Magic circle split as Clifford Chance follows Freshfields on associate pay
Clifford Chance has followed magic circle rival Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer by announcing small hikes in associate salaries.
David Bickerton
The firm has raised bands for associates with one, two and three years’ post-qualification experience (PQE) but has frozen pay levels for trainees and newly qualifieds (NQs). All juniors, including second-year trainees and NQs, will receive a pay rise by dint of moving up to the next pay band.
The move follows that of Freshfields, which last month boosted junior pay scales and allowed band progression (19 May 2011).
Magic circle rivals Allen & Overy and Linklaters took a different approach, freezing pay bands but allowing band progression (16 May 2011).
At Clifford Chance, lawyers with one-year’s PQE will see their pay band rise by £500 to £68,500. They will have the opportunity to boost this to as much as £89,050 if they receive an additional bonus.
Those on the two-year PQE salary rung come off best, with that pay scale rising from £72,250 to £75,000, which becomes £97,500 if the full bonus is paid. Third-year PQE salaries are up from £84,500 to £85,500, rising to £111,150 on payment of the maximum bonus.
First-year trainee salaries have been frozen at £38,000 while the salary of a second -year trainee remains unchanged at £43,000.
London managing partner David Bickerton said: “The London office has been busy, our business has grown and our associates deserve to be well rewarded.”
| Magic circle associate salaries | ||||||||
| Firm | NQ 2010-11 | NQ 2011-12 | 1PQE 2010-11 | 1PQE 2011-12 | 2PQE 2010-11 | 2PQE 2011-12 | 3PQE 2010-11 | 3PQE 2011-12 |
| Allen & Overy | £61,000 | £61,000 | £68,000 | £68,000 | £74,000 | £74,000 | £85,000 | £85,000 |
| Clifford Chance (excludes bonuses) | £61,500 | £61,500 | £68,000 | £68,500 | £72,250 | £75,000 | £84,500 | £85,500 |
| Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer | £60,000 | £61,500 | £68,000 | £69,500 | £75,000 | £77,000 | £86,000 | £88,000 |
| Linklaters | £61,500 | £61,500 | £68,000 | £68,000 | £73,000 | £73,000 | £85,000 | £85,000 |
Readers' comments (19)
Anonymous | 7-Jun-2011 2:15 pm
why is the lawyer just focussing on magic circle pay rises? what about the rest of the top 10/20? It makes for more interesting reading when you compare a larger group of firms....
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Anonymous | 7-Jun-2011 3:13 pm
Are these pay rises annual or bi-annual and do they even outstrip inflation? What was the recent average bonus of a PQE 2, 3, ... associate and how realistic is it for a junior associate to expect a 20k "full bonus", and what does she have to do for it?
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Anonymous | 7-Jun-2011 6:05 pm
Please reference the source of the data. It would be interesting to see the same for the Top 20 (I do get fed up with the narrow focus on magic circle) as well as above 3PQE.
The salaries look surprising similar at these firms and I wonder if their rates and utilisation are also so uniform accross these grades!
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Ashley Balls | 7-Jun-2011 10:44 pm
How unfortunate to see the scale of the bonus that may be paid. Not only is it coungter-intuitive it is not supported by empirical evidence. Research from the 1980s right up to teh present day clearly shows teh disruption that can occur when bonus payments make up such a significant portion of pay. Employees focus on those elements connected to bonus payments and client relationships suffer and employment stability falls. Just look at the banking sector to see what a mess can develop. This is not a wise move and it begs the question; why not use a good employment agreement and appraisal process to drive performance?
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Anonymous | 8-Jun-2011 9:51 am
The PQE model is bizarre. Why should salaries increase just because you've sat behind a desk for a year? More experience doesn't equate to being better. Salaries should only be on performance.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Anonymous | 8-Jun-2011 9:56 am
are you being dumb, 9.51am? More experience does equate to being better. It might not increase your natural intuitive ability, but you certainly do things quicker and become more aware of the issues that your clients are facing and ways of dealing with them.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Behind Bars | 8-Jun-2011 10:16 am
A little perpective please. MPs salaries are currently £65738, frozen from 2010.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Anonymous | 8-Jun-2011 10:53 am
please show me a meaningful selection of CC associates who have ever been paid a bonus of almost £25k before factoring this in total comp!
