Washington Wrap is a weekly look at industry news and Big Law moves shaping the legal business in Washington, D.C. Send news tips and lateral moves to Ryan Lovelace at [email protected].

The American Bar Association’s new report profiling the legal profession revealed what separates Washington, D.C., legal business from the rest of the country: the omnipresence of lawyers in the capital and the premier wages they collect.

According to the ABA, there is one lawyer for every 13 residents in D.C. Despite having a total population smaller than Alaska, the nation’s capital boasts more lawyers—56,000—than all but five states. And there is little reason to think the D.C. legal community will not keep growing.

Lawyers do not materialize in D.C. by spontaneous generation, but come for a variety of reasons—not the least of which is the high-paying work. Lawyers in D.C. make more on average than lawyers in any metropolitan area outside of northern California. According to the ABA, D.C.-metropolitan area lawyers’ average wage is $179,980, which exceeds both the Los Angeles metropolitan area, $176,020, the Houston metropolitan area, $175,380, and the New York metropolitan area, $172,020.

Wage growth for lawyers has slowed somewhat nationwide in recent years, but taking a longer view, it has swelled dramatically over the past two decades. Between 1998 and 2018, the ABA’s report found, lawyers’ salaries nationwide almost doubled.

Younger lawyers have benefited immensely in recent years from the competition among top firms to pay top wages for burgeoning talent. The ABA found that the median salary for first-year associates rose $20,000 from 2017 to 2019.  Much of that growth could be traced to a small handful of cities—including D.C.—and was largely attributable to changes at firms with more than 700 lawyers.

Midsize law firm associates have not seen wage growth comparable to their Big Law competitors, as reported earlier this year in a study conducted by the National Association for Law Placement.

The new crop of associates arriving fresh from law school also carries a debt burden their mentors did not. Between 2000 and 2016, the average law student debt rose 77%, according to the ABA’s report. The uptick in law student debt since the turn of the century was far surpassed by medical students and Ph.D students, however.

The most recent data is a bit more promising—the average cumulative law student debt shrunk by about $4,000 between 2012 and 2016. The ABA noted that the U.S. Department of Education is next expected to release new data on student debt in 2020, which will provide a better picture of whether that decrease is indicative of a pattern or not.

Law Firm Moves, News & Notes

The Legal Services Corp. announced it is handing out $4.3 million worth of “pro bono innovation grants” for projects supporting low-income clients.

D.C. and Virginia received more than $500,000 of the grants.

George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School announced this week that it hired Peter Davidson as its first deputy dean for strategic initiatives.

Davidson was previously general counsel to the U.S. Department of Commerce. Before joining the Commerce Department in 2017, he was senior vice president of federal and international relations for Verizon Communications.

President Donald Trump announced a new slate of judicial nominees this week, including several with ties to the D.C. legal community:

Steven Menashi was nominated to be a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. He is an associate counsel to the president and has worked in the White House since 2018, after a stint as acting general counsel at the Department of Education. He previously taught at George Mason’s Scalia Law School.

Sarah Pitlyk was nominated to be a judge on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri. She is a special counsel at the Thomas More Society, and was previously an associate at Covington & Burling in D.C.

Richard Myers was nominated to be a judge on the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina. Myers teaches at the University of North Carolina School of Law, was previously a lawyer at O’Melveny & Myers, and was formerly a law clerk to Judge David Sentelle on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

Steffen Johnson left the partnership of Winston & Strawn after 14 years. He was co-leader of the firm’s national appellate and critical motions practice.