UK Hiring Partners Chide Bingham for Six-Figure Starting Salary—in Pounds
Bingham McCutchen is paying new lawyers in London 100,000 pounds—a salary that is the highest of any U.S. law firm and more than the amount paid by the United Kingdom’s highest grossing firm, Linklaters.
The salary amounts to about $157,000, Bloomberg reports, citing a survey published in Lawyer 2B.
James Roome, the managing partner of Bingham’s London office, explained the reason for the high salaries. “We pay New York rates,” Roome told Bloomberg. “We’ve taken the view that in this market, we wanted to operate at the highest level, we wanted to be at the top end. That has always been the case.”
Linklaters paid new lawyers in London 61,500 pounds last year, the Bloomberg story says. The other top U.K. law firms—Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Clifford Chance—paid new lawyers in London 59,000 pounds.
Recruiting partners at rival firms criticized the six-figure starting salary. “It’s ridiculous,” one partner told Lawyer 2B. “Whenever a candidate mentions pay during an interview, it makes me want to puke.”
