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)
Dave | 22-Feb-2010 7:09 pm
"In London that's a pathetic salary these days. Chums of mine younger than 24 are earning two and three times that much."
No they're not. Which profession is routinely paying 23-year-olds £300,000? There aren't any. This is always as ridiculous as that partner who thinks his best applicants aren't in it for the money. Ha ha ha.
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Grad rec partner | 23-Feb-2010 8:49 pm
Isn't partners' every waking minute devoted to thinking about how they can increase PEP? What are we supposed to conclude from this - that it is perfectly OK (and indeed desirable) for partners to try and maximise their take, but if any assistant wants to do the same, that's grounds for puking?
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Anonymous | 25-Feb-2010 4:19 pm
I understand the cynicism of eg GBone but it is misplaced . I took a trainee position as a step on the career ladder and not because of the money which never came into it , That will come if you are good and anyway all salaries , certainly in the City , are high compared to many other jobs. Training and prospects and enjoying the work you are going to be doing for a long time ( you hope ) will always be more important than money . When starting off you simply need enough to get by and job fulfillment.
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Anonymous | 26-Feb-2010 11:19 am
Why doesn't anyone report on the massive cost of living allowances that some US firms pay out to their US associates. Firms like Cravath, Simpson Thacher and Sullivan and Cromwell pay £40,000 a year COLA. This is on top of the $160,000 (converted) that they pay as salary. A NQ US associate can get paid as much as £140,000.
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Anonymous | 25-Mar-2010 9:40 am
LawyerNot2b: surely a NQ doctor is NOT "saving people's lives"... perhaps some stitches on a child's elbow?
No firm gives away any monies for free. If Bingham pays this to its NQ it must think it pairs to the value they add (or rather, the valuke it can extract from them) for its clients.
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Anonymous | 1-Jun-2010 4:30 pm
As a 15 PQE solicitor in the provinces with 4 years of Magic Circle mid-level experience and earning less than a Bingham NQ all I can say is "gizzajob".
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David Ufuoma Omamogho | 1-Jun-2010 10:12 pm
Bingham know something the profession is yet to grasp, it puts a high worth on people and there is a paradoxical principle;
The more you give the more you get;
Watch this space;
Bingham to borrow a phrase"gizzajob.
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Rural bliss | 1-Jun-2010 11:31 pm
Just reading the above makes me so glad I no longer work in a large London firm. The main reason I left was their sick obsession with money and their perceived status.
I have never come across such a greedy, self-serving bunch of excuses for humanity, and many of the above posters seem to be of the same species.
And to the moron who twitters about his 24 year old chums earning multiples of £100k I would apply the soubriquet "A man who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing".
Pathetic. No wonder the general public detests lawyers.
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paul | 1-Jan-2011 10:24 pm
your doctor nephew did five years of multiple choice exams to earn 35k. Try doing a three year law degree with intense 3 hour long exams.Then a year of law school with around 15 exams. Then a two year training contract during which you work long hours and do demeaning work. You simply cannot compare a mere doctor to a lawyer.
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Anonymous | 20-Apr-2013 9:30 am
How can people say this is unsustainable? At £250 per hour the NQ only needs to work 400 hours a year I justify there sart, and not only will they be working more than that, the charge out rate will no doubt be more - bizarre comments on here
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