My Firm is So Cheap That They . . . Forum

[Anonymous User]

My firm is so cheap that it limited its Cravath scale match just to its US offices despite being a NY-based international firm with US attorneys working in various overseas offices. Its Asian offices haven't yet matched the current NY scale even though some of them are much busier than its NY office. Terrible, abysmal hours. Associates in certain Asian offices drowning in work, dying. Still getting paid under the old DPW scale. Associates in a few offices even getting paid under the antiquated 180k scale. Hours suck everywhere but at least compensation has to be market-level. That's the only way biglaw works.

W&C

so go to a competitor. And if competitors are paying the same (or less), then I suppose your firm isn’t that cheap after all.

Obviously competitors pay better. You really should have assumed that. No sane person complains about comp when other firms in the same market pay the same or less. They pay the current US scale. Those other firms' raise announcements either explicitly included all or some of their overseas offices or mentioned that the raise applies to everyone currently on the US comp scale, instead of limiting the raise to "US associates." Hence the absurdity.

[Anonymous User]

My firm is so cheap that it limited its Cravath scale match just to its US offices despite being a NY-based international firm with US attorneys working in various overseas offices. Its Asian offices haven't yet matched the current NY scale even though some of them are much busier than its NY office. Terrible, abysmal hours. Associates in certain Asian offices drowning in work, dying. Still getting paid under the old DPW scale. Associates in a few offices even getting paid under the antiquated 180k scale. Hours suck everywhere but at least compensation has to be market-level. That's the only way biglaw works.

W&C

so go to a competitor. And if competitors are paying the same (or less), then I suppose your firm isn’t that cheap after all.

Obviously competitors pay better. You really should have assumed that. No sane person complains about comp when other firms in the same market pay the same or less. They pay the current US scale. Those other firms' raise announcements either explicitly included all or some of their overseas offices or mentioned that the raise applies to everyone currently on the US comp scale, instead of limiting the raise to "US associates." Hence the absurdity.

Isn't this just supply and demand? They are a massive number of qualified attorneys wanting to work in Asia, and quite reasonably that drives down the salary they can command?

[Anonymous User]

My firm is so cheap that it limited its Cravath scale match just to its US offices despite being a NY-based international firm with US attorneys working in various overseas offices. Its Asian offices haven't yet matched the current NY scale even though some of them are much busier than its NY office. Terrible, abysmal hours. Associates in certain Asian offices drowning in work, dying. Still getting paid under the old DPW scale. Associates in a few offices even getting paid under the antiquated 180k scale. Hours suck everywhere but at least compensation has to be market-level. That's the only way biglaw works.

W&C

so go to a competitor. And if competitors are paying the same (or less), then I suppose your firm isn’t that cheap after all.

Obviously competitors pay better. You really should have assumed that. No sane person complains about comp when other firms in the same market pay the same or less. They pay the current US scale. Those other firms' raise announcements either explicitly included all or some of their overseas offices or mentioned that the raise applies to everyone currently on the US comp scale, instead of limiting the raise to "US associates." Hence the absurdity.

Isn't this just supply and demand? They are a massive number of qualified attorneys wanting to work in Asia, and quite reasonably that drives down the salary they can command?

Would you say a significant majority of firms in your region pay current US scale for US-qualified lawyers?

[Anonymous User]

My firm is so cheap that it limited its Cravath scale match just to its US offices despite being a NY-based international firm with US attorneys working in various overseas offices. Its Asian offices haven't yet matched the current NY scale even though some of them are much busier than its NY office. Terrible, abysmal hours. Associates in certain Asian offices drowning in work, dying. Still getting paid under the old DPW scale. Associates in a few offices even getting paid under the antiquated 180k scale. Hours suck everywhere but at least compensation has to be market-level. That's the only way biglaw works.

W&C

so go to a competitor. And if competitors are paying the same (or less), then I suppose your firm isn’t that cheap after all.

Obviously competitors pay better. You really should have assumed that. No sane person complains about comp when other firms in the same market pay the same or less. They pay the current US scale. Those other firms' raise announcements either explicitly included all or some of their overseas offices or mentioned that the raise applies to everyone currently on the US comp scale, instead of limiting the raise to "US associates." Hence the absurdity.

Isn't this just supply and demand? They are a massive number of qualified attorneys wanting to work in Asia, and quite reasonably that drives down the salary they can command?

Would you say a significant majority of firms in your region pay current US scale for US-qualified lawyers?

Only peer firms are relevant. All peer firms in HK and Seoul pay the current US scale.

