Bingham shocks market with NQ salary of £100K
Bingham has emerged as one of the most generous US firms in London, paying its newly qualified (NQ) lawyers a salary of £100,000.
Natasha Harrison
The Boston-based firm topped the first-ever US salary survey carried out by The Lawyer’s sister publication Lawyer 2B.
The findings highlight the continuing gulf between the wages paid at leading City firms and those at their US rivals, even though some US firms, including New York’s Weil Gotshal & Manges, have slashed their salaries recently.
Lawyer 2B surveyed 23 US firms that offer training contracts in London. Latham & Watkins, Debevoise & Plimpton, Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom, Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton and Kirkland & Ellis pay NQs £96,000, £94,250, £94,000, £92,000 and £90,000 respectively.
In contrast, magic circle NQ salaries range from £59,000 to £61,000.
Graduate recruitment partner at Bingham Natasha Harrison said: “We want to recruit the top talent and have therefore set our pay at a competitive rate to secure the best.”
The firm, which typically hires two trainees a year, denied that it sets chargeable hours targets for NQs and first- and second-year trainees, who get £40,000 and £45,000 respectively.
One graduate recruitment partner at a rival US firm in London slammed Bingham for setting its NQ rate so high.
“I don’t think it can be sustainable,” he said. “Even if Bingham isn’t setting targets for trainees and NQs the sub-context points to this. You simply can’t pay NQs £100,000 unless you charge an outrageously high hourly rate or they’re clocking up lots of hours.”
Another graduate recruitment partner concurred, arguing that no firm can justify such a high salary.
“It’s ridiculous,” said the partner. “Whenever a candidate mentions pay during an interview it makes me want to puke.
“Salary isn’t really an influential factor for the really good candidates, who are after the best-quality training.”
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Readers' comments (40)
LawyerNot2b | 15-Feb-2010 11:48 am
£100,000 is just ridiculous. My nephew qualified as a doctor last Autumn and is earning £35,000...at least he's saving people's lives. What are Bingham associates doing for the good of the public?
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IHateBPP | 15-Feb-2010 11:48 am
Salary is a consideration for every candidate to varying degrees, as is the quality of training, prospects of retention and all the other usual considerations.
To suggest that someone doesn't care about salary if they're well trained is ridiculous.
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Underpaid | 15-Feb-2010 12:29 pm
Does it matter? It's Bingham's money and if they want to spend it on higher salaries then let them. Pay must be related to profitability somewhere along the line and the fact US firms pay so much more indicates that they are better at squaring their figures than UK firms. UK firms are getting left behind and when/if the market picks up they will need to think hard about trying to bridge the gap or risk losing talent to credible US firms who are now establishing their brands in London and other key financial centres outside of the states. I do agree with the post about doctors earning less and it being unfair, however the salaries of medical professionals have never been a determining factor of private practice pay and I suspect that that will continue to remain the case!
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Anonymous | 15-Feb-2010 12:58 pm
A doctor's wage has nothing to do with what an associate is paid. People choose what career they want to embark on, and if one's choice pays less well then they can live with that having researched their options before hand. Anyway, thousands of people want to be doctors and can't because they don't have the ability; there's more to the role than cash and so the comment above is just a pointless and irrelevant attack. If £100k is too much then somewhere down the line it will show.
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HGR | 15-Feb-2010 2:48 pm
ching ching wid me
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Anonymous | 15-Feb-2010 3:04 pm
Who cares how much they want to pay?
And yohoho to the partner that wants to 'puke'.
Presumably he's just on day release from the monastery and doesn't except anything but donations to the churchmouse cheese fund for his 4000hrs a year...
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Anonymous | 15-Feb-2010 3:15 pm
"expect", obviously.
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mags to riches | 15-Feb-2010 3:39 pm
@ LawyerNot2b: "good of the public"? Srsly, what planet? Public's not paying Binghams, so why populist outrage? Not dissin' your nephew, but my couz is a doc and he gets plenty more wedge than that. If youre offended at big money for socially-useless old rope, take a look at bonuses paid by financial institutions operating in system that our tax-moolah props up.
