The opposition is that clients won’t pay more to cover new raises to juniors. I don’t think anyone disagrees with that statement. The question becomes why would the partners want to give raises?Anonymous User wrote:Occasional jokes are hardly evidence of meaningful opposition to increasing first-year salaries.Npret wrote:I do understand how billing works. Clients care because, as mentioned above, they don’t want to pay for training juniors. I know the clients who have posted here don’t care. I have heard clients joke, more than once, about art or the views of offices and say they must be paying too much. As everyone seems to agree, clients object to paying more for legal work just because the firm gives a raise to associates. So where is the money for the raises going to come from?
Wasn’t the first raise in 10 years a few years ago? I’m sure it was post recession, so I don’t agree that salaries haven’t increased. You understand that costs increase apart from salaries.
My experience of big law is partners don’t lightly part with their money. I have yet to see anyone post a reason why firms would need to give raises at this time.
They could have kept the salary at $160,000 and still filled their classes.
Just my view.
And, even though there may have been little reason to do so, firms have increased salaries past $160k, twice: first to $180k in June 2016, then $190k in June 2018.
There was intense pressure on firms to raise salaries from 160k to 180k because firms held that rate for 10 years while rent and law school tuition continued to climb.
I’m still asking for a reason why firms would feel pressure to give raises now.