Bingham McCutchen has emerged as one of the best-paying firms for newly-qualified (NQ) lawyers in London with NQ salaries of more than £100,000.

The firm said that it pays New York rates, which currently stand at around $160,000 (£102,000) for NQs.

Bingham only takes on two trainees a year, with the firm generally retaining both on qualification.

London office head James Roome (pictured) told Legal Week: "Coming into the City as a US firm and wanting to recruit at the highest level, we have always thought that it is critical that we pay at the top end of the market. We are not interested in growth for growth's sake and look for something different in the small number of junior lawyers we take on each year."

The move puts Bingham ahead of New York's elite firms as one of the most generous law firms when it comes to paying its junior lawyers in the City.

Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom pays its NQs £94,000, while Weil Gotshal reduced its rates in 2009 to £85,000 from a high point of £90,000. Latham & Watkins pays £96,000, while Cleary & Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton pays £92,000 – in stark contrast to the magic circle, whose current benchmark rate is in the region of £60,000.

A number of UK firms took the decision to freeze their associate rates last year, with Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer leading the market in February 2009 with the announcement that their NQs would earn £59,000 for the 2009-10 financial year.

Linklaters bucked the trend by progressing their associates through the PQE bands as normal, although the firm did cut the levels of all of its pay bands, equating to a pay rise of between 2% and 4% for associates. The NQ rate was reduced by more than 7%, with first-year lawyers now earning £61,500.