When will you heed the masses clamoring for a Portsmouth list of shame?

Lat,

Charlotte, NC.

Check that out.

K+L Gates advertises $115,000 in Seattle.

http://www.klgates.com/lawstudents/studentsbenefits/benefitsoffice.aspx?office=13

A-T-L-A-N-T-A. Please.

Mr. Lat - please focus on NJ. NJ is a much bigger market, close proximity with NY and CT (which you covered). How this insane salary war has affected the salaries of NJ firms - and particularly NJ firms with offices in NYC.

Please - thanks.

in seattle, it's not the starting pay that fucks you, it's the lack of salary growth over time

CHICAGO

At Market:
DLA Piper
Katten
Kirkland
Latham
Mayer Brown
McDermott
Paul Hastings
Schiff Hardin
Sidley
Skadden
Sonnenschein
Steptoe
Winston
Morgan Lewis

Below Market:
Baker McKenzie*
Bell Boyd
Brinks Hofer
Chapman & Cutler
Clausen Miller
Drinker Biddle
Foley
Freeborn & Peters
Greenberg Traurig
Goldberg Kohn
Hinshaw Culbertson
Holland & Knight
Jenner*
Jones Day
Kaye Scholler
Lock Lord Bissel Lidell
McGuire Woods
Michael Best
Neal Gerber
Perkins Coie
Reed Smith*
Seyfarth
Vedder Price
Wildman Harrold
*has promised to pay market next year or issued some other vague "we'll pay market at some point, we promise" memo.

Pittsburgh!!!!

I think the homegrown firms are at $105,000 to start with serious compression after that.

Perkins..........$120*
K&L Gates......$115
Davis.............$115

*Perkins includes a $10k automatic bonus in their first year number. It goes away in the second year unless you hit a hours threshold (1850 or 1900).

Wow, this is just highlighting how much Minneapolis pay sucks.

Minneapolis pay might suck, but at least the weather is crappy.

It's difficult to account for the true pay differential between the homegrown firms and Heller, Wilson, DLA, et al. because the latter have higher minimum billable requirements. Some of the latter (Heller, I’m looking in your direction) have been doing away with bonuses at 2000 hours. If you included the homegrown shop’s bonuses for those associates hitting what would be someone like Heller’s minimum, my guess is there would not be much of a difference.

Removing Sonnenschein, Schiff, and Reed Smith (even though that last one didn't do lockstep raises):

Continuing CA List of Shame:

1) Thelen Reid*
2) Bingham
3) Perkins Coie
4) Bryan Cave
5) Townsend*
6) Baker & McKenzie
7) Seyfarth Shaw
8) Foley
9) Greenberg Traurig
10) Holland & Knight

* denotes CA-based firm

minneapolis pay might suck, but cost of living is much lower than seattle, philly, NJ, CT, etc.

Lat, pretty lame that you couldn't even check a NALP form for starting salaries for the homegrown firms. Guess that's why you're a "blogger" and not a "journalist."

PORTSMOUTH NOW!!! Lat, please expose these cheapskates who won't step up and match the Norfolk market.

New Frickin' Jersey? Give me a break. No one cares about whatever firms are dumb enough to have offices there.

3:21, Lat could do that -- but he has 10 other posts to write before the day's end. It's much easier to toss out the inquiry and let readers fill in the blanks. Blogs are all about "user-generated content" (like reader comments).

MSM reporters can spend several days reporting and writing up a single story. Commercial bloggers have daily postcount quotas. It's like an assembly line; feed the beast.

Nor do most bloggers have researchers, fact-checkers, paid interns, library support, Lexis, or Westlaw.

So give Lat a break.

Remember the fly-over states! How about something on firms in Cleveland/Columbus/Cincinatti? Will they raise to keep up their recruitment of Chicago, Northwestern, and Michigan grads (among others)?

3:27: true. Lat's failure to do 45 seconds of basic research does give the entry that gloss of "I have no idea what the hell I'm writing about" so common to the blogosphere.

Where can we get NALP forms for individual law firms on the internet?

