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Climbing first-year associate salaries have
reached a plateau at large firms, while
starting offers from small to mid-size firms
are inching upward slightly, according to the
2003 Salary Guide produced by The Affiliates
legal staffing firm.
The 2003 guide actually reports a 6.8 percent
decline in starting salaries for large firms
(more than 75 attorneys) and a 3.6 percent
decline for mid-size firms of 35 to 75 attor-
neys. At the same time, smaller firm salaries
increased by an average of 2 percent. Those
figures are based strictly on starting salary
compensation and do not include bonuses,
profit sharing or other incentives that may
impact total first year compensation.
Salary data used by The Affiliates was com-
piled through the company’s job searches,
candidate placements and salary negotia-
tions and did not identify individual firms.
Perhaps not surprisingly, the large national
firms contacted by The National Jurist re-
ported their salary levels as flat, although
several said they had heard that other large
firms were cutting back.
Law school career services professionals
reported that while they have not seen major
changes in starting salaries yet, some firms
have either cut back slightly on hiring or
pushed back start dates. Some 2L summer
associates found their hours cut back - a few
by as much as half - as firms trimmed salary
overhead.
“For the ones coming back with offers
[from last summer], the salary seems to be
about the same,” said Diane Downs, career
services director at the University of Chicago
School of Law. “We haven’t seen salaries go
down.”
Downs reported that 2002 Chicago graduates
joining large firms received average start-
ing salaries in the $125,000 range and said
early indications are that 2003 offers will be
similar.
Douglas Masters, hiring attorney with the
Pattishall, McAuliffe boutique firm in Chica-
go, said his small to mid-size firm’s salaries
have been flat for first-year associates.
“We don’t anticipate an increase - we would
only do so if there was pressure to do it to
remain competitive,” Masters said.
Beth Kirch, director of legal career services
at the University of Georgia, said that despite
a hiring slowdown in some practice areas,
salaries have held firm at the big firms, while
actually increasing at smaller firms in the
Southeast.
“It’s been holding steady,” Kirch said. “In
almost 20 years in the field, I’ve never seen
salaries roll back - they tend to hold steady
for a few years and then escalate again. In
Atlanta, small firms are not paying the six-
digit salaries larger firms are, but they’re
trying to go after the same students, so they
have to raise their salaries somewhat.”
Marcia Cook, recruiting manager for the
national Blackwell Sanders Peper Martin
firm, said that firm starting salaries were ap-
proximately $80,000 in Kansas City, Mo., and
$90,000 in the St. Louis market in 2002. She
indicated they would be the same or slightly
higher in 2003.
At the University of Texas in Austin, assistant
dean of career services Kathryn Richardson
said she had not detected any salary roll-
backs, with firms in the Texas market aver-
aging $90,000 to start, from a low of $40,000
to $50,000 to a high of $140,000.
This story appeared in the January 2003
edition of The National Jurist, www.nation-
aljurist.com.
Firms hold line on first year salaries
[by Jim Dunlap]
Some large firms cut back, but pay increasing in smaller offices.