New BigLaw Caste System Is Bad News for Associates, Consultants Say
Law firms are embracing a three-tiered “caste system” of lawyers, a development that is bad news for law students hoping to land high-paid associate jobs in BigLaw.
The old pyramid model, in which several associates support one partner, has gone by the wayside, according to law firm consultant Jerome Kowalski. More partners are hoarding work, and fewer associates are being hired, he told the Legal Intelligencer. And the associates are no longer at the bottom of the pyramid.
There is a new caste system, Kowalski said, of contract lawyers on the bottom, staff lawyers in the middle, and “showcase” associates on the top. “There’s a vast underbelly of people” being hired by BigLaw, Kowalski told the the Intelligencer.
“Showcase” associates can still command $160,000 salaries, he said, but law firms aren’t hiring as many of them. Instead, firms are giving more work to those in the lower castes. And Altman Weil consultant Tom Clay says he thinks the change isn’t a temporary phenomenon.
“It’s very probable that we won’t be hiring the traditional lawyers that were produced from law schools,” Clay told the Intelligencer, since much of the work once done by associates is now handled through contract lawyers and outsource companies.
At the midlevel, Kowalski said, are staff lawyers who do the same work as the $160,000 associates, although they don’t have the same billable hour requirements. They earn $65,000 on the low end and $90,000 on the high end.
On the bottom are the contract or temporary lawyers who are hired by the project. “I compare [them to] those guys who hang around in front of Home Depot waiting for some contractor to show up with a truck,” Kowalski told the Intelligencer.