Geez, you people are idiots. nalpdirectory.com.

3:35, you fail.

CLEVELAND will no longer be ignored.

Yeah, that's right--Eddie P. is the Bill Brasky of the greater Portsmouth legal community. I once saw him bill 48 hours while he took a poop which was later used to construct the Chesapeake courthouse.

Think market is associate's weight in salmon. Bonus is a variable number of halibut.

Minneapolis pay might suck, and the weather might be crappy, but at least the houses are expensive and the taxes are high. And the Vikings, what bad can be said about the purple helmets?

Orrick pays $145k in Seattle.

Stop using this thread for issues unrelated to the post about Seattle. Here's an actual post about Seattle:

The better local firms pay $115-120. Perkins and Dorsey pay $120, and I think K&L Gates and Davis are either there or at $115. DLA and Wilson Sonsini pay $145. Heller recently raised to $145, but that counts the elimination of the 2000 hour bonus; before that bonus was eliminated, Heller paid $130. There is a lot more compression at the better local firms than at the national firms. Most firms give raises of at least $5K a year, but often not much more than that, and some of the second tier local firms gave annual raises in the $2-3K range.

The Seattle legal market is odd -- there's more legal talent than good jobs, and many firms are also unreasonably biased in favor of local schools. It's odd that the legal market here is comparatively soft since the rest of the local economy is strong at the moment. It's expensive to live here, but not as bad as CA and the East Coast, and you do bill fewer hours at the better local firms. Considering cost of living and lifestyle, I think you come out ahead in Seattle, but not by much.

grunge: if there is a Starbuck's equivalent, I'm all for it.

Anyone know if firms like Lane Powell, Foster Pepper, Stoel Rives, etc. have raised? Or will the $115/$120 scale be limited to the big three (Davis, Perkins, Preston)?

If there was a Portsmouth update we could comment there--but there isn't, so suck it Seattle lawyer.

Let's see milwakee next!

(1) Check out NALP for general starting salaries.

(2) In Seattle, Orrick and (I think) DLA Piper are $145.

(3) There is SEVERE compression at the local firms (and even some nat'l firms w/ offices here--ahem, Heller) such that salary increases from year to year are often $2500.

Seattle lawyer:

EAT ME! Portsmouth just kicked your ass!

Milwaukee pay might suck, and the weather might be crappy, but at least the houses are expensive and the taxes are high. On the bright side, the Vikings don't play there.

Lane Powell is at $100K, and they were at $95K until last December. Foster Pepper's NALP says $115K, and Stoel Rives says $110K. There are also a number of high-end smaller firms that pay competitively with Perkins/KLGates/Davis/Dorsey, but a lot of the local mid-sized firms that don't do much high-end work (Lane Powell, Karr Tuttle, Garvey, Williams Kaster) have long since given up trying to compete with salaries.

Rex: Heller's compression actually isn't that bad; I think their annual raises average around $10K/year, which isn't bad. It's the local firms where they're $5K or less that's insulting.

This was Perkins' Salary structure as of early february:

<1850hr 1850 1900 1950 2000
2006: n/a $120 $130 $135 $140
2005: n/a $125 $135 $140 $150
2004: $125-130 $127-135 $135-142.5 $140-152.5 $150-165
2003: $127-135 $129-145 $140-152.5 $145-165 $155-185
2002: $129-145 $131-155 $145-165 $150-180 $160-205
2001: $131-155 $135-165 $150-180 $155-195 $165-225
2000: $135-165 $140-175 $155-195 $160-215 $170-245

Slightly off-topic but still Seattle-related: What is Microsoft's in-house legal department like? How much do they pay?

I would guess that Microsoft lawyers who have been with the company for a long time are very rich by now.

Will Perkins ever raise to 160K in its SF and DC offices? They will never be a true national player unless they can match that.

Thanks, 4:07.

Talk about compression, those increases are small.

Working for the federal government - e.g., U.S. Attorney's Office - is probably much less of a pay cut in a market like Seattle.

Seattle Lawyer: You mean like Dorsey where a 1st year makes $120, but a 3rd year makes $125-$130?

