Clifford Chance joins peers in raising pay for junior lawyers to £150,000
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Newly qualified Clifford Chance lawyers will be paid £150,000 as the elite London law firm joins its peers in raising salaries to compete with deeper-pocketed US rivals.
The rise marks a 20 per cent increase in base salaries for the most junior lawyers and is effective from May 1. Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Linklaters, other top UK-founded law firms, also raised pay to £150,000 this month.
First- and second-year trainees at Clifford Chance would receive a pay rise of about 10 per cent, to £56,000 and £61,000 respectively from September 1, the firm said in a statement on Wednesday. It declined to comment on the reasons for the changes in pay.
The move is the latest salvo in the war for talent among elite law firms in the City of London. Salaries for the most junior lawyers have increased as much as 50 per cent in the past five years as US-based firms have grown their presence in London, forcing UK-founded peers to compete with their deeper pockets.
US law firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan said this month that it was increasing base salaries for its most junior lawyers in London to £180,000.
The rapid changes in pay for younger lawyers are also a sign of how much the legal industry has evolved over the past decade with the arrival of US firms in London and a weaker pound increasing the buying power of US clients in the UK. Top partners at US law firms can take home as much as $20mn a year. The outsized pay packages have fuelled a lot of job moves between firms as the biggest of them compete for talent.
The move by Clifford Chance means Slaughter and May and A&O Shearman are the only two firms from the so-called “magic circle” group that have not increased their pay for newly qualified lawyers, from the current level of £125,000. Slaughter and May has said it will next look at salaries in November as part of its bi-annual review, while A&O Shearman has not disclosed if its salary bands are under review.