W&C's HK and Seoul offices will soon match though. It just won't make sense otherwise.

[Anonymous User]

They didn't give associates the non-free version of adobe pdf unless they begged and had a specific reason to use it. They refused to give summers adobe pdf, so as a summer associate I couldn't even OCR documents and had to read 300+ page deposition transcripts to find things without being able to control-f search. This was at Boies Schiller.

Wow. The other posts have been cheap, but this is idiotically cheap.

Penny wise, dollar stupid.

They're just billing out all that time it takes to review though...

Okay then. Dollar wise, ethics stupid.

Not that clients pay for summers, but I imagine at least some of their clients haven't been too keen on paying thousands of dollars for associate review of long PDFs.

Also former BSF associate here. It wasn't just the summers who did not get the full Adobe software suite, it was also full-time associates. We'd have to make a special plea and to get the license for the full software, otherwise the default was no associates get it, and you ask paralegals to do stuff that would require it. Of course, the firm had trouble recruiting decent paralegals too, so it was definitely a problem.

BSF in general was/is incredibly cheap on the day-to-day office and tech stuff (despite how swanky the Hudson Yards office is), and in theory the flip side is you get better bonuses at the end of the year. Of course, that also depends on if you get to work on a case with a bigtime partner's who's got enough work to keep you both busy and interested. Without both, it's a pretty easy burn-out environment.

[Anonymous User]

My firm is so cheap that it limited its Cravath scale match just to its US offices despite being a NY-based international firm with US attorneys working in various overseas offices. Its Asian offices haven't yet matched the current NY scale even though some of them are much busier than its NY office. Terrible, abysmal hours. Associates in certain Asian offices drowning in work, dying. Still getting paid under the old DPW scale. Associates in a few offices even getting paid under the antiquated 180k scale. Hours suck everywhere but at least compensation has to be market-level. That's the only way biglaw works.

W&C

so go to a competitor. And if competitors are paying the same (or less), then I suppose your firm isn’t that cheap after all.

Obviously competitors pay better. You really should have assumed that. No sane person complains about comp when other firms in the same market pay the same or less. They pay the current US scale. Those other firms' raise announcements either explicitly included all or some of their overseas offices or mentioned that the raise applies to everyone currently on the US comp scale, instead of limiting the raise to "US associates." Hence the absurdity.

Isn't this just supply and demand? They are a massive number of qualified attorneys wanting to work in Asia, and quite reasonably that drives down the salary they can command?

Supply and demand actually favor midlevels and seniors at a firm like W&C. In Asia, there aren't enough NY top firm-trained corporate midlevels and seniors relative to the huge demand for those associates. Given the small size of Asian offices (especially in small markets like Seoul), recruiting for midlevel or senior positions is super selective and partners often only want associates from top firms in major markets especially NY. To be able to retain and recruit such associates, comp has to always match.

[Bramwell]

My firm is so cheap that it limited its Cravath scale match just to its US offices despite being a NY-based international firm with US attorneys working in various overseas offices. Its Asian offices haven't yet matched the current NY scale even though some of them are much busier than its NY office. Terrible, abysmal hours. Associates in certain Asian offices drowning in work, dying. Still getting paid under the old DPW scale. Associates in a few offices even getting paid under the antiquated 180k scale. Hours suck everywhere but at least compensation has to be market-level. That's the only way biglaw works.

W&C

so go to a competitor. And if competitors are paying the same (or less), then I suppose your firm isn’t that cheap after all.

Obviously competitors pay better. You really should have assumed that. No sane person complains about comp when other firms in the same market pay the same or less. They pay the current US scale. Those other firms' raise announcements either explicitly included all or some of their overseas offices or mentioned that the raise applies to everyone currently on the US comp scale, instead of limiting the raise to "US associates." Hence the absurdity.

Isn't this just supply and demand? They are a massive number of qualified attorneys wanting to work in Asia, and quite reasonably that drives down the salary they can command?

Supply and demand actually favor midlevels and seniors at a firm like W&C. In Asia, there aren't enough NY top firm-trained corporate midlevels and seniors relative to the huge demand for those associates. Given the small size of Asian offices (especially in small markets like Seoul), recruiting for midlevel or senior positions is super selective and partners often only want associates from top firms in major markets especially NY. To be able to retain and recruit such associates, comp has to always match.

Maybe OP should interview at one or two of these other firms and perhaps pocket a signing bonus to boot.

