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What do biglaw junior equity partners actually make?

Posted: Wed Nov 01, 2017 5:09 pm
by Anonymous User
I’m talking about take-home gross pay, which obviously excludes associate/staff comp, pensions, office space, and so on. Assume it’s a well-regarded lockstep or lockstep-ish firm with a strong institutional client base and PPP in the $3.2-$3.7mm range...so basically DPW/Cleary/STB/GDC/Skadden.

Re: What do biglaw junior equity partners actually make?

Posted: Wed Nov 01, 2017 5:20 pm
by jkpolk
Anonymous User wrote:I’m talking about take-home gross pay, which obviously excludes associate/staff comp, pensions, office space, and so on. Assume it’s a well-regarded lockstep or lockstep-ish firm with a strong institutional client base and PPP in the $3.2-$3.7mm range...so basically DPW/Cleary/STB/GDC/Skadden.
less than a million bucks. and equity buy in sucks.

Re: What do biglaw junior equity partners actually make?

Posted: Wed Nov 01, 2017 5:28 pm
by FascinatedWanderer
Most of the lockstep firms have a pretty tight spread of around 4:1 on highest paid to lowest paid partners. With a PPP of $3M, that means junior partners make roughly $1.2M and senior partners around $4.8M.

Re: What do biglaw junior equity partners actually make?

Posted: Wed Nov 01, 2017 6:35 pm
by Anonymous User
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Re: What do biglaw junior equity partners actually make?

Posted: Wed Nov 01, 2017 7:22 pm
by Anonymous User
FascinatedWanderer wrote:Most of the lockstep firms have a pretty tight spread of around 4:1 on highest paid to lowest paid partners. With a PPP of $3M, that means junior partners make roughly $1.2M and senior partners around $4.8M.
This appears to assume a 1:1 ratio between the two. Why?

Re: What do biglaw junior equity partners actually make?

Posted: Wed Nov 01, 2017 7:59 pm
by FascinatedWanderer
Anonymous User wrote:
FascinatedWanderer wrote:Most of the lockstep firms have a pretty tight spread of around 4:1 on highest paid to lowest paid partners. With a PPP of $3M, that means junior partners make roughly $1.2M and senior partners around $4.8M.
This appears to assume a 1:1 ratio between the two. Why?
Because for a rough approximation that's the easiest way to do it?

Re: What do biglaw junior equity partners actually make?

Posted: Wed Nov 01, 2017 8:19 pm
by Roy McAvoy
jkpolk wrote:
Anonymous User wrote:I’m talking about take-home gross pay, which obviously excludes associate/staff comp, pensions, office space, and so on. Assume it’s a well-regarded lockstep or lockstep-ish firm with a strong institutional client base and PPP in the $3.2-$3.7mm range...so basically DPW/Cleary/STB/GDC/Skadden.
less than a million bucks. and equity buy in sucks.
How much are we talking re: "equity buy in sucks" ?

Re: What do biglaw junior equity partners actually make?

Posted: Wed Nov 01, 2017 8:35 pm
by Nagster5
Roy McAvoy wrote:
jkpolk wrote:
Anonymous User wrote:I’m talking about take-home gross pay, which obviously excludes associate/staff comp, pensions, office space, and so on. Assume it’s a well-regarded lockstep or lockstep-ish firm with a strong institutional client base and PPP in the $3.2-$3.7mm range...so basically DPW/Cleary/STB/GDC/Skadden.
less than a million bucks. and equity buy in sucks.
How much are we talking re: "equity buy in sucks" ?
~$1M for big firms

Re: What do biglaw junior equity partners actually make?

