Lawyer Pay

Top law firms boost hourly rates for equity partners by 3.9%, leaving mid-tier firms $400 behind

The most profitable law firms have pulled far ahead of second-hundred firms in their hourly billing rates, according to a study of rate increases between 2014 and 2015. The most profitable firms raised average billing rates for equity partners by 3.9 percent, with an average billing rate of $1,085, according…

Jun 8, 2016 10:45 AM CDT

Law firms discourage lateral departures with bonus clawbacks and other financial penalties

Law firms are increasingly enforcing financial penalties in partnership agreements that discourage lateral departures. Consultants told the Am Law Daily (sub. req.) that law firms are getting tough with departing lawyers by clawing back bonuses, delaying the return of capital, and limiting earnings to draws at the time of departure.…

Jun 8, 2016 7:11 AM CDT

Hackathon will tackle why law firms are failing to keep and promote women lawyers

For the past 30 years, elite law firms have expressed a strong commitment to diversity, yet a large percentage of women lawyers continue to leave law firms and few are attaining leadership roles, according to a white paper by four Stanford law students. The students learned that women lawyers work…

Jun 8, 2016 5:45 AM CDT

In Colorado, the number of practicing female lawyers drops sharply each decade, report says

Statistics in Colorado chronicle differences in the law-practice dropout rate between male and female lawyers. The number of practicing male lawyers remains constant until retirement age, while the number of practicing women lawyers “declines sharply from decade to decade,” the Denver Post reports. Women make up about half the state’s…

May 31, 2016 6:56 AM CDT

Burned out BigLaw lawyer vents about glass ceiling on Reddit

An associate who quit her $400,000 a year job at Squire Patton Boggs felt the need to vent. Kristen Jarvis Johnson believed her career stalled after becoming pregnant with her second child, and she confessed on Reddit that she was “feeling a bit surreal and possibly insane” for giving up…

May 2, 2016 5:45 AM CDT

Farmers Insurance to pay $5.8M to settle discrimination suit by female claims litigators

In a proposed settlement filed late Tuesday, Farmers Insurance Group Inc. agreed to pay $4 million to some 300 women who have worked as claims litigators for the company over the past four to five years. Farmers will pay an additional $1.8 million in attorney’s fees to settle the pay-discrimination…

Apr 15, 2016 1:20 PM CDT

Lack of crime and bankruptcies means lower income for Japanese lawyers

Crime is approaching a record low in Japan, the number of bankruptcies is also plunging and, in general, people in Japan are less litigious than in the U.S., preferring to resolve disputes outside the court system. The volume of civil cases has remained steady for a decade. That is bad…

Apr 4, 2016 3:40 PM CDT

Feds can apply convicted judge’s pension to his $2.9M restitution, court rules

At least 25 percent of a convicted former Nevada judge’s more than $10,000-a-month pension can be applied to his $2.9 million restitution, a federal judge in Las Vegas ruled from the bench on Monday. Prosecutors will put the money remaining after the garnishment into a prison account for Steven Jones…

Apr 4, 2016 3:10 PM CDT

Top deal lawyer leaves Cravath for Paul Weiss

A top deal lawyer is leaving Cravath, Swaine & Moore to join Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison. Scott Barshay will lead the mergers-and-acquisitions practice at his new firm, report the Am Law Daily (sub. req.), the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal (sub. req.). No other Cravath…

Apr 4, 2016 11:57 AM CDT

More law firms raise starting pay to $160K outside New York; Holland & Knight is latest to do so

At the high end of the first-year attorney pay scale, a growing number of major law firms are compensating new associates at a starting salary of $160,000. Such upward shifts occurred within the last 12 months among a number of Philadelphia and Wilmington, Delaware, law firms. Now Holland & Knight…

Apr 1, 2016 10:30 AM CDT

Suit by laid-off lawyers says Reilly Pozner jettisoned 17 at law firm to avoid sharing $391M verdict

One of the top trial law firms in Colorado laid off 17 workers last year in order to avoid sharing with them a $391 million verdict they helped win a few months earlier, a lawsuit contends. Filed by husband-and-wife attorneys Wendy and Eric Fisher in Denver District Court, suit alleges…

Mar 30, 2016 4:45 PM CDT

Posner says Bluebook is ‘560 pages of rubbish,’ suggests changes to improve jury trials

Judge Richard Posner acknowledges his reputation as a “naysayer” and “faultfinder” yet proceeds to find fault with The Bluebook (it is “560 pages of rubbish”) and the uneven quality of trial lawyering. Lawyers often differ greatly in quality, and that distorts the trial process, according to Posner, a judge on…

Mar 29, 2016 6:15 AM CDT

Full-time female lawyers earn 77 percent of male lawyer pay

Median pay for full-time female lawyers was 77.4 percent of the pay earned by their male counterparts, according to data for 2014 released earlier this month by the U.S. Census Bureau. In all law-related jobs, median pay for female workers in 2014 was 51.6 percent of the pay received by…

Mar 17, 2016 8:10 AM CDT

Lawyers are No. 2 on list of highest-paying jobs

Lawyers trail only doctors on a list of the 25 highest-paying jobs in America for 2016. Physicians were No. 1 on the list by Glassdoor.com, Time reports. Lawyers, ranked second, had a median salary about $35,000 below that of physicians. Glassdoor.com created the list based on salary information shared by…

Mar 14, 2016 6:15 AM CDT

Dentons tells ex-Luce Forward partners of $1.9M clawback years after they joined predecessor firm

Ex-partners at now-shuttered Dickstein Shapiro aren’t the only former law firm owners who recently learned they may have lost big bucks. In a letter this month to ex-partners of a law firm acquired in 2012 by a predecessor of Dentons, the megafirm told them partners of Luce Forward Hamilton &…

Feb 26, 2016 6:50 AM CST