[Anonymous User]

My firm is so cheap that it limited its Cravath scale match just to its US offices despite being a NY-based international firm with US attorneys working in various overseas offices. Its Asian offices haven't yet matched the current NY scale even though some of them are much busier than its NY office. Terrible, abysmal hours. Associates in certain Asian offices drowning in work, dying. Still getting paid under the old DPW scale. Associates in a few offices even getting paid under the antiquated 180k scale. Hours suck everywhere but at least compensation has to be market-level. That's the only way biglaw works.

W&C

so go to a competitor. And if competitors are paying the same (or less), then I suppose your firm isn’t that cheap after all.

Obviously competitors pay better. You really should have assumed that. No sane person complains about comp when other firms in the same market pay the same or less. They pay the current US scale. Those other firms' raise announcements either explicitly included all or some of their overseas offices or mentioned that the raise applies to everyone currently on the US comp scale, instead of limiting the raise to "US associates." Hence the absurdity.

Isn't this just supply and demand? They are a massive number of qualified attorneys wanting to work in Asia, and quite reasonably that drives down the salary they can command?

Supply and demand actually favor midlevels and seniors at a firm like W&C. In Asia, there aren't enough NY top firm-trained corporate midlevels and seniors relative to the huge demand for those associates. Given the small size of Asian offices (especially in small markets like Seoul), recruiting for midlevel or senior positions is super selective and partners often only want associates from top firms in major markets especially NY. To be able to retain and recruit such associates, comp has to always match.

Maybe OP should interview at one or two of these other firms and perhaps pocket a signing bonus to boot.

Yes. I started looking. As long as I'm open to switching markets as well, there are options.

[Anonymous User]

My firm is so cheap that it limited its Cravath scale match just to its US offices despite being a NY-based international firm with US attorneys working in various overseas offices. Its Asian offices haven't yet matched the current NY scale even though some of them are much busier than its NY office. Terrible, abysmal hours. Associates in certain Asian offices drowning in work, dying. Still getting paid under the old DPW scale. Associates in a few offices even getting paid under the antiquated 180k scale. Hours suck everywhere but at least compensation has to be market-level. That's the only way biglaw works.

W&C

so go to a competitor. And if competitors are paying the same (or less), then I suppose your firm isn’t that cheap after all.

Obviously competitors pay better. You really should have assumed that. No sane person complains about comp when other firms in the same market pay the same or less. They pay the current US scale. Those other firms' raise announcements either explicitly included all or some of their overseas offices or mentioned that the raise applies to everyone currently on the US comp scale, instead of limiting the raise to "US associates." Hence the absurdity.

Isn't this just supply and demand? They are a massive number of qualified attorneys wanting to work in Asia, and quite reasonably that drives down the salary they can command?

Supply and demand actually favor midlevels and seniors at a firm like W&C. In Asia, there aren't enough NY top firm-trained corporate midlevels and seniors relative to the huge demand for those associates. Given the small size of Asian offices (especially in small markets like Seoul), recruiting for midlevel or senior positions is super selective and partners often only want associates from top firms in major markets especially NY. To be able to retain and recruit such associates, comp has to always match.

Maybe OP should interview at one or two of these other firms and perhaps pocket a signing bonus to boot.

Update on White & Case's Asian offices. Recently, Hong Kong and Seoul offices of W&C matched the current US scale, retroactive to January 1st. Other Asian offices of the firm may have matched too, but I can't confirm with respect to the other offices.

[Anonymous User]

My firm is so cheap that it limited its Cravath scale match just to its US offices despite being a NY-based international firm with US attorneys working in various overseas offices. Its Asian offices haven't yet matched the current NY scale even though some of them are much busier than its NY office. Terrible, abysmal hours. Associates in certain Asian offices drowning in work, dying. Still getting paid under the old DPW scale. Associates in a few offices even getting paid under the antiquated 180k scale. Hours suck everywhere but at least compensation has to be market-level. That's the only way biglaw works.

W&C

so go to a competitor. And if competitors are paying the same (or less), then I suppose your firm isn’t that cheap after all.

Obviously competitors pay better. You really should have assumed that. No sane person complains about comp when other firms in the same market pay the same or less. They pay the current US scale. Those other firms' raise announcements either explicitly included all or some of their overseas offices or mentioned that the raise applies to everyone currently on the US comp scale, instead of limiting the raise to "US associates." Hence the absurdity.

Isn't this just supply and demand? They are a massive number of qualified attorneys wanting to work in Asia, and quite reasonably that drives down the salary they can command?

