Weil Gotshal & Manges’ City arm has become the latest law firm to take the axe to its newly qualified (NQ) salaries.
Weil Gotshal & Manges’ City arm has become the latest law firm to take the axe to its newly qualified (NQ) salaries.
Trainee solicitors due to qualify with the US firm in September 2009 will see their pay reduced by 5.6 per cent from £90,000 to £85,000.
Salaries for all other associates will be frozen, meaning those who qualified in September 2008 will have their pay frozen at £90,000 while March 2008 qualifiers will continue to receive £92,500. Trainee salaries were excluded from this pay review.
Lawyers with two years post qualification experience will also have their salary band frozen at between £90,000 to £98,000.
Weil Gotshal is one of the most generous employers in London in terms of salaries but its decision to reduce NQ pay will create a bigger gap between it and rival US firm Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, which has decided to leave its NQ salary unchanged at £92,000.
Standing at £96,970, Latham & Watkins’ NQ salary is believed to be the highest in London.
Readers' comments (61)
playftseforme | 7-Jul-2009 11:57 am
Disappointed, the market determines BA cabin crew salaries too. If you don't like the market, go and live on a small island in the Pacific. Your Chancery Lane address suggests, however, that you're taking your chances with capitalism. Sorry it isn't working out for you.
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Political Realist | 7-Jul-2009 12:07 pm
@Anonymous, 11.45 am
There may be a difference in how immediately US clients want a response, but there is generally a negligible difference in terms of general workloads on lawyers at US firms compared to those at London City firms. Certainly not enough to justify paying an NQ £85k!
In my experience, the response demanded by US clients is typically no different to the response demanded by Russian or Middle Eastern clients. Such clients usually have little understanding of how realistic such timing may be, and often don't care what the response is. They just want it quickly and believe that as they are paying for the service, they should get it instantaneously. The number of times clients have turned round to me and expected an amended document to be sent out the minute they provide their (generally useless) comments...
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Anonymous | 7-Jul-2009 12:16 pm
playftseforme - I agree with your point about working hard and (sometimes) getting what you deserve. but you have to admit that for very many who don't have the good fortune at the right time, it won't matter how hard they work, these opportunities just won't come their way?
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Anonymous | 7-Jul-2009 12:56 pm
I qualified in March 2009 and joined a FSA regulated company in the City. My salary in slightly under City rates (private practice) but I have no billable targets and leave the office at 6pm everyday. Working in house is definitely the way forward!
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Disappointed of Chancery Lane | 7-Jul-2009 1:20 pm
@playftse
I think you may have missed my point, just slightly.
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Anonymous | 7-Jul-2009 1:23 pm
playftseforme - for someone who quite obviously has an incredibly high opinion of himself and his so called intelligence, he has completely missed the point that the previous poster was trying to make.
The sort of vile person that unfortunately I come across too often.
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Anonymous | 7-Jul-2009 1:50 pm
playftseforme - the parents of BA cabin crew probably couldn't afford to send their kids to Eton or play polo with high court judges or whatever.... looking down your nose at people who are trained to save your life in case of emergency and who are paid a pitiful wage for doing so suggests to me that you are more than slightly out of touch with the real world. What really makes your lift more important???
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playftseforme | 7-Jul-2009 2:48 pm
I must apologise for not attending Eton.
As for the rest of the comments above, as usual there's a lot of huffing and unargued indignation as soon as someone compares City pay to nurses' pay and the like.
Pointing out that the market determines salaries and that's it's up to you to make the best of it hardly amounts to looking down one's nose at anyone. It's merely stating the obvious. If you don't like it, vote for Scargill and nationalise the entire economy. At least then we'd all be poor together.
The cause of the lower paid would be better served by posters able to argue their case. Hissy fits as above just make you look silly. (By the way, are you still banking those City pay cheques?)
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Lee Hull | 7-Jul-2009 3:29 pm
I knew I should have been a Solicitor instead of a Barrister.
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Anonymous | 7-Jul-2009 3:31 pm
The BA cabin crew may not have taken the opportunities afforded to them, but I'm sure they understand English grammar ("that's its" in the third paragraph)
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