First Year Associates and Big Salaries

There’s an interesting article by Brenda Sapino Jeffries in a recent Texas Lawyer,Gardere Reduces First-Year Salaries and Billable Hours“.  The Dallas-based, 275-lawyer firm, Gardere Wynne Sewell is cutting first-year salaries form $140,000 to $120,000 (about 14%) and first-year billable hours from 2000 to 1700 (15%).  The rationale is that clients were starting to specify in engagement letters that no first-year lawyers could be assigned to the matter.  The associates will also get about 300 hours of training:

“I just think we are getting more focused. You understand you have an investment in these people and they get the right type of training,” [managing partner Steve] Good says, noting that training will include classroom sessions and more opportunity for the first-year lawyers to observe trials, depositions and negotiating sessions.

The problem?  Clients don’t want to pay for training:

[Stephen] Mims [Prescott Legal Search] says he has spoken to a number of general counsel who complain that many first-year associates are not prepared for the job when coming out of law school and would benefit from more training. Gardere’s plan addresses that client concern, he says.

Some have speculated that the economic downturn has accentuated the problems inherent in the traditional Big-Firm model of practice.  We’ll need to see many more swallows before we can tell if it’s Spring in Capistrano.

posted by Gary Rosin

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