Salt Lake City Legal Market? Forum

[Anonymous User]

What's stoel's bonus program noawdays?

Any matches to Snell?

Don't firms have to announce soon if they want to get the benefit of being market paying firms during OCI?

[Anonymous User]

bump because I'm looking to move back to this market

[Anonymous User]

Associate in my office told me his buddy (lol small market) heard ballard spahr just raised salaries. can anyone confirm?

[Anonymous User]

Associate in my office told me his buddy (lol small market) heard ballard spahr just raised salaries. can anyone confirm?

Yes, to 160k for first years

[Anonymous User]

Associate in my office told me his buddy (lol small market) heard ballard spahr just raised salaries. can anyone confirm?

Yes, to 160k for first years

What about midlevels? Did everyone get a corresponding bump?

[Anonymous User]

Associate in my office told me his buddy (lol small market) heard ballard spahr just raised salaries. can anyone confirm?

Yes, to 160k for first years

What about midlevels? Did everyone get a corresponding bump?

160k, 165k, 170k, 180k, 190k, 200k, 210k, 215k

[Anonymous User]

Damn that is a sweet jump. Are they hiring? lol Do they skimp on bonuses?

[Anonymous User]

Nice pay scale but they must be working associates hard for it. Last I recall their billable requirement there was 1950 but that was a few years ago.

[Anonymous User]

Damn that is a sweet jump. Are they hiring? lol Do they skimp on bonuses?

define "skimp". i'm a midlevel/senior in a larger market (not SLC) and got a <$10k bonus (with a good review); no special bonuses or anything of the kind.

[Anonymous User]

2L here, why would a satellite office of a biglaw firm in SLC be unattractive to associates? It seems like the idea of getting to do work for bigger market clients from the comfort of Utah (while probably getting paid more than associates at local firms) would be ideal. What am I missing?

I agree with you tho that 55k is not even enough to cover living in NY. Is it still 55k when you're a 2nd year, 3rd year, 4th...? Based on what I hear from my classmates, the difference gets up to 130k or even 150k as a mid-level associate.

I'm a fourth year in Texas at a NY scale lockstep firm. My base this year is 275K and with COVID + year end bonuses it looks to be just about 400k all in this year.

I've lived in SLC / park city and like the idea of going back. But the idea of doing basically the same work (but maybe with a few less billable hours) for less than half of the comp, doesn't sound that appealing to me. I guess COL is a bit less but I think there is a state income tax as well.

[Anonymous User]

I think it's a flat 5% tax rate but yea I wouldn't switch up for here. The COL is actually a lot higher now.

Anyone know what's going on with Dentons in SLC? What's their big law comp like out there?

[Anonymous User]

I think it's a flat 5% tax rate but yea I wouldn't switch up for here. The COL is actually a lot higher now.

Anyone know what's going on with Dentons in SLC? What's their big law comp like out there?

I don't know anything about Dentons but I think it will be interesting to see if COVID / remote work forces firms in Utah to raise comp to compete for associates.

I think the pitch pre-COVID was come here to live in the mountains with better quality of life and maybe lower COL. But with some Millbank scale firms offering completely remote roles - seems like the better option is to lateral to a firm in a 100% remote role and then work from Utah.

[Anonymous User]

It may be unattractive to some (not all) because of the following examples:

1. client emails on Saturday around noon while you are out w/ your big mormon family asking for a call to discuss the latest turn of the purchase agreement:

a. In biglaw you need to have seen and responded to the email w/in an hour (at very least) that you will revert on availability, then poll your working group for their availability. You will have the call whenever your partners are available, regardless of what you are doing, and it will be that afternoon. You will have work to do afterwards.

b. At your SLC "midlaw" firm, your partner says "let's do it on Monday".

2. It is 9PM, you just pushed out a purchase agreement and you are tired, you have a backlog of terrible work from junior associates to review.

a. In biglaw, you continue to work until the backlog is done. Go to bed maybe before midnight if you are really lucky.

b. In SLC midlaw, you call it a night and no one cares.

3. You are junior associate who just gave your senior associate a terrible work product at 3 PM. You have been waiting for comments since then. You have given up on receiving comments. At 10:30 PM you receive a passive aggressive email from senior associate with a markup and a number of soft comments to your doc. Associate asks you to make the changes that night, send to associate for one more quick eyeball, and then send on to partner.

a. In biglaw, you do it that night.

b. In SLC midlaw, you do it tomorrow morning.

