The Insufferable Nonsense Biglaw Is Spouting Over Milbank's Raises
Firms that aren't matching Milbank aren't ‘not raising,’ they're functionally cutting salaries.
Milbank just raised the associate salary scale by $10K. It’s a welcome move for associates in a market where stealth (and not-so-stealth) layoffs have dominated headlines this year.
And yet, instead of matches all we’re seeing is anonymous shade from the peanut gallery. Take, for example, this quote we featured yesterday from an unnamed Am Law 50 firm leader:
[It’s] tone deaf. It’d be like saying, ‘Look how rich I am,’ when the economy is struggling.
Oh bullshit. The PPEP numbers your firm reports to Am Law is “like saying, ‘Look how rich I am,’ when the economy is struggling.” Paying your employees an extra 400 bucks per pay period is not saying a damn thing other than your firm isn’t afraid to reward the talent that feeds those gaudy numbers.
And yet, somehow, this wasn’t the most ludicrous quote out there. Another anonymous Am Law 50 executive said this:
All we’re doing is continuing to put targets on these kids’ backs. Increasing salaries… causes them to increase salaries up the chain [and] increase billable hours for them. I just think they’re taking this pound of flesh out of them.
This is just gaslighting. Just like Milbank’s 2018 raise, this isn’t a raise as much as a cost of living adjustment. Inflation is under control now, but associates lived through an inflationary cycle that folks haven’t seen since the 80s. An extra $10K is exactly in line with that.
So it’s entirely disingenous to act like this raise requires attorneys to bill more. Lawyers aren’t making more money, they’re getting back to even. Honestly, this is the same salary in real terms that associates have made for over 20 years. Plug the old $125,000 scale from 1999 into an inflation calculator and it is — SURPRISE — $230K. There’s nothing “more” about this raise and associates shouldn’t have to bill a second more than they did in 1999 to deserve this compensation.
The greatest trick the devil ever pulled is convincing employees that they’re getting a raise when their compensation goes down in real terms.
All the credit in the world to Milbank for making this move, but let’s stop calling this a raise and call it what it is: firms that don’t match Milbank are cutting associate salaries.
Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.
