Holland & Knight Lockstep Salary Announcement / Florida Salaries Forum

[Anonymous User]

Above the Law is reporting that Holland & Knight is switching to a lockstep salary scale nationwide:

https://abovethelaw.com/2021/05/hk-sala ... ease-2021/

What impact do people think this will have on associate salaries in Florida? Obviously H&K is big here. Presumably Greenberg Traurig, Akerman, Gunster et cetera will have to follow or they'll be at a serious recruiting disadvantage.

[nixy]

Won’t any disadvantage depend on how badly people want to be in Florida? I’d imagine the number of people who want to be in Florida is greater than the number of people who’ll get hired by H&K. The question is whether enough people who can’t get hired by H&K but could get hired by Greenberg etc are willing to leave Florida to get the higher salary, such that Greenberg etc actually have a hard time getting the people they want. If they can fill their classes now, I’m not sure H&K raising salaries means they’ll have more trouble filling their classes.

(I could be wrong, and would be happy to be wrong; but I don’t think the logic of following salary increases applies as directly to a small market like Florida as it does to NYC. I went to law school in a small market and a few of the big firms were on the Cravath scale, but plenty weren’t and there was still plenty of competition for those positions because people wanted to be in that market. But again, I could be wrong.)

[Anonymous User]

Won’t any disadvantage depend on how badly people want to be in Florida? I’d imagine the number of people who want to be in Florida is greater than the number of people who’ll get hired by H&K. The question is whether enough people who can’t get hired by H&K but could get hired by Greenberg etc are willing to leave Florida to get the higher salary, such that Greenberg etc actually have a hard time getting the people they want. If they can fill their classes now, I’m not sure H&K raising salaries means they’ll have more trouble filling their classes.

(I could be wrong, and would be happy to be wrong; but I don’t think the logic of following salary increases applies as directly to a small market like Florida as it does to NYC. I went to law school in a small market and a few of the big firms were on the Cravath scale, but plenty weren’t and there was still plenty of competition for those positions because people wanted to be in that market. But again, I could be wrong.)

Greenberg thinks they are the best firm in Miami. They are definitely not going to want to lose top talent to a direct competitor, so I will imagine HK’s move will impact their thinking. Then again, GT is cheap as hell so who knows.

[Anonymous User]

Won’t any disadvantage depend on how badly people want to be in Florida? I’d imagine the number of people who want to be in Florida is greater than the number of people who’ll get hired by H&K. The question is whether enough people who can’t get hired by H&K but could get hired by Greenberg etc are willing to leave Florida to get the higher salary, such that Greenberg etc actually have a hard time getting the people they want. If they can fill their classes now, I’m not sure H&K raising salaries means they’ll have more trouble filling their classes.

(I could be wrong, and would be happy to be wrong; but I don’t think the logic of following salary increases applies as directly to a small market like Florida as it does to NYC. I went to law school in a small market and a few of the big firms were on the Cravath scale, but plenty weren’t and there was still plenty of competition for those positions because people wanted to be in that market. But again, I could be wrong.)

I think you're overcomplicating things. I'm a 6th year associate at a major FL firm. My firm has a large number of open positions they are having trouble filling, just like every other large firm throughout the country. I know other firms in FL are in the same position because I keep getting emails from recruiters about them.

If you get an offer from one of the larger FL firms, you can likely get an offer from at least some of the others. When I was last applying for positions, I had offers from 4 large FL firms and chose my current firm (not H&K) in part because the salary was higher. I also interviewed a junior associate recently who mentioned having offers from other FL firms.

One point to make about the FL market is that, unlike some other markets, the large firms here tend to get the majority of their associates as laterals from NY or other larger markets. Some firms don't even have summer classes, or barely have them. So the firms rely very much on their ability to recruit laterals.

[nixy]

Okay, that makes some sense. I was thinking particularly about OCI/starting salaries (there are ALWAYS going to be lots of suitable candidates at OCI) and didn’t think about lateral hiring. I’m still not sure one firm will actually suck up all the talent such that others have to follow suit... but I’m also not running/recruiting for a big firm, so my opinion on the availability of talent is pretty immaterial.