Weil Gotshal cuts NQ salary to £85,000

Readers' comments (61)

• Anonymous | 7-Jul-2009 8:37 pm

  Dave 5.49pm - touched a nerve did I - ha ha - shame on you too - learn some humility you purile oaf ! The sad thing is if recent trainee intakes reflect the brightest and the best we are in a real mess - to me they appear (for the most part) to be a generation who believe it to be their birth right to be earning these sorts of numbers - that is so very sad and so very arrogant and none are worth 85K on qualification - they are just in the right place at the right time. What goes around comes around and may the downsizing of our profession over the next few years be a lesson to many.

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• Anonymous | 7-Jul-2009 9:37 pm

  I can believe how many lawyers actually believe the free market works to this extent. Even paid up members of the Adam Smith Institute wouldn't go this far. Never mind the de facto crap (disadvantaged background etc) which is more for the sociologists look at EU law and all formal de jure crap that gets in the way of the free market. If you want a free market lets out source all the work to South Africa. Oh wait....

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• Magic circle NQ | 7-Jul-2009 10:41 pm

  Lest we forget that the article is actually discussing a pay cut. The reactions above better fit news of a pay RAISE. Weil's NQ salary was put at 90k a couple of years ago and the prevailing reaction then was 'fair play, it's their risk', whereas now the NQs are being charged with being toffish, old schoolboys with no brains?! Paying 85k to NQs is a business choice the Weil partners have chosen, which affects their own bottom line. Everyone knows the salary reflects the value of the NQ PLUS the premium required to hold onto the best associates and to recruit effectively in the market. Of course, they've got to be careful of the types of characters they recruit. The posts above are a depressing reminder of how money can warp people's minds and sour their judgement. Please raise the bar.

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• JazzMatic | 8-Jul-2009 1:52 am

  Whatever you think of his attitude, playftseforme is right - these lawyers are paid what they are paid because of the legal market - the higher the demand and the lower the supply, the higher their salary. It's not institutional snobbery, it's basic economics, and if you criticise legal or banking salaries, you might as well criticise football ones too. You certainly wouldn't be complaining if you earned the same money, but as you don't it suits you to rail against such 'injustice' and to console yourself by imagining that they're all stuck-up and privileged. Some are, some aren't. Grow up.
  
  As for me - I was born in East London (Lewisham), went to state schools and a grammar school, worked my way into Oxbridge and am about to start at a MC firm. Some people there are clearly extremely privileged, but they are in the minority.

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• David Hill MD | 8-Jul-2009 5:10 am

  "Those who work for Weil are highly educated" - and as an A&E Registrar I'm not well educated? Many years experience, peoples lives on the line, all for 54,000 - just tells you what society really values.

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• jazzy b | 8-Jul-2009 9:22 am

  This is a total nonstory but as usual you get holier than thou assocaites posting anonymously as bleedin heart liberals in favour of nurses and firemen while being quite happy to take the money and run. They are the most sickening two faced individuals of all.

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• jane k s | 8-Jul-2009 9:46 am

  I have met lots of associates with glittering CVs, Oxbridge degrees and the rest, who are making £85,000 or more as NQs. To say that they are there just because daddy was a judge is laughable. If anything it shows how unintelligent their detractors are. Even if daddy was a judge, he doesn't sit finals for you or take your place in job interviews. No one would deny that life is not a level playing field and that some people have a head start on others but to draw the conclusion that Weil NQs are silver-spooned and sheltered cretins who have bluffed there way to the top is not just incorrect, it's transparently envious. I am a US firm NQ (not Weil) and I can honestly say I do not recognise the polo playing stereotype portrayed above among the people I know at work.

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• Suzy Q | 8-Jul-2009 2:56 pm

  Dear partner in the know
  
  If it were me and I knew that playftseforme was who you said he/she is I think that they might be having a one to one today and being asked (in as bleeding heart a manner as possible of course) to shape up or eff off. I have never read such tw**y drivel from a complete little prick who's been in the City for about 2 seconds. I think you should do us all a favour and cut their internet link.
  
  I wouldn't want the little pipsqueak anywhere near me as a client. Did his mother (sorry but it's almost certainly a he) tell him he was wonderful his whole life or what? What an ahole.
  
  Thanks

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• Anonymous | 8-Jul-2009 5:29 pm

  W & G is in decline, and that's why it's cutting salaries. Half of its offices are in the US - only a fifth are in Asia. Wrong way to look at the world guys.
  
  PS David Hill MD - I don't think many people make 54,000. Even lawyers.

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• N | 9-Jul-2009 9:33 am

  If the world were fair the nurses etc would be paid these wages as the work they do is far more important than the NQ's in city law firms (all of them).
  
  I am not a lawyer but do work in the city and my city salary has enabled me to finance my wifes studies and ongoing career as a nurse. She could do anything she wants but chose to dedicate herself to nursing for sick children and I am in awe of what she does and am more than happy that my salary ensures we can still live relatively comfortably.
  
  The system will not change and she does not moan about the pay position but the comments on here really do stick in my throat. City NQ's, lawyers and city law firms do very little to warrant the mega salaries it is another parasitic industry that has lost its moral compass. A little humility goes a long way and is something that certainly sways me when providing instructions to firms.

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