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Anonymous | 8-Jun-2011 11:36 am
Anonymous | 8-Jun-2011 9:51 am, what are you on about? Trainees start at CC with zero legal experience (hence the need to train). They then gain more experience over their years with the firm (that's why most trainees go there I imagine). Experience will generally make them better lawyers (do you seriously disagree with that?). Sure, there will be some divergence as to how quickly they improve (depending on their particular ability and experiences), but in general they will get better. This won't necessarily hold true for the entirety of their careers, but for those early years (and trainees probably only stay at CC for 4 - 6 yrs on average anyway), they will get better as their PQE increases. If they do not get better then they will be made to realise that CC is not for them. And if they do nothing but sit at their desk year after year then this will happen very quickly...
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Anthony | 8-Jun-2011 12:10 pm
"A little perpective please. MPs salaries are currently £65738, frozen from 2010."
We're talking about people who actually work for a living, not tax-consumers.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Hugey | 8-Jun-2011 12:29 pm
All about the notes.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Anonymous | 8-Jun-2011 1:30 pm
No, 9.56am, I'm not. You could have someone who's 2 years PQE who has a greater understanding of the issues that clients face and be able to offer a better service and insight than someone with 3 or 4 PQE. Sure, experience in itself may be an improvement, but it should not be the overriding measure of remmuneration. A far better system would be to ditch PQE banding completely, and instead have a career structure that looks at a variety of factors (client service, technical knowledge, business development etc.) and be completely merit based. Being "generally better" by doing your job for another year should not result in a salary jump of £8k.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Anonymous | 8-Jun-2011 2:52 pm
Support staff increases hit a whopping 1.5% at CC this year. Of course, inflation only impacts on lawyers.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Anonymous | 8-Jun-2011 3:49 pm
Yes, 1:30pm, you are.
Sure, you *could* have "someone who's 2 years PQE who has a greater understanding of the issues that clients face and be able to offer a better service and insight than someone with 3 or 4 PQE". But on average (and I would suggest in the vast majority of cases) that won't be how things are.
More importantly, how would you suggest law firms go about comparing the relative merits of their lawyers if they ignore PQE? They'll be doing different work, in different areas, for different clients and with different levels of responsibility (eg comparing a senior associate in finance with a junior in real estate). Despite the best efforts of the HR folk, I've never seen any set of objective appraisal criteria that could adequately distinguish the relative performance of two different lawyers of the same PQE, never mind different PQEs.
The reality is that appraisals in our profession inevitably involve a lot of subjective judgments, and it is better if those subjective judgments aren't the sole determinant of remuneration. That's why firms focus primarily on PQE when setting salaries, but then use their appraisal processes to fine tune the remuneration and to give the lawyers in question a feel for whether they are doing well/badly relative to their their level of experience (and hence whether the firm will want to keep them for the longer term).
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Anonymous | 8-Jun-2011 4:59 pm
The real news is being missed here... the MC and Silver Cirule are falling behind in terms of pay and resting on their laurels, while others push forward.
Other firms in the Silver Circle are not moving their NQs up to 1 PQE until 18 months PQE (I have heard that this is the case at Herbert Smith and some MC firms).
Take Watson, Farley & Williams for example (also on the front page today, I see), their September 2011 NQs are being paid £62k, while their 6 month PQEs are paid £67k at the moment.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Anonymous | 8-Jun-2011 5:25 pm
Anonymous 4.59pm is on the right lines here but I would say that it is the legal profession as a whole that is now falling behind on salaries (excluding partners). There are very very many jobs out there now paying more. Mid ranking researchers are on 100K plus, GPs are on 150K plus, dentists 200K plus. The gap between partners and associates has never been greater.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Anonymous | 8-Jun-2011 5:56 pm
@5:25pm
Don't believe all the GP bashing the Government are so keen on. The average earnings of a GP partner are 110k, a salaried GP is about 74k. Their wages are not relative to London, either; the highest earning GP was in the Outer Hebrides.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
John Tomlinson | 15-Jun-2011 9:02 am
It would be interesting to know the amount they get paid on a per hour basis
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment
Anonymous | 24-Jun-2011 5:06 pm
Agreed with Anonymous | 8-Jun-2011 10:53 am. I haven't heard of any NQs getting bonuses in CC, much less the generous £10K that was implied in this article.
Unsuitable or offensive? Report this comment