Top Law Schools

With associate pay raises now topping out at $400,000+, I'm interested in how folks in the Counsel position are faring at their firms. I'll start. K&S has not raised salaries for Counsel, and salary and bonus compression at the Counsel level is now a very real issue.

To clarify, are you saying that K&S has not done any counsel pay raises dating back to last summer when they went to a unified salary structure for all offices, and then subsequently matched the next round of market raises? That's shocking to me, if so, and I'm surprised there hasn't been a mass defection among the counsel ranks.

I'm counsel at an AmLaw 100, and counsel comp basically starts at senior associate comp. We haven't matched the new scale yet (although I assume we will eventually, since we've matched in the past), but when we do associate raises counsel gets the equivalent amount that senior associates get in a raise at the end of the year, and then it gets baked into raises for the next year.

It's frustrating to now be making what 6th years at other firms make.

I'm the OP. Regarding K&S, I am saying that counsel did not get a pay raise last year when associate salaries were bumped, they did not receive any special bonuses last year, and they have not received any indication from the firm that counsel salaries will be commensurately bumped with the current round of associate pay raises.

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 15, 2022 12:41 pm

I'm the OP. Regarding K&S, I am saying that counsel did not get a pay raise last year when associate salaries were bumped, they did not receive any special bonuses last year, and they have not received any indication from the firm that counsel salaries will be commensurately bumped with the current round of associate pay raises.

How much do you make? Is it currently less than seniors?

Don't want to out myself by disclosing salary, but K&S counsel take home pay is less than senior associates when you factor in bonuses, at least for counsel that haven't carved out some high demand niche practice.

What hours expectation (and reality) do you have?

Anonymous User wrote: ↑

Tue Mar 15, 2022 12:41 pm

I'm the OP. Regarding K&S, I am saying that counsel did not get a pay raise last year when associate salaries were bumped, they did not receive any special bonuses last year, and they have not received any indication from the firm that counsel salaries will be commensurately bumped with the current round of associate pay raises.

Oh wow. Different anon than the one who asked the question, but I'm at an Atlanta firm that considers K&S our "competitor" for compensation purposes and my understanding based on conversations with counsel here was that they got both the salary bump and the special bonus (although on different timelines than the associates). Hope no one at my firm reads this and decides to follow K&S on this. But apparently we had this exact same issue a couple of years ago during the last raise and counsel pushed back really hard and that's why we handled it differently last year (although that's just what I heard).

Does anyone know what counsel salary is at Latham?

Similarly, does anyone know special counsel salary/bonus at Milbank?