This is why you get paid less in SLC - to be clear, you get paid wayyyyy less (I took a nearly 200k hit when I came). This is also why your billables are so much lower - first year at Latham is not worth $600/hr because he is so brilliant, it is because first year at Latham is always on call.

SLC midlaw associates, is this really what your firms are like? I may be giving too much weight to a Utah friend's seemingly unfortunate work life balance at his firm, but this just sounds too good to be true.

[Anonymous User]

I think it's a flat 5% tax rate but yea I wouldn't switch up for here. The COL is actually a lot higher now.

Anyone know what's going on with Dentons in SLC? What's their big law comp like out there?

I don't know anything about Dentons but I think it will be interesting to see if COVID / remote work forces firms in Utah to raise comp to compete for associates.

I think the pitch pre-COVID was come here to live in the mountains with better quality of life and maybe lower COL. But with some Millbank scale firms offering completely remote roles - seems like the better option is to lateral to a firm in a 100% remote role and then work from Utah.

I am hearing that firms are reluctant to even match the Ballard Spahr schedule someone posted above (at least without increasing billable requirements or cutting down countable pro bono hours).

As someone who has looked at leaving big law to come back, whenever I try to discuss comp. the response I have gotten (from 3 firms) is that partnership is actually attainable there and that's why it's worth coming and that if I'm giving that much weight to salary, I don't understand the value of being at a midlaw firm in Salt Lake City.

My two cents is that partnership (or the promise of it being attainable) is not worth as much as these firms think they are. My classmates who work out there have told me that very few of their peers actually care to become partners or want to stick around for that.

[Anonymous User]

Any movement at other firms? Pretty surprised that everyone else has been quiet.

[reddoggo]

anyone have any idea on how associates enjoy life at RQN?

[Anonymous User]

anyone have any idea on how associates enjoy life at RQN?

Former associate here. Feel free to ask away.

[reddoggo]

anyone have any idea on how associates enjoy life at RQN?

Former associate here. Feel free to ask away.

wow, awesome - didn't expect to find a primary source.

I hear a lot about a great work/life balance at the firm - did you find that to be true?
Do they offer their 2L summer associates? I can't imagine they're hiring 7 new associates every year, but I could be wrong.
What advice would you give someone weighing RQN and a biglaw SA gig?

[Anonymous User]

anyone have any idea on how associates enjoy life at RQN?

Former associate here. Feel free to ask away.

wow, awesome - didn't expect to find a primary source.

I hear a lot about a great work/life balance at the firm - did you find that to be true?
Do they offer their 2L summer associates? I can't imagine they're hiring 7 new associates every year, but I could be wrong.
What advice would you give someone weighing RQN and a biglaw SA gig?

It's been a number of years since I was a summer, but they've historically offered everyone other than in exceptionally egregious cases. The hours requirement is not that high, though there is probably a bit less work than at a bigger firm, so you may need to seek out some work. RQN has a great reputation in Utah, but it will be of little help if you try to go out of state--whether to another firm or in-house. If you're looking to go in-house in Utah, it is a good place to start, but it seems like more companies in Utah are looking for big law experience or a top school. There are some great partners to work for, and others that are not so great. I can answer some practice specific questions if you have any.

[Anonymous User]

So who’s going to be joining K&E Salt Lake City?

[Anonymous User]

So who’s going to be joining K&E Salt Lake City?

Everyone. Everyone is going to be joining K&E Salt Lake City.

[Anonymous User]

Anyone know what their salary scale will be here?

Signing bonuses for SLC associates?

[bigboybob]

Kirkland and Ellis just announced a Salt Lake City office today. Should be sweet making market in SLC

[Mullens]

Anyone know what their salary scale will be here?

Signing bonuses for SLC associates?

K&E pays the same compensation in every office. Would be surprising if they made a one-off exception.

[Anonymous User]

Anyone know what their salary scale will be here?

Signing bonuses for SLC associates?

K&E pays the same compensation in every office. Would be surprising if they made a one-off exception.

Which firms in market will this impact the most? They've got to be recruiting from at least a few local firms.