Also: Seattle Lawyer is right--the bread-and-butter of these firms is often insurance defense or other low-pay work...when there is work, meaning that (1) salaries are low; or (2) to the extent there is a promise of big rewards for big hours, the hours just aren't there.

But, there is an opening for King County Prosecuting Attorney....

Yes, lawyers who have been at Microsoft for a very long time are very rich. See, e.g., http://www.klgates.com/professionals/detail.aspx?professional=3728; http://www.law.stanford.edu/news/pr/4/. But the cutoff for getting Very Rich was about 10-15 years ago, so people at Microsoft are now just Very Comfortable. I don't know specific salaries, but I do know a few people (senior associates and junior partners) who have gone other there. They seem to have a large in house department with decent QOL, and I'm sure they pay fairly, if not extravagantly.

4:11 pm: HA HA! Perkins was paying about $115 in SF when competitors raised to $145. $160 sounds like a pipe dream.

One big issue with Seattle is that it's managed to stay rather disengaged from the national market for a long time because its firms were local and national firms only had a token presence (Heller's been by far the largest and longest). That's beginning to change with the K&L/Gates merger and growth in Wilson Sonsini and DLA. Of course firms like Perkins can't really compete outside of Seattle if they won't pay national market rates (although I'm sure they pay more than $115K in SF now, probably closer to $145). For a long time Seattle firms have kept rates and salaries low because they were convinced businesses here wouldn't sustain them, but with firms like WSGR and DLA succeeding at higher rates (and with national reputations), that's probably going to start to change.

I've interviewed at Perkins and Dorsey in Seattle and was impressed with both. I took another offer in NYC, but have thought often about eventually going back to Seattle. The problem is that they are way behind on compensation and will unlikely be able to recruit talent if the national and Seattle-based firms don't raise to at least 145K. The 15K difference between 145 and 160 is made up by the fewer hours and the fact that Seattle is a pretty cool place to live.

4:47 pm: I think you're wrong about the inability to recruit talent. People want to be here, despite the salaries. We have tons of former federal clerks (including a decent number of the elect) and tons of top graduates of top schools. My firm turns down tons of highly qualified attorneys--both straight from law school, and straight from years in Skadden-NYC. There are tons of qualified people desperate to be here but who can't find jobs.

In reality, Seattle's biggest barrier to recruiting the best legal talent is its provincial attitude, which translates into "Why hire someone from Yale/Harvard/UVA/NYU/etc. when I can hire someone from Seattle University or Gonzaga University?"

I think $130 would even be a fair starting salary if it weren't for the compression. You do better here making $30K less than in NYC and $15/30K less than CA. The problem is that the difference grows as you become more senior.

Housing in Seattle isn't cheap, but it's cheaper than the markets that pay $145 and $160. You can still buy fine pre-kid housing in the city for the $400-500K range and nice, family-sized housing in good urban neighborhoods for under $1 million (cheaper in more marginal neighborhoods or in the suburbs), which just isn't doable in CA or NYC -- that plus the general QOL makes up for the lower salary. (I know you can do better with a higher salary and lower COL in places like TX or ATL, but the price you have to pay for that is living in TX or ATL, so no real comparison.)

5:27 - So what would the job market be for someone with a solid two years of NY experience interested in working in Seattle? What does it take to get into Heller and DLA over there?

5:27: You're correct about Seattle firms having a provincial attitude, but it's not quite as severe as you describe. They are glad to take above the median students from "national" schools, but it's nearly a prerequisite to have strong Seattle ties. This group tends to make up about half of a firm's summer class. The other half is composed of very top UW and SU students. Better be summa from Gonzaga to even get a look.

It's about luck! You have to be looking at the right time.

So, cast your net wide. There are plenty of very nice, high-end boutiques here. Danielson Harrigan, McNaul Ebel, etc. The 20-person firm is chic in seattle, not the 200 person office.