Supply and demand actually favor midlevels and seniors at a firm like W&C. In Asia, there aren't enough NY top firm-trained corporate midlevels and seniors relative to the huge demand for those associates. Given the small size of Asian offices (especially in small markets like Seoul), recruiting for midlevel or senior positions is super selective and partners often only want associates from top firms in major markets especially NY. To be able to retain and recruit such associates, comp has to always match.

Maybe OP should interview at one or two of these other firms and perhaps pocket a signing bonus to boot.

Update on White & Case's Asian offices. Recently, Hong Kong and Seoul offices of W&C matched the current US scale, retroactive to January 1st. Other Asian offices of the firm may have matched too, but I can't confirm with respect to the other offices.

Nice! do you know how much overseas stipend they give you for those cities?

[Anonymous User]

so go to a competitor. And if competitors are paying the same (or less), then I suppose your firm isn’t that cheap after all.

Obviously competitors pay better. You really should have assumed that. No sane person complains about comp when other firms in the same market pay the same or less. They pay the current US scale. Those other firms' raise announcements either explicitly included all or some of their overseas offices or mentioned that the raise applies to everyone currently on the US comp scale, instead of limiting the raise to "US associates." Hence the absurdity.

Isn't this just supply and demand? They are a massive number of qualified attorneys wanting to work in Asia, and quite reasonably that drives down the salary they can command?

Supply and demand actually favor midlevels and seniors at a firm like W&C. In Asia, there aren't enough NY top firm-trained corporate midlevels and seniors relative to the huge demand for those associates. Given the small size of Asian offices (especially in small markets like Seoul), recruiting for midlevel or senior positions is super selective and partners often only want associates from top firms in major markets especially NY. To be able to retain and recruit such associates, comp has to always match.

Maybe OP should interview at one or two of these other firms and perhaps pocket a signing bonus to boot.

Update on White & Case's Asian offices. Recently, Hong Kong and Seoul offices of W&C matched the current US scale, retroactive to January 1st. Other Asian offices of the firm may have matched too, but I can't confirm with respect to the other offices.

Nice! do you know how much overseas stipend they give you for those cities?

PM me.

[Anonymous User]

They didn't give associates the non-free version of adobe pdf unless they begged and had a specific reason to use it. They refused to give summers adobe pdf, so as a summer associate I couldn't even OCR documents and had to read 300+ page deposition transcripts to find things without being able to control-f search. This was at Boies Schiller.

Wow. The other posts have been cheap, but this is idiotically cheap.

Penny wise, dollar stupid.

They're just billing out all that time it takes to review though...

Okay then. Dollar wise, ethics stupid.

Not that clients pay for summers, but I imagine at least some of their clients haven't been too keen on paying thousands of dollars for associate review of long PDFs.

Also former BSF associate here. It wasn't just the summers who did not get the full Adobe software suite, it was also full-time associates. We'd have to make a special plea and to get the license for the full software, otherwise the default was no associates get it, and you ask paralegals to do stuff that would require it. Of course, the firm had trouble recruiting decent paralegals too, so it was definitely a problem.

BSF in general was/is incredibly cheap on the day-to-day office and tech stuff (despite how swanky the Hudson Yards office is), and in theory the flip side is you get better bonuses at the end of the year. Of course, that also depends on if you get to work on a case with a bigtime partner's who's got enough work to keep you both busy and interested. Without both, it's a pretty easy burn-out environment.

Can confirm BSF did not give all full time associates adobe pro. For reasons unknown, it actually did come for me on my laptop, and I became a resource for other associates who did not have it when they needed an emergency PDF combination or the like.

[Anonymous User]

This is savage. My heart goes out to you.

[Anonymous User]

They didn't give associates the non-free version of adobe pdf unless they begged and had a specific reason to use it. They refused to give summers adobe pdf, so as a summer associate I couldn't even OCR documents and had to read 300+ page deposition transcripts to find things without being able to control-f search. This was at Boies Schiller.

Wow. The other posts have been cheap, but this is idiotically cheap.

Penny wise, dollar stupid.

They're just billing out all that time it takes to review though...

Okay then. Dollar wise, ethics stupid.

Not that clients pay for summers, but I imagine at least some of their clients haven't been too keen on paying thousands of dollars for associate review of long PDFs.

Also former BSF associate here. It wasn't just the summers who did not get the full Adobe software suite, it was also full-time associates. We'd have to make a special plea and to get the license for the full software, otherwise the default was no associates get it, and you ask paralegals to do stuff that would require it. Of course, the firm had trouble recruiting decent paralegals too, so it was definitely a problem.

