Slaughter and May has reduced salaries for newly qualified solicitors in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

NQs qualifying in September will now receive £87,000, a reduction on the £92,000 base salary that this year’s crop take home. The news was first reported in RollonFriday.

Salaries often drop in times of recession. For example, NQ pay at Clifford Chance dropped from £50,000 to £48,000 between 2001 and 2002; and from £66,600 to £59,000 from 2008 to 2009.

Slaughter and May declined to comment.

Many salary reductions have started to take place across the UK legal profession. This morning, Osborne Clarke announced it has reduced the pay of some of its staff members by 7 per cent under the same time frame of the partnership. The cut will affect employees earning £30,000 or more.