BLG announces inflation-busting salary hikes
Barlow Lyde & Gilbert (BLG) ignored the credit crunch and boosted its trainee solicitor salaries by above the rate inflation.
BLG has upped first year trainee salaries by £4,000 from £32,000 to £36,000. For second year trainees wages have jumped by 11.4 per cent from £35,000 to £39,000, while newly-qualified (NQ) pay is up from £58,000 to £61,000.
BLG chief executive Clint Evans said the salary increases are to ensure the firm remains competitive. “We aim to be as competitive as we can and the rises reflect our competitiveness for new talent,” said Evans.
The salary hikes come at the same time as BLG’s decision to increase maintenance grants for both the Legal Practice Course (LPC) and the Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL).
The GDL grant has increased by £400 to £7,000, while the LPC payment has been upped from £6,000 to £7,000. According to the Lawyer2B.com salary index most of the larger City law firms’ maintenance grants for the LPC and GDL are between £7,000 and £8,000.
BLG has bucked the recent trend for law firms to freeze their NQ salaries. As Lawyer2B.com revealed (11 August Travers Smith was the latest firm to keep its salaries static following in the footsteps of Eversheds (Lawyer2B.com, 30 July
Herbert Smith and Olswang, however, backtracked on their salary freezes following their rivals upping associate and trainee wages (Lawyer2B.com, 19 June
To compare trainee and NQ salaries at all the top firms, see the Lawyer2B salary index