BSF in general was/is incredibly cheap on the day-to-day office and tech stuff (despite how swanky the Hudson Yards office is), and in theory the flip side is you get better bonuses at the end of the year. Of course, that also depends on if you get to work on a case with a bigtime partner's who's got enough work to keep you both busy and interested. Without both, it's a pretty easy burn-out environment.

Can confirm BSF did not give all full time associates adobe pro. For reasons unknown, it actually did come for me on my laptop, and I became a resource for other associates who did not have it when they needed an emergency PDF combination or the like.

I mean, this is legitimately insane. Wouldn't you just call up David Boies at some point and be like "Davey, pal, on behalf of every associate here, we want to tell you something."

[Anonymous User]

Wow. The other posts have been cheap, but this is idiotically cheap.

Penny wise, dollar stupid.

They're just billing out all that time it takes to review though...

Okay then. Dollar wise, ethics stupid.

Not that clients pay for summers, but I imagine at least some of their clients haven't been too keen on paying thousands of dollars for associate review of long PDFs.

Also former BSF associate here. It wasn't just the summers who did not get the full Adobe software suite, it was also full-time associates. We'd have to make a special plea and to get the license for the full software, otherwise the default was no associates get it, and you ask paralegals to do stuff that would require it. Of course, the firm had trouble recruiting decent paralegals too, so it was definitely a problem.

BSF in general was/is incredibly cheap on the day-to-day office and tech stuff (despite how swanky the Hudson Yards office is), and in theory the flip side is you get better bonuses at the end of the year. Of course, that also depends on if you get to work on a case with a bigtime partner's who's got enough work to keep you both busy and interested. Without both, it's a pretty easy burn-out environment.

Can confirm BSF did not give all full time associates adobe pro. For reasons unknown, it actually did come for me on my laptop, and I became a resource for other associates who did not have it when they needed an emergency PDF combination or the like.

I mean, this is legitimately insane. Wouldn't you just call up David Boies at some point and be like "Davey, pal, on behalf of every associate here, we want to tell you something."

He's too busy doing interviews and legal journal cover stories trying to rehab his reputation through Me Too litigation.

[Anonymous User]

My firm provides daily free coffee (coffee bar + bottled caffeine), breakfast, vending machines with farmer's fridge meals, normal vending machines on every floor, lunch, and alcohol (full bar in the cafe in the building - free). Yet, while my friends at V50 firms received super nice swag as gifts for accepting their summer offers, Kirkland gave us popcorn (sugarwish) and a plastic mug.

I'm not sincerely upset or miffed at this. It just made me chuckle because they are all about the perks and IMO are pretty underwhelming when it comes to summer swag.

[Anonymous User]

My sv facing firm won't cover summer associate dinners. So there's no dinners for summers with associates or partners. Nuts.

[Anonymous User]

My sv facing firm won't cover summer associate dinners. So there's no dinners for summers with associates or partners. Nuts.

Can you name the firm? That's the point of this thread.

[Anonymous User]

My firm (a V20 in DC) has not had a single firmwide or even office-wide off-site event since the pandemic, even since we implemented a hybrid RTO in February. Not even dinners or events at people's homes for practice groups. There was no holiday party/function or anything since. There have been one or two happy hours in the office, and a handful of catered lunches in the office for select practice groups, and that's it. The summer program allows for summer lunches at restaurants, but very little in the way of actual events open to associates outside of the office.

I get that we are still in a pandemic and some folks (especially those with children <5, until this week) have legitimate reasons to not want to socialize indoors, but for the many associates who would, this is starting to feel like an excuse to be mad cheap.

[Anonymous User]

O'Melveny NY is catering lunch to the office for summer associates, and charging regular associates and counsel $10 per lunch if they choose to join the summers.

[jbagelboy]

O'Melveny NY is catering lunch to the office for summer associates, and charging regular associates and counsel $10 per lunch if they choose to join the summers.

That's f*** bananas

[peoplearehungry]

O'Melveny NY is catering lunch to the office for summer associates, and charging regular associates and counsel $10 per lunch if they choose to join the summers.

This is bad. Like, so bad that I would never consider working there because if they are cheap like this on something so small, there's no telling what else they would stiff you on. Sooooo shortsighted of the firm. smh

[jsnow212]

O'Melveny NY is catering lunch to the office for summer associates, and charging regular associates and counsel $10 per lunch if they choose to join the summers.

This can't be real. It's just so...trashy.

[LBJ's Hair]

O'Melveny NY is catering lunch to the office for summer associates, and charging regular associates and counsel $10 per lunch if they choose to join the summers.

I would start looking for another job immediately that is comical

[Yea All Right]

BSF and O'Melveny to V200.