<p>The following are some exerpts from an article in the Legal Times:</p>
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WASHINGTON - Nearly a year ago, Williams & Connolly defied the economys gravity and pushed first-year associate salaries to $180,000certainly the highest starting pay for a big D.C. firm and above the rates paid by many New York players.</p>
<p>If recent history is any guide, an increase like that is usually the kind of thing that sends firms scrambling to catch up. But instead of triggering another salary boomone that might have pushed first-year associate pay through the $200,000 barrierthe Williams & Connolly increase appears to have ended a three-year salary streak for Big Law associates.</p>
<p>Pay, top partners say, is going to hold steady for a whileparticularly as firms grapple with fallout from the Wall Street tumult. I dont anticipate any jumps this year. I just dont see it happening, says Richard Wiley, managing partner of Wiley Rein. If anything, associates may have to work harder for their money. Legal consultants predict a sharp drop in profits for many firms over the next year, and with associate pay hikes adding costs to the bottom line, partners are going to be pushing harder for more hours.
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Meanwhile, a few firms are moving away from lockstep associate pay. At McGuireWoods, the firm is phasing in a system of paying market rate for the first two years, and then setting pay based on performance. Theres a difference between someone who is doing just OK and someone who is doing really great work and that difference is not just a couple of thousand dollars, says Thomas Cabaniss, managing partner of McGuireWoods.</p>
<p>Howrey, too, is retooling its pay system. As The American Lawyer reported in August, the firm, beginning in January 2009, will create a model that will attribute salary increases to performance. Robert Ruyak, Howreys managing partner, said last week that associates at Howrey who do not meet the firms 1,950 billable-hour requirement will first be counseled by the firm. Then, he says, if performance doesnt improve, the firms recruiters will help them find another place thats a better fit.
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The increase in associate pay added $1 billion to firm overhead in 2007, according to The American Lawyer. Still, the magazine reports, that was less than 1 percent of the overall gross of the Am Law 200. In fact, associates had been billing at a far healthier pacewhich helped the bottom line considerably. At firms like Covington & Burling and McKenna Long & Aldridge, associates added an average of 200 more hours per year from 2003 to 2007, and Shearman & Sterling associates put an average of 400 more hours on the books, according to The American Lawyers annual survey of mid-level associates, published in August.</p>
<p>With those kinds of numbers, the market is paying more for that talent, says Bobby Burchfield, the co-managing partner of McDermott Will & Emerys D.C. office. Firms are buyers in a market where great talent is scarce.</p>
<p>But the new paradox for associates is that theyre going to be under increasing pressure to bill more at a time when work is far more scarce.</p>
<p>Thats not an attractive proposition to some. They are already struggling to find ways to balance the new billable-hour requirements and meet expectations, and firms acknowledge the hours arent for everyone. D.C.s Sterne, Kessler, Goldstein & Fox increased billable hours from 1,850 to 1,900 in 2000. Cynthia Bouchez, a sixth-year associate with the firm, says Sterne started putting more pressure on associates to bill more hours at higher rates in recent years. The increase forced associates to become more efficient and do more in less time, Bouchez says. It really squeezed associates.</p>
<p>The firm introduced a program in 2005 to offer more work-life flexibility, which allows associates such as Bouchez to set a lower target for billable hours (Bouchezs is 1,700 hours). Associates in the program make proportionately less money, which Bouchez says is a sacrifice, but it gives me a better balance of work and a life.
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Clients, however, may have the biggest impact on how firms proceed on the pay front. Corporate Executive Board corporate counsel Pamela Auerbach, a former partner with Kirkland & Ellis, uses that firm and several others, including Arent Fox and Covington & Burling, as outside counsel. She says she requests that first- and second-years are not staffed to work on CEB mattersusually corporate governance issues, securities work, and employment. These are all things where you have to actually know something to provide advice, Auerbach says. Frankly, for my matters, first- and second-years just dont bring enough value to the table.
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<p>how in general are lawyers doing with the way the current economy is? Are a lot of them getting laid off?</p>
<p>Also, how would one go about practicing law internationally, especially if they have a JD from a US school? Working in another country has been appealing to me, and with the way the economy is going, it might be wise as well. I’m particularly interested in the emerging markets, like the BRIC nations.</p>
<p>An acquantaince gave me unsubstantiated third-hand accounts of biglaw associates having sleepless nights due to job-security worries. On top of the sleepless nights forced by billing quota, for some there’s the looming prospect of being let go after less than 2 years.</p>
<p>Of course, I’d rather hear from the board regulars about this.</p>
glame
January 1, 2009, 10:43pm
5
<p>Even if those stories are unsubstantiated, the general state of the economy makes me glad that I am an undergraduate freshman and I have time for the economy to rebound. Although, the prospects of finding a summer job relevant to the field of labor law have dampened.</p>
<p>I am too very fortunate that I am still only a senior in high school and I have time (7years haha) for the economy to start doing well again</p>