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Mr Grumpy | 15-Feb-2010 4:02 pm
Calm down, calm down
Binghams have two trainees pa. Overpaying them represents good marketing as being the top paying firm.
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GBone | 15-Feb-2010 4:21 pm
“Salary isn’t really an influential factor for the really good candidates, who are after the best-quality training.”
Sure mate, keep telling yourself that.
“It’s ridiculous,” said the partner. “Whenever a candidate mentions pay during an interview it makes me want to puke.
Me too.
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Clergham | 15-Feb-2010 4:26 pm
I guess if they have two NQs doing the work of 6 at a normal firm then fair dos.
I don't believe any 24 yr old is worth 100k, however.
Maybe R Patz. No one else.
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Big Dave | 15-Feb-2010 4:40 pm
“It’s ridiculous,” said the partner. “Whenever a candidate mentions pay during an interview it makes me want to puke.
“Salary isn’t really an influential factor for the really good candidates, who are after the best-quality training.”
Is he a wind-up?
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Anonymous | 15-Feb-2010 4:46 pm
In that case the ideal strategy would have been to:
1. Announce NEW trainee salaries of X where X is any unreasonable number (120K? 150K?...)
2. Later make a small and much less publicized announcement that no NEW trainees are to be taken in - crisis, y'know!
Bingo. Free publicity.
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Anonymous | 15-Feb-2010 5:33 pm
QUOTE: “It’s ridiculous,” said the partner. “Whenever a candidate mentions pay during an interview it makes me want to puke.
“Salary isn’t really an influential factor for the really good candidates, who are after the best-quality training.”
What planet is this guy on? Who associates the name of a firm with the "quality of their training"? In any case, how do you determine who a good trainer is/isn't?
Regional firms tend to give the best training so if that person is right, no-one would go to the city at all!
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Anonymous | 15-Feb-2010 5:37 pm
“It’s ridiculous,” said the partner. “Whenever a candidate mentions pay during an interview it makes me want to puke.
“Salary isn’t really an influential factor for the really good candidates, who are after the best-quality training.”
Is this a joke? If they're so confident of the "quality" of their training, perhaps they should pay 50% of what the other firms do and see who bites!
Presumably this is the party-line for that firm to grossly under pay its fee earners - "we give you quality training, you don't need the cash"!
Surely that's a reason to take the training then bugger off to a better paid job, genius!
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Anonymous | 15-Feb-2010 5:52 pm
Only £100k after years of training and presumably being top of the crop?
In London that's a pathetic salary these days. Chums of mine younger than 24 are earning two and three times that much.
Who'd be a lawyer - crap money, hated by everyone, and they presumably have to work hard as well!
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britomart | 15-Feb-2010 6:09 pm
@underpaid: you're not seeing it from the client's point of view. Bingham are paying 100k out of billings. How many clients are going to be happy with that?
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Eat the Rich | 15-Feb-2010 6:29 pm
Good stuff - share the wealth - better to reward the young talent coming through than rewarding the lock step dinosaurs and right place right time merchants who bring little to the party
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Live life to the full... | 15-Feb-2010 6:36 pm
I don't mind admitting that I'm envious of the wage of my contemporaries at Bingham's, who probably achieved similar academic results to me. Are they worth it? Probably not; it takes more than 6 months of photocopying documents in any given department to prove that you're worth that sort of wage.
Regardless of my envy at the figure, I would still be reluctant to sign away my life and work in London even for double the wage. A top regional firm in a great city such as Bristol, Cambridge etc offering a great work-life balance is a fantastic lure in itself. Personally, I'd rather earn a lesser primary wage, earn supplementary money through more enjoyable avenues during my spare time and live an extra 10 years.
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Anonymous | 15-Feb-2010 8:59 pm
They're representing your nephew when he is negligent and saving him from losing his license to practice medicine. They're also advocates for people whose lives AREN'T saved as a result of medical negligence.
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