Legal News

First-year associate salary cuts may no longer be off-limits

By Richard Binder

Yesterday Allen Matkins cut first-year associate salaries. 

All first-years at Allen Matkins Leck Gamble Mallory & Natsis are now making $145,000, and those joining in the fall will make that much as well.  Some associates at higher levels will also see their pay cut.

Allen Matkins is a 200-plus lawyer firm best known for its real estate and land use practices that has enjoyed a spot in the middle of the Am Law Second Hundred for a while. It joins at least two other Am Law 200 firms that have cut salaries for existing first-years, including Cleveland-based Thompson Hine, and the now-defunct Wolf Block, based in Philadelphia.

It's clear that firms high on the Am Law 100 list are salivating for a salary cut as well. It has been a sure-fire conversation starter for months now. But so far, no chairman or managing partner has gone on the record saying he or she wants to cut salaries, or by how much.

Read the full Recorder article for details.

Full post as published by Legal Pad | LA on April 01, 2009 (boomark / email).