Posted: Thu Nov 02, 2017 12:03 am
by jkpolk
Nagster5 wrote:
Roy McAvoy wrote:
jkpolk wrote:
Anonymous User wrote:I’m talking about take-home gross pay, which obviously excludes associate/staff comp, pensions, office space, and so on. Assume it’s a well-regarded lockstep or lockstep-ish firm with a strong institutional client base and PPP in the $3.2-$3.7mm range...so basically DPW/Cleary/STB/GDC/Skadden.
less than a million bucks. and equity buy in sucks.
How much are we talking re: "equity buy in sucks" ?
~$1M for big firms
Even if it's not that bad all places(read 500K instead of 1M), it's bad enough that all in comp could be better as a counsel with a negotiated cut of billables from generated work for a few years after making it.

Re: What do biglaw junior equity partners actually make?

Posted: Thu Nov 02, 2017 1:03 am
by Anonymous User
jkpolk wrote:
Nagster5 wrote:
Roy McAvoy wrote:
jkpolk wrote:
Anonymous User wrote:I’m talking about take-home gross pay, which obviously excludes associate/staff comp, pensions, office space, and so on. Assume it’s a well-regarded lockstep or lockstep-ish firm with a strong institutional client base and PPP in the $3.2-$3.7mm range...so basically DPW/Cleary/STB/GDC/Skadden.
less than a million bucks. and equity buy in sucks.
How much are we talking re: "equity buy in sucks" ?
~$1M for big firms
Even if it's not that bad all places(read 500K instead of 1M), it's bad enough that all in comp could be better as a counsel with a negotiated cut of billables from generated work for a few years after making it.
Yes, family friend of mine is a junior partner and made the same or less her first year because of the buy in (that said, this firm -- and im sure others -- have bank clients finance the buy-in so its not 500k+ upfront).

Re: What do biglaw junior equity partners actually make?

Posted: Thu Nov 02, 2017 9:40 am
by Anonymous User
How much are we talking re: "equity buy in sucks" ?
~$1M for big firms
Source? Seems high.

Re: What do biglaw junior equity partners actually make?

Posted: Thu Nov 02, 2017 9:44 am
by Anonymous User
Anonymous User wrote:
How much are we talking re: "equity buy in sucks" ?
~$1M for big firms
Source? Seems high.
The $1 million is my firm's equity buy in. V50.

Re: What do biglaw junior equity partners actually make?

Posted: Thu Nov 02, 2017 10:47 am
by Anonymous User
Anonymous User wrote:
Anonymous User wrote:
How much are we talking re: "equity buy in sucks" ?
~$1M for big firms
Source? Seems high.
The $1 million is my firm's equity buy in. V50.
yeah but the firms listed are more flush/financially stable than a v50 and less in need of a cash infusion from each new partner, so i’d wager the buy-in is lower.

Re: What do biglaw junior equity partners actually make?

Posted: Thu Nov 02, 2017 11:01 am
by JenDarby
Anonymous User wrote:
Anonymous User wrote:
Anonymous User wrote:
How much are we talking re: "equity buy in sucks" ?
~$1M for big firms
Source? Seems high.
The $1 million is my firm's equity buy in. V50.
yeah but the firms listed are more flush/financially stable than a v50 and less in need of a cash infusion from each new partner, so i’d wager the buy-in is lower.
why is all of this anon?

that's not really how equity buy ins work

Re: What do biglaw junior equity partners actually make?

Posted: Thu Nov 02, 2017 11:05 am
by Anonymous User
JenDarby wrote:why is all of this anon?

that's not really how equity buy ins work
long shot, but im partner track at one of the above listed firms and would prefer not to be outed discussing this sort of thing.

isnt that exactly how they work? gives the newbies some skin in the game while giving the partnership some cash.

Re: What do biglaw junior equity partners actually make?

Posted: Thu Nov 02, 2017 11:40 am
by Anonymous User
IME from partner friends at firms with excellent PPP, SO that was an equity partner in a consulting firm, and personal experience buying equity in an investment firm, the buy in amounts have had nothing to do with any need for cash infusion but have been set by a third party valuation of the equity you're buying into. My firm discounts these valuations to make it a better deal, so that's possible, but I've seen scenarios where this is not the case in larger more rigid firms that were also flush with cash.