Kirkland & Ellis has now confirmed that its associates in the UK will be brought onto its new US pay scale, with NQ lawyers at the firm’s London office now set to receive an annual base salary of £124,000 to match the salaries of first-year associates in its New York office, for whom the base salary has just been hiked from $160,000 to $180,000 per year. The associate pay rise – Kirkland’s first since 2007 – is designed to match the pay scale template unveiled by Cravath Swaine & Moore on Tuesday this week, which has left the most prestigious firms in the US scrambling to keep their remuneration competitive in a tough talent market. Kirkland’s new UK pay scale rises in increments for each year of PQE experience that match its US pay brackets and reaches £280,000 per year for a sixth-year associate.
Freshfields follows in the US
International firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has also confirmed that it plans to match Cravath’s new associate pay scale for its lawyers in the United States. As at Cravath, Freshfields will start first-year associates on an annual salary of $180,000, a pay increase of around $20,000 on last year’s salaries, with pay packets stepping up to $325,000 for those with nine or more years’ experience. However, Freshfields will not be passing on the new base salaries to its UK associates. The firm unveiled its own new pay scale for juniors this side of the Atlantic last month, which placed the annual salary for NQ lawyers at between £85,000 and £97,000 per year.
Sources: Lawyer2B; Legal Week; Legal Business
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