It also helps to have connections to the place and a good story for why you want to be here and stay here.

legal pad says bingham is matching: http://legalpad.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/06/end_the_bingham.html

I grew up in Seattle and am interested in returning there someday, but am currently in New York at a mid-size firm doing capital markets work. I'm hoping that my experience here for a few years plus my local ties will allow me to get into Biglaw in Seattle. Chances?

Go Cleveland!!!

For any WSGR Associates or Insiders-

About how much do the returns from WSInvestments add to your annual compensation? I know WSGR has basically axed the 1900 hours bonus, but will the returns from WSInvestments help to mitigate that?

Also, what's the attitude in the firm like right now with Mr. Sonsini's involvment in the back dated stock options bruhaha? Has the Seattle office been pretty insulated from all of that?

For any WSGR associates or Insiders-

About how much do the returns from WSInvestments contribute to an associate's annual compensation? I know WSGR has pretty muched axed their 1900 hours bonus, but will the returns from WSInvestments possibly help to mitigate that?

Also, what is the attitude in the firm like with everything surrounding Mr. Sonsini's involvement in the whole back dated stock options bruhaha? Has the Seattle office been pretty insulated from all of that?

The name says it all.

(1) Larry's brouhaha makes our marketing people answer more phone calls, but otherwise no effect.

(2) WSInvestments is something people who make a salary above a certain amount are able to participate in (maybe 3rd or 4th year associates and older?). It can be a big bonus--but all market dependent.

I am unfamiliar with the word "acunt." Is the "t" pronounced or silent?

seattle is a stupid legal market. that said, getting on with one of the 145k/year national firms there has got to be one of the best gigs in the country. COL is reasonable relative to NY or San Fran (145k here goes way farther than 160 in either of those cities) and it's an incredible city.

it will be very interesting to see what happens to perkins, preston (or whatever), and davis now that DLA, Orrick, and Wilson are thriving here.

As a secondary question, how would people rate those 3 firms against one another?

seattle is a stupid legal market. that said, getting on with one of the 145k/year national firms there has got to be one of the best gigs in the country. COL is what happereasonable relative to NY or San Fran (145k in seattle goes way farther than 160 in either of those cities) and it's an incredible city.

it will be very interesting to see how perkins, preston (or whatever), and davis have to adjust their business/rate/associate models now that DLA, Orrick, and Wilson are thriving and billing at much higher rates. thoughts?

As a secondary question, how would people rate those 3 firms against one another in the seattle market?

Yes, it's a stupid legal market, yes $145K here is a great deal, and yes, people put up with the stupidity of the legal market and relatively low salaries at other firms because it's a great city.

To answer your question, I'd say WSGR rates the highest, if only because it's the largest of those three offices (35ish). Orrick is also a very good firm, but it's office is (I think) limited to bond work. DLA is overall a less prestigious firm than WSGR and Orrick and has a smaller Seattle office than WSGR (although it is full service, unlike Orrick). Also throw Heller in there -- their office is the largest (70ish), and it's also a very good firm (albeit a somewhat stagnant one), but their $145K isn't a "real" $145K because it includes what used to be a 2000 hour bonus. (If you bill 2000 hours at WSGR, you'll get a bonus on top of your salary.)

I would work at WSGR Seattle for this alone!

http://www.wsgr.com/WSGR/DBIndex.aspx?SectionName=attorneys/BIOS/7037.htm

Larry[s Homey: Married.

I find the timing of the "irrelevant" postings on ATL conveniently distracting.

Seems the "carwash, sex, asian, etc." comments started after this site received attention in the more mainstream publications, thus helping associates be heard.

Reminds me of the same technique used by the executive branch.

First off, Seattle is way overrated as a city. The weather is lousy, the girls are some of the least attractive in the country, the city's infrastucture is poor and failing, and the city won't even have a basketball team for much longer. Second, the city's law firms grow at a snail's pace, even with the current hot local economy. Even the city's biggest firm, Perkins, has 25 summers, a banner year considering that previously they would take more like 15. When the economy cools, they will most likely revert to that number. At most, were talking about maybe 130 entry level hires for the city's mid-size to large firms combined per year. Can you say INSIGNIFICANT.

perkins just went to $160k in california - what's that mean for seattle?