Wages of spin
Legal Week noted recently that UK and US legal markets were converging. And with London firms handing out substantial rises for assistants this year, that process has taken a considerable step forward as the gap between New York and City 'rates' narrows again.
June 21, 2007 at 02:00 AM
2 minute read
Legal Week noted recently that UK and US legal markets were converging. And with London firms handing out substantial rises for assistants this
year, that process has taken a considerable step forward as the gap between New York and City 'rates' narrows again.
Except, of course, quite a few US law firms are not actually paying US rates anymore. As exclusively revealed last week by legalweek.com, Weil Gotshal & Manges has become the latest US firm to pay its UK lawyers more than those on its home turf, shifting in one step from 'mid-Atlantic' to 'Wall Street-plus'. Other examples include Latham & Watkins and Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, which both use off-market conversion rates to mark up their salaries. But is such generosity a sign of strength or weakness? In the case of Latham, which despite trail-blazing global progress is still a good way off reaching the top tier of US profitability, paying such salaries hardly seems a stunning endorsement of its drawing power for City recruits.
Some assistants may choose to see these firms as gallantly offering them 'what they are worth', but these are businesses and they pay what they have to, no more. And worryingly for many American practices, what they have to pay just to hang in there in London is fast rising, as can be seen from the latest round of rises on page 5. This tension will be especially pronounced for national US firms, traditionally among the most committed to UK expansion. This crowd has had to cope with the nationalisation of New York rates in their home market, forcing them to pay Manhattan pay scales in less lucrative regional markets.
This content has been archived. It is available through our partners, LexisNexis® and Bloomberg Law.
To view this content, please continue to their sites.
Not a Lexis Subscriber?
Subscribe Now
Not a Bloomberg Law Subscriber?
Subscribe Now
NOT FOR REPRINT
© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
You Might Like
View AllTrending Stories
- 1The Law Firm Disrupted: Playing the Talent Game to Win
- 2A&O Shearman Adopts 3-Level Lockstep Pay Model Amid Shift to All-Equity Partnership
- 3Preparing Your Law Firm for 2025: Smart Ways to Embrace AI & Other Technologies
- 4BD Settles Thousands of Bard Hernia Mesh Lawsuits
- 5A RICO Surge Is Underway: Here's How the Allstate Push Might Play Out
Featured Firms
Law Offices of Gary Martin Hays & Associates, P.C.
(470) 294-1674
Law Offices of Mark E. Salomone
(857) 444-6468
Smith & Hassler
(713) 739-1250