BigLaw Firms Raise Base Salaries, Following Cravath’s Lead

Earlier this month, Cravath, Swaine & Moore boosted first-year salaries to $180,000 from $160,000, and said they would increase pay across all associate years by between 12 and 13 percent. Many other New York law firms quickly followed suit, including Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy LLP, and Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison LLP, as well as Cahill Gordon & Reindel LLP. Paul Weiss’s new scale actually goes beyond Cravath’s, raising pay for lawyers in their ninth year or longer to $325,000.