
Skadden was religiously mixed at its founding (1948) and Paul comma Weiss, originally Jewish in 1875, became mixed early on in its history. PW also hired black and women partners in the 1940s - the first "major" NY firm to do so. Skadden and PW are old enough to be associated with white shoes on campus, which is probably why people call them "white shoe." Fried Frank and Proskauer were originally only Jewish (the beginnings of both were pre-1900) but are now mixed, as are most firms. Assuming they successfully recruited from "white shoe" campuses during the mid-20th century, sure, call them white shoe or modern white shoe. As long as the term is associated with "old and prestigious" it's not going away.

[Anonymous User]

The term white shoe dates to the days when firms were populated by WASPs and refused to hire catholics and Jews (let alone Blacks, Asians, etc). Skadden was a Jewish firm so by definition will never be white shoe. Ditto Wachtell, Proskauer, Fried Frank, Paul comma Weiss, and a whole bunch of other firms that today are indistinguishable from the formerly racist firms (that TBF haven't been openly bigoted for an entire half century now yay).

But that just means that the term white shoe needs to be consigned to the dustbin of history.

The term white shoe refers to a shoe popular on Ivy League campuses during the mid-20th century. People probably like it because of that old-timey prestige connotation and not for ethnic reasons. Also, firms like S&C and STB had Jewish partners pre-WWII. Catholics were a part of many pre-WWII NY partnerships.
Skadden was religiously mixed at its founding (1948) and Paul comma Weiss, originally Jewish in 1875, became mixed early on in its history. PW also hired black and women partners in the 1940s - the first "major" NY firm to do so. Skadden and PW are old enough to be associated with white shoes on campus, which is probably why people call them "white shoe." Fried Frank and Proskauer were originally only Jewish (the beginnings of both were pre-1900) but are now mixed, as are most firms. Assuming they successfully recruited from "white shoe" campuses during the mid-20th century, sure, call them white shoe or modern white shoe. As long as the term is associated with "old and prestigious" it's not going away.

Fellow nerds may enjoy this article, which discusses in depth the history of the "Jewish" law firms:

https://digitalcommons.du.edu/cgi/viewc ... law_facpub

[Anonymous User]

The term white shoe dates to the days when firms were populated by WASPs and refused to hire catholics and Jews (let alone Blacks, Asians, etc). Skadden was a Jewish firm so by definition will never be white shoe. Ditto Wachtell, Proskauer, Fried Frank, Paul comma Weiss, and a whole bunch of other firms that today are indistinguishable from the formerly racist firms (that TBF haven't been openly bigoted for an entire half century now yay).

But that just means that the term white shoe needs to be consigned to the dustbin of history.

The term white shoe refers to a shoe popular on Ivy League campuses during the mid-20th century. People probably like it because of that old-timey prestige connotation and not for ethnic reasons. Also, firms like S&C and STB had Jewish partners pre-WWII. Catholics were a part of many pre-WWII NY partnerships.
Skadden was religiously mixed at its founding (1948) and Paul comma Weiss, originally Jewish in 1875, became mixed early on in its history. PW also hired black and women partners in the 1940s - the first "major" NY firm to do so. Skadden and PW are old enough to be associated with white shoes on campus, which is probably why people call them "white shoe." Fried Frank and Proskauer were originally only Jewish (the beginnings of both were pre-1900) but are now mixed, as are most firms. Assuming they successfully recruited from "white shoe" campuses during the mid-20th century, sure, call them white shoe or modern white shoe. As long as the term is associated with "old and prestigious" it's not going away.

Yeah I'm well aware that the color white in white shoe refers to a certain type of shoe, not to Caucasian people. Just saying that the origin of the culture distinction - the idea that certain firms are composed of Refined Gentlemen as opposed to scrappy ethnics is inherently classist and bigoted. Even if today most ppl just use it to mean "prestige" it rubs me the wrong way.

[Anonymous User]

Also iirc the Paul in Paul comma Weiss was catholic and the Weiss was Jewish. So another mixed firm but all people who couldn't be hired by the WASP firms. (not sure who the comma was)

[Anonymous User]

Also iirc the Paul in Paul comma Weiss was catholic and the Weiss was Jewish. So another mixed firm but all people who couldn't be hired by the WASP firms. (not sure who the comma was)

Common knowlege even among first year law students that the comma in Paul, Weiss represents Paul telling Weiss that they're just not on the same level.