NY to 200k?! Forum

[Anonymous User]

I'm hearing McDermott matched, but can't confirm.

For reference:

24th in gross revenue (up 18% in 2020)

37th in PPEP (up 26% in 2020)

Not a surprising match, looking at those numbers.

Also, can this thread please, please not devolve into the 500th city mouse vs. country mouse flame war? It's beyond tedious, and none of you have anything new or interesting to say about it. It should be banworthy at this point. At least, people should be outed for anon abuse so I can know to make fun of them in the future.

Sorry I'm working opposite an acquaintance from UG who is a NYC truther and waiting for his ass to release signatures for 5 hrs now, needed an outlet for my frustration.

Everyone in the v20 or so is going to match, there will be a few randoms in the v30 and v40 who predictably don't. Just going to take a week or few for everyone to catch up.

V20 notably includes Jones Day and Williams & Connolly, who are very much open questions as to whether they'll match, and what form their "match" will take considering they're already off market.

Likewise, you'll see firms that are basically guaranteed to match (Fenwick, Schulte) down in the 70s and 80s.

I think Vault, as per usual, will only have a loose correlation here; at least, I think financials (particularly PPEP and growth) are going to be a lot more probative.

Yeah, when I'm thinking v20, I think CSM, Skadden, SC, LW, KE, DPW, STB, GDC, PW, SA, WGM, CG, DP and RG--all likely to match. You are correct that WC, JD and WLRK do their own thing and CB is a big question mark. No idea about QE.

[Anonymous User]

while extremely happy about this, in all honesty a 15k bump for mid/seniors is paltry.

Think very high likelihood someone (DPW) will come over the top with a little extra for mid/seniors. Maybe 25-30k?

[Anonymous User]

lol just gave my notice yesterday to go in house. No regrets, but funny.

[Anonymous User]

You could probably buy a ranch and own horses in Kentucky, with a nice apartment in downtown Louisville if you wanted. Go to the Derby, your kids go to the best private schools in town, be a fucking bigshot. Loads of people would trade that life, or something similar in a small metro area, for the "surrounded by people that could buy the building I live in" lifestyle in NYC.

[Anonymous User]

while extremely happy about this, in all honesty a 15k bump for mid/seniors is paltry.

Think very high likelihood someone (DPW) will come over the top with a little extra for mid/seniors. Maybe 25-30k?

Right - i recently left BigLaw as a fifth year but not sad about missing this increase. After taxes it's pretty limp for New Yorkers. This raise is best for incoming first-years that can expect to make more for the duration of their associate careers, but doesn't do much for current mids and seniors.

[Anonymous User]

Do firm's just pro-rate raises for the the remainder of the year (similar to calculating a summer associate's salary)? Would be nice if they trued us up to our full class year salary by the end of 2021. How did firm's handle in 2018?

[jarofsoup]

I would forego a raise for 3 weeks uninterrupted vacation this year.

The burn out is real.

[Anonymous User]

Confirmed that MWE matched. They also recently announced a permanent 3-day in-person/2-day remote WFH policy (with in-person less often if your partners don’t care) starting this September. Their growth and PPP last year were gangbusters.

I've also seen some pretty aggressive lateral signing bonuses from them, like 85k + guaranteed full year end for a 2016

[NYto200K]

Do firm's just pro-rate raises for the the remainder of the year (similar to calculating a summer associate's salary)? Would be nice if they trued us up to our full class year salary by the end of 2021. How did firm's handle in 2018?

They do* prorate as a default matter. Some might give more money to make up for earlier in the fiscal year, but that is a very rare exception.

[Anonymous User]

Problem is that the richest firms like DPW and SC are the ones who benefit the most from keeping pay scale down since their hourly billing rates are so much higher than the vault average


No real incentive to do anything but match IMO, unless they want to push to a comp level where firms with lower RPL financially can't match to skew the talent market

[Anonymous User]

Problem is that the richest firms like DPW and SC are the ones who benefit the most from keeping pay scale down since their hourly billing rates are so much higher than the vault average


No real incentive to do anything but match IMO, unless they want to push to a comp level where firms with lower RPL financially can't match to skew the talent market

While that's true there are other factors that affect whether they give raises (i.e., dick measuring contest).

[Auxilio]

Problem is that the richest firms like DPW and SC are the ones who benefit the most from keeping pay scale down since their hourly billing rates are so much higher than the vault average


No real incentive to do anything but match IMO, unless they want to push to a comp level where firms with lower RPL financially can't match to skew the talent market

While that's true there are other factors that affect whether they give raises (i.e., dick measuring contest).

The toxic masculinity and male dominance of big law being unironically a good thing haha?

[Idontwanttomakeaname]

The fact that firms like Cadwallader and MWE are rushing to match makes me think that we will see more upward movement from the big boys. A firm like DPW which is seeing a huge associate exodus while PPP is at an all time high will probably come over the top since they need associates and they don’t have anything to offer other than “prestige” and money. I also think juniors will get raises since their has been a massive hollowing out of midlevels at a lot of these firms and they’ll want to keep the 2nd and 3rd years from burning out in too great of numbers.

[FedFan123]

You could probably buy a ranch and own horses in Kentucky, with a nice apartment in downtown Louisville if you wanted. Go to the Derby, your kids go to the best private schools in town, be a fucking bigshot. Loads of people would trade that life, or something similar in a small metro area, for the "surrounded by people that could buy the building I live in" lifestyle in NYC.

The Kentucky derby is a 2 minute horse race once a year. What do you do the other 364+ days every year?

