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

[Molemole]

I’m a private practise solicitor in the south west. I serve my community and have worked my way up to partner in our small firm. Aged 56 I make £60k a year.

I’ve just read that lawyers at snobby london firms like Freshfields and Linklaters are now paying their trainees more than me. They are paying newly qualified lawyers £150k plus bonus.

How can anyone be worth that with 6 months experience in that area?

Absolutely. At law school I was constantly helping my friends with TCs at magic circle firms with their homework. Plenty of very able lawyers just don't want that lifestyle/to work in those areas of law.

The easy way to remember it is that it's the same as the difference between advice and advise.

Advice/practice are nouns

Advise/practise are verbs

It's easier to remember with advice and advise, because they're pronounced differently.

I wouldn’t say she’s at a top London law firm If she’s only on £80k

I agree OP. I qualified at CMS in 2010, my starting salary as an NQ was £55,000 (admittedly it had been slashed as the financial crisis hit in the first week of my training contract). I now see that the starting salary at CMS is £105,000.. madness!

The pressure they must be under though to justify that salary must be unbelievable.

I left the City 8 years ago and whilst I spend a lot of the time looking enviously at my old colleague’s salaries, my work life balance is so much better now and I couldn’t go back.

It does seem to make some people crazy. I remember being yelled at by one former magic circle manager because I refused to make my team action their (very detailed) comments on a paper for 9am on Monday - because "it worked for their diary" (the amended paper was sent to me at 6pm on the Friday).

It wasn't an urgent paper. I just calmly said I would not make my team give up their weekends to make their diary easier and if there was a problem with that they could go to our executive director and explain why they needed junior staff to work in their personal time on a non urgent paper. Their puce fury was a sight to behold.

Oh OP - bitter?

Comfort yourself with the knowledge that they’re worked into the ground, their social life is sporadic to non existent, their student debt is eye watering and their rent for a tiny flat is extortionate.

Be happy with your lot and maybe instead of sniping at others, snipe at a government that has systematically eroded legal aid instead.

Sorry, but there is an experienced 56-year-old solicitor who has only just discovered salary variations in the industry, refers to "snobby london firms," and gets confused between "practice" and "practise"? And is now surprised that they might be paid less than some other solicitors?

Figment - the market is really variable - I joined CMS as an NQ in 1997 on £50k but the market was booming then.

Pay has no relation to worth or competence just how close you are to the money. Big law firms are closer to the money so they pay more and they will be expecting to own those newly qualified lawyers working long hours and attending client dinners etc. (not that I feel at all sorry for them on £150k a year). From the ex-magic circle lawyers I know it is just a rat race where you either are psychotic enough to climb up the ladder or you jump off at some point and have a good career doing law elsewhere without the stress and toxicity that seems to be a feature of those places. Seems to be the same with finance and consultancy.

My best friend has been at a Magic Circle (and is far from 'snobby') since she qualified. She's on well over £200K now. She started on just over £90K in 2015. Was she worth it? Yes.

Because only someone young can do the sorts of hours that she was pulling. Once you get older, priorities change, you settle down, have kids, want a slower life etc and so you're not willing to schmooze clients and work until gone 2AM every night. They pay them so much because of the insane hours that they need to work in order for the basic company 'niceties' to be met and for deadlines to be met. As they get older, their hours get more 'normal' - the 'managing partner' (in normal speak) at the law firm I did my Vac Scheme at worked 9-5 every day.

My best friend now works the same hours as our friend who's a legal aid lawyer and, quite frankly, you couldn't pay me to do legal aid. £30K or £200K for the same hours? I know which I'd pick.

My husband did it for 10 years before getting out. He’s been out for 8 years.

PPs are right- they owned him, body and soul.

If he got home by 1030pm (he left the house at 7am on a normal, not busy day), I thought it was a good ‘easy’ day.

He did not see are two eldest children in the week at all (well awake at least!). He only saw them at weekends… but not if it was busy because then he had to work. Often he did not see me awake for days at a time.

I felt pretty much like a single parent Monday- Saturday. As the spouse it was really lonely.

When I was in labour with DC2 (having been rushed in for an induction due to a problem) he was told (jokingly, but the subtext was VERY serious), that labour takes a long time, and there’s a lot of hanging about, so make sure you keep on top of your emails.

The pressure and strain upon him was immense. And he was in a dept. that was not considered that cut throat! Friend from his trainee intake that went into the higher paying/more intense departments were sleeping at desks… getting a cab home at 6am that would wait outside whilst they showered and changed and then straight back to the office. That was not anything unusual.

