Regional newly qualified lawyer salaries cut
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Trainee solicitors qualifying in the regions are facing lighter pay packets this year after their salaries have been slashed in response to the recession.
One of the hardest hit has been newly qualified (NQ) lawyers at Hammonds who will see their pay shrink by 15 per cent from £40,000 to £34,000.
HR manager Issy Freeman said: “The reduction in pay is due to the external market conditions we’re seeing at the moment.”
Addleshaw Goddard has also reported a drop in its regional salary rates, with NQs in its Manchester and Leeds offices pocketing nine per cent less than they did in the previous year. NQs will now take home £36,500 per annum compared to £40,000 they got in 2008.
Bristol-based Burges Salmon, meanwhile, has reported a 7 per cent drop in salaries, from £43,000 in 2008 to £40,000 this year.
NQs at Leeds-based Walker Morris will see a 5 per fall in pay and will take home £38,000 rather than £40,000.
The news comes after trainee solicitors and NQ lawyers across London have been hit with pay freezes as law firms attempt to claw back overheads.
Readers' comments (4)
Razvan | 6-Aug-2009 2:06 pm
it seems to me the next logical step for firms to take in the current climate of uncertainty.
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Fulci | 7-Aug-2009 11:21 am
Oh these poor NQs, how could you possibly survive on £34k? Will the bank even know when their salary comes in or will they just think that tiny little amount coming in was caused by a misplaced digit?
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HootsMon | 10-Aug-2009 3:58 pm
I don't know about anyone else, but I'd have stayed on at my training firm with absolutely no wage increase from trainee to NQ if that were possible. Sadly that wasn't an option on the table!
Right now keeping a job (and PQE) at all trumps whatever the salary may be.
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Anonymous | 2-Sep-2009 10:18 am
At least these guys have jobs... if someone had told me when I began studying law 6 years ago that I would be in receipt of JSA in the same month I am admitted as a solicitor, I would never have believed them! Bitter, moi?
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