To think that no newly qualified lawyer can be worth a salary of £150k?

They pay these salaries because they want the very best people who are willing to work stupid hours.

I trained at a Magic Circle firm, but I didn't stay, oddly enough.

I now work for a firm which treats its staff pretty well but pays somewhat less because it doesn't require the hours (though people do still work hard).

It is a bit annoying that someone who qualified yesterday is earning more than a lawyer with over 20 years' experience, (pretty well twice as much in my case!) but it's a lifestyle choice.

We did it when young to get on the property ladder then bailed out of London at 5 pqe for West Country lower salaries but better family life. No regrets! Op post is quite odd that a solicitor does not understand how the profession works.

with insight that it's off topic... it makes junior doctors seem pretty cheap!

Course they aren’t worth it at NQ. What is funny is they are given these salaries but they can do very little without supervision. They need constant help. After a few years they become worth it (if they get good at billing and collecting).

I work for a smallish firm in the SW, my friend works for a magic circle firm. I finish work at 5 and I’m done for day, and work 35 hours a week pretty much on the dot. She easily works 80, sometimes more, most week. She earns way more than me but never has the chance to spend it! Personally it never massively appealed to me but fair play to those who go for it!

Bitter much?! Your assessment of Freshfields and Linklaters as snobby rather than charging a premium given their involvement in high value M&A transactions (which on a £60k drawing as a partner you clearly don’t do) reveals much about your horizons and small mindedness. That aside those juniors end up sweating blood

It’s competitive. They recruit from the best universities and also demand an enormous amount from their employees. They also attract hugely lucrative clients. You’re a lawyer so you must be aware of the disparities in your own profession.

This. You sound about 12.

I’m a solicitor and trained and qualified at a magic circle firm. The hours I worked were insane - even as a trainee and a NQ.

High street solicitors work very hard but I’ve yet to hear of one pulling an all nighter or working anything close to the hours of even a trainee at the top US and MC firms.

Unfortunately it’s necessary for us to have these firms with their crazy hours and crazy salaries to support London as a major financial centre. Without it this country would suffer immeasurably.

Presumably when you did your law degree or conversion course in the 1990s you made a choice to go into provincial practice rather than applying for top London firms (assuming you had a 2:1 or 1st from an RG or Oxbridge uni).

How much business do you bring in for your firm OP?

After a couple of years those NQs will be bringing in at least £10M pa, and if not then they will have been let go.

If you bring in that much business, pay yourself more.

Absolutely - but when an NQ at another firm is paid more / the same, and you're 10+ years qualified, it's a reasonably good lever to pressure the partners at annual pay review time. I don't believe in sitting back and not challenging the partners on pay; they'd not pay me as much if I didn't. Not here for the love of the job, after all 😂

But why does it need to be done at the weekend? This is not life and death stuff. Surely it can wait until office hours?

Or if it can't wait and is actually an emergency then you need a proper shift system so people aren't working stupid hours.

Struggling to understand why it has to be like this.

Does a professional person actually use the term ‘Snobby London firms’…..?!🤣🤣

it is the norm for the type of firms she is talking about and they have been forced to increase pay due to conception from US law firms. These type of law firms tend to work on corporate transactions that can run into billions rather than smaller law firms that work with individuals etc so. They work on corporate transactions such as mergers and acquisitions, private equity deals etc, there is no way a law firm that e.g. focuses on immigration or a solicitor firm will be anywhere near as profitable as a corporate law firm and will never pay anywhere as close.

I’m assuming this is the story OP is referring to as you can see some US firms already pay £180k for NQ lawyers in London.

https://www.fnlondon.com/articles/linklaters-freshfields-nq-pay-150-000-quinn-clifford-chance-a-o-cravath-038fafc4#

having said that I do agree with you at £60k is very very low for a partner role unless it’s a very small firm.

And also future newly qualified in these firms will only be those who have passed the SQE on their first attempt. That’s a bloodbath of an exam and only the best will past first time. On top of that they have a minimum of two years practical experience - they haven’t just walked out of uni into a law firm.

Why are you only on 60k as a partner? I’m at an SW firm and that’s less than our Associates make.

Ha me too fingers. I didn’t go back after dd1 was born. I would never have seen my baby! A colleague had a day nanny and a night nanny. No judgement but fuck that!

Aren’t salaries just bunching up though. The lock-step increases will get smaller as the NQ rate is the one that gets attention. The equity partners won’t cut their profit share.

Former lawyer at a big US firm. I started on 6 figures as an NQ and made approx 300k the year I quit. The pay is high because very few people are willing or able to work 14 hour days 5 days per week. The work is simultaneously tedious and stressful. Hardly anyone makes partner. It’s essentially danger money for the cannon fodder. I resigned after having my first baby because I wasn’t willing to keep working that way and I was in the fortunate position not to need the money.

The NQs are “worth it” because that’s the market rate for NQs at city firms these days.

Tbf as a 10+ year qualified senior solicitor at a City firm (not as high paying as Freshfields), I'm loving the £150k NQ salary chat. It's pay review season so I'm hoping it will encourage the partners to give me a decent rise. I enjoy dropping it into conversation frequently with my boss.

NQ salaries are well known and have been for ages. See Roll On Friday.

This is really the result of the salary arms race that the US law firms have created; UK law firms are having to compete.

Ask yourself OP would you want their lives? Really?

Freshfields and Linklaters are now paying their newly qualified solicitors £150k plus bonus.

My goodness! Whatever next.

A 23 year-old paid £375,000 per week in Manchester for kicking a ball around a football pitch?

I also would have been hauled over the coals for writing “practise” as a noun form.

I used work for a corporate which regularly retains firms such as these to work on M&A deals. A number of years back we were working hard to close a deal before Christmas. I recall leaving the law firm offices close to midnight with all the material terms agreed to go to our hotel. The law firm associate was going back to her desk to mark up the docs. The time stamp on the email of the revised documents was 5am and she was in the office waiting for us when we arrived at 7:30am Christmas Eve morning.

That’s what they are being paid for - to basically suspend their lives completely in return for financial reward. The fees we were charged in that deal ran into the millions.

how aged 56 have you only just realised this @Molemole ?

I am a solicitor and have known for ever that city firms pay extremely well, but also expect blood in return

To correct some misconceptions here, a newly qualified solicitor isn’t straight out of university; they have done a legal practice course or similar and often a law conversion course if a non law undergraduate degree. Then a two year training contract before being classed as “newly qualified”.

I worked in a magic circle law firm. It wasn’t snobby. Ever single one of my peers was in the top 1% of their graduating class (usually the prize winners at their respective universities for top graduating student in their course). I worked three times the hours of friends in non legal industries (medicine included) and the pressure was immense. That kind of pace isn’t sustainable for most people which is why only a tiny percentage make partner. It’s also why the pay is so high - because for most (not all) they can only work at that pace for a decade or so.