He didn’t want to continue and was at the stage where he needed to put more effort into getting clients and making partner. He decided it was enough and couldn’t do it anymore.

He moved to the higher education sector. His salary is now lower than yours. We are much much happier as a family.

So move to snobby London and earn more 🤷‍♀️

Don't be too bothered op - they will be spending half of that on london rent & travel.

Can I ask what hours you work? One of my closest friends is a London lawyer and was on that sort of salary when he started. He worked obscene hours, up to 18 hours a day, 7 days a week, on conference calls at 3am because of offices in Japan and the US etc. Seeing what he went through, and the toll it took, he absolutely earned that 150k. (Yes I am well aware people can work obscene hours for far less, but we’re talking about lawyers specifically here.)

I didn’t get a first or know a lot (or any!) of the right people, but I work at one of the “snobby” firms named in the OP! I have been working for 20 years and only earn a bit more than the newly qualified lawyers. However, I work part time and strictly 9 to 5. They are being paid to work very long hours (including weekends and all night if required) under immense pressure. Many people couldn’t (or wouldn’t choose to) do this.

I’m a solicitor at the regional office of a national firm, 5yrs PQE, and earn £86k plus bonus.

The City firms pay those salaries because the work they do is extremely lucrative and they want to attract the cream of the crop in a very competitive job market. They also beast people with hours and expect a lot for that salary.

You describing them as “snobby” is just weird - they aren’t snobby. And have you only just realised some solicitors earn considerably more than others, and some types of work, for certain types of client, is far more profitable?

I don’t begrudge them it at all, good luck to them!

You are serving your community.

They are serving quite a different clientele - with deeper pockets.

I am in-house and instruct these firms. I don't care about salaries all I care about is that the work gets done and before the deadline. I send them huge pieces of work with little to no notice and if it gets to them on a Saturday they have to get their team in place and start working.

The average hourly rate for a partner is over 2k and I don't know the rates for more junior lawyers.

They never have the ability to say no we can't do it - if they want the money for their hourly rates they simply have to resource as much as they can and get it done.

Is an NQ worth it in terms of skills and expertise - possibly not. Do I think they need a certain level of compensation that is equitable when you look at the money the equity partners are taking home off the back of their hard work - yes. You can't have the partners on multiple millions a year and have the juniors who do the grunt work on 60k.

They send me the bill, it is eye watering, we haggle a bit over the amount and then it is paid. We all make money and go home. And then I send another email at 7pm on a Friday saying urgent urgent and the nqs cancel their weekend plans again.

It's not a race to the bottom. We constantly say how people in other lines of work should be better paid for what they do. Let's focus on increasing wages across the board rather than pushing the bar down.

Think of advice (n) and advise (v)

I was fully qualified and made £30k.

Why do you give them such little notice? Your thread sounds as if you rather enjoy spoiling their weekend by sending something at 7 pm classed as “urgent urgent “.

Three friends of SIL’s who she was at Oxford with, were law graduates.

After graduating one worked for a silver circle firm, not sure where other worked and third had a training contract at a magic circle firm.

The first two lefts the top firms in their 30s to get in house legal jobs in non law firms. One got married and had children, the other would’ve liked marriage and children but I think she was too career minded and it ruined at least 2 relationships. She worked in China with her first law firm as she’s fluent in mandarin/cantonese.

The third wasn’t kept on by the magic circle firm after her training contract, was disappointed but moved and got a good job at another law firm and got married and had DC so her life worked out well.

The long hours, sleeping in offices isn’t a myth either so if they’re started on those figures they’ll earn them. I did hear one of them say though, she’d rather earn less and have a better work life balance, which she’s done (and so have the others).

Yes, they’re worth it. Market forces.

@Rainydayinlondon I don't enjoy it at all. I do my best to avoid it. But if the work is driven by the markets or opportunistic deals then you don't get a choice over when it is done and you can't plan for it. I am also only able to plan to the extent the commercial team plan - and like in any job stuff breaks down sometimes. I do my best with what I have got and so do they.

I do my best to keep a sense of humour and be available at all times if they need information - whether it's 2.30 in the morning or when I am out and about. I do my best to be transparent about fees so both sides feel they have done well out of the work. When I can give them more time I do - urgent work invariably ends up with points being missed etc. But my job is to get it done and the law firm's job is to ensure they resource the work so we meet the deadline. I can't get too involved in how they resource work - that's their job as a business to do

Those are just the best, not every new graduate