Biglaw Associates Are Apparently Living Easy With Less Work And Higher Salaries
Average annual hours billed by associates at the top 100 law firms reached the lowest number on record in 2023.
Ed. note: Welcome to our daily feature, Quote of the Day.
Nobody says life is easy for the lowest lawyers on Big Law’s totem pole. They are known to grind overnight and work plenty of weekends. Partners can be, well, demanding.
But associates have never had it better than they do right now.
Big Law associates have never logged fewer hours and never brought home bigger paychecks. Who doesn’t like working less and getting paid more?
— Roy Strom of Bloomberg Law, commenting on the results of the latest report from the Wells Fargo’s Legal Specialty Group, where it was determined that lawyers at the top 100 firms billed an average of 1,551 hours in 2023, the lowest number on record, down 8% since its record high in 2021 of 1,683 hours. Biglaw associate salaries were recently increased to a baseline of $225,000, and as noted by Strom, based on an hourly billing rate of $775, this productivity loss could amount to more than $100,000 per associate.
Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter and Threads or connect with her on LinkedIn.
