Deluge of regulation companies be part of Davis Polk pay-raise rush amid battle for associates

(Reuters) – A slew of regulation companies are shelling out money to mid-level and senior associates to align with wage raises debuted by Wall Road agency Davis Polk & Wardwell on Tuesday.

Corporations have repeatedly upped salaries and doled out bonuses over the previous 18 months because the business stays locked in a battle for coveted associates to deal with a surge in deal work.

These matching Davis Polk embody fellow giant New York-founded companies: Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson; Simpson Thacher & Bartlett; Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom; Weil, Gotshal & Manges; and Willkie Farr & Gallagher.

Kirkland & Ellis, Sidley Austin, O’Melveny & Myers and Vinson & Elkins have additionally joined in with matching raises.

In separate inner memos, the big companies mentioned they might pay their most senior attorneys, these within the affiliate class of 2014 or above, $396,500 in wage.

At the least three giant UK-founded companies are additionally getting in on the motion. In separate inner memos, Clifford Likelihood, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Linklaters mentioned salaries for his or her U.S. associates would match Davis Polk.

So is Selendy Homosexual Elsberg, a small New York-based litigation agency based by a bunch of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan companions.

“Whereas different, bigger companies proceed to jostle for a aggressive edge with each other, we stay assured in our continued monetary success and dedication to compensating our associates on the very prime of the market,” Selendy Homosexual Elsberg mentioned in its memo.

One other small litigation agency, Los Angeles-based Hueston Hennigan, additionally mentioned in an inner memo it’s going to pay salaries at Davis Polk’s ranges.

Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, in the meantime, is following Debevoise & Plimpton by matching Davis Polk’s scale and including a tier of $406,500 salaries for the affiliate class of 2013 and senior.

Mid-level and senior associates are helpful to regulation companies, and it is that competitors that’s driving these wage will increase, mentioned Kristin Stark, a principal at regulation agency consultancy Fairfax Associates.

Mid-level and senior associates “are usually extra productive and in addition generate much less consumer resistance from a billing perspective,” Stark mentioned in an electronic mail.

Learn Extra:

Affiliate wage struggle heats up once more as massive companies match Davis Polk pay

Davis Polk ups senior affiliate salaries in newest spherical of pay struggle

Affiliate raises are again. Will fewer regulation companies comply with this time?

The authorized expertise struggle that broke out in 2021 reveals no signal of slowing down

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