[Anonymous User]

The Kentucky derby is a 2 minute horse race once a year. What do you do the other 364+ days every year?

Bill my 2600 hours. mid-levels to +30k

[cornerstone]

You could probably buy a ranch and own horses in Kentucky, with a nice apartment in downtown Louisville if you wanted. Go to the Derby, your kids go to the best private schools in town, be a fucking bigshot. Loads of people would trade that life, or something similar in a small metro area, for the "surrounded by people that could buy the building I live in" lifestyle in NYC.

The Kentucky derby is a 2 minute horse race once a year. What do you do the other 364+ days every year?

Recover.

[ExpOriental]

Problem is that the richest firms like DPW and SC are the ones who benefit the most from keeping pay scale down since their hourly billing rates are so much higher than the vault average


No real incentive to do anything but match IMO, unless they want to push to a comp level where firms with lower RPL financially can't match to skew the talent market

That doesn't really make sense. Firms like DPW and S&C are the least affected by salary raises, because they have the highest margins, and thus, the salary increase is less of a hit to their bottom line on a % basis.

The firms that are hurt the most by salary increases are those with high leverage and low margins.

Doing some very rough napkin math, assuming a 10k raise across all lawyers minus equity partners:

The raise will cost DPW ~$8,200,000 a year, or 0.456% of 2020 revenue (56% margin in 2020)

It will cost DLA Piper ~$35,600,000, or 1.148% of 2020 revenue (29% margin in 2020)

Obviously this is spotty math with some shaky assumptions, and I should probably compare the cost of the raise to profits (which would show an even greater difference, too much work though), but it demonstrates the point.

Relatedly, relatively low-leverage, high margin firms like Wilmer should be least effected by this, though who knows what they'll ultimately do.

Edit:

Here is the cost of the raise as a % of 2020 profits, which is a more meaningful metric:

DPW: 0.828%

DLA: 3.883%

[Monochromatic Oeuvre]

Problem is that the richest firms like DPW and SC are the ones who benefit the most from keeping pay scale down since their hourly billing rates are so much higher than the vault average


No real incentive to do anything but match IMO, unless they want to push to a comp level where firms with lower RPL financially can't match to skew the talent market

What? Why would you think having high billing rates (and consequently making a ton of money) would *decrease* your incentive to raise salaries?

[Anonymous User]

This raise is legit pennies for S&Cs and DPWs of the world - the only reason partners grumble at this is the same reason all management tries to fuck labor: keep $ in their pocket. Partners always say junior comp. is out-of-whack high while at the same time defending all sorts of client practices as natural consequences of economic incentives like supply and demand.

[Anonymous User]

.

[Anonymous User]

Problem is that the richest firms like DPW and SC are the ones who benefit the most from keeping pay scale down since their hourly billing rates are so much higher than the vault average


No real incentive to do anything but match IMO, unless they want to push to a comp level where firms with lower RPL financially can't match to skew the talent market

What? Why would you think having high billing rates (and consequently making a ton of money) would *decrease* your incentive to raise salaries?

Because profits of the super rich firms is a function of the Delta between salary and average billing rate * average billable hours worked (roughly speaking)



Basically the current system with flat salary scale across the board is most beneficial to the super rich like DPW- those firms can bill at rates significantly higher than the lower V100 but pay associates the exact same



No incentive to rock the boat to come over the top of Milbank and risk creating a stratified salary scale unless really desperate for talent

[Anonymous User]

Problem is that the richest firms like DPW and SC are the ones who benefit the most from keeping pay scale down since their hourly billing rates are so much higher than the vault average


No real incentive to do anything but match IMO, unless they want to push to a comp level where firms with lower RPL financially can't match to skew the talent market

What? Why would you think having high billing rates (and consequently making a ton of money) would *decrease* your incentive to raise salaries?

Because profits of the super rich firms is a function of the Delta between salary and average billing rate * average billable hours worked (roughly speaking)



Basically the current system with flat salary scale across the board is most beneficial to the super rich like DPW- those firms can bill at rates significantly higher than the lower V100 but pay associates the exact same



No incentive to rock the boat to come over the top of Milbank and risk creating a stratified salary scale unless really desperate for talent

[Anonymous User]

Problem is that the richest firms like DPW and SC are the ones who benefit the most from keeping pay scale down since their hourly billing rates are so much higher than the vault average


No real incentive to do anything but match IMO, unless they want to push to a comp level where firms with lower RPL financially can't match to skew the talent market

What? Why would you think having high billing rates (and consequently making a ton of money) would *decrease* your incentive to raise salaries?

Because profits of the super rich firms is a function of the Delta between salary and average billing rate * average billable hours worked (roughly speaking)



Basically the current system with flat salary scale across the board is most beneficial to the super rich like DPW- those firms can bill at rates significantly higher than the lower V100 but pay associates the exact same



No incentive to rock the boat to come over the top of Milbank and risk creating a stratified salary scale unless really desperate for talent

[Anonymous User]

I think that throwing your money around to squeeze less profitable competitors is a great strategy. Like bullying people as the big stack in poker. I've always wondered why Kirkland never seems to be the one pushing these things, since they're clearly willing to do it for laterals and partners. They have more than enough cash and aggression to lay claim to market-setting status and hold it, but never seem to bother trying. Maybe they're content with just being ever-so-slightly-above whatever market happens to be?

[Anonymous User]

Interested to see how the big NYC players react to this. DPW, Debevoise, Skadden, PW, Cleary, SC all had massive years last year; would not be surprised if one of them comes over the top