The Biglaw Salary Wars Increased First-Year Associate Salaries Across The Legal Profession

The pandemic gave rise to a year of uncertainty across the legal profession, but one thing COVID didn't bring crashing down were first-year associate salaries. We all know about the Biglaw salary wars, but according to a new report from the National Association for Law Placement, first-year associate salaries are actually up at all firms.

NALP's 2023 Associate Salary Survey report notes that as of January 1, 2023, the median base salary for first-year associates was $200,000, which is up $35,000 from 2021, the last time this survey came out. Of the 694 responses received, 81% of them came from law firms of more than 250 lawyers.

Nikia L. Grey, NALP's Executive Director, had this to say about the report:

"The past two years saw a red-hot recruiting market where associates scored multiple pay raises and commanded unprecedented leverage as firms desperately tried to add and retain lawyers. Although the market has since turned 180 degrees, the added pressure of the so-called talent wars at the time appears to have caused these pay increases to cascade throughout the market at an accelerated pace. While normally it takes the highly publicized raises at the largest firms two or more years to move through the market, NALP's latest Associate Salary Survey shows that salaries increased dramatically across the industry, regardless of firm size or location."

$215K may now be the most common starting salary -- after the salary wars of 2022, where firms of more than 700 lawyers doled out $10,000 raises from the prior $205,000 base -- but not all firms were able to bump their first-years to such salary heights. As it turns out, the greatest percentage salary growth was seen at firms of 100 lawyers or fewer, where median first-year salaries increased by 29.2%, from $120,000 in 2021 to $155,000 in 2023. At firms of 501-700 lawyers, base salaries for first-years grew by $45,000, from $155,000 in 2021 to $200,000 in 2023.

NALP had some interesting location-based information on salaries:

Now that the market is in a bit of rough territory, with layoffs happening all too frequently, should associates be expecting another raise any time soon? We saw salary increases in 2021 and 2022, so things may remain quiet for a while on the compensation front. Check back in sometime in 2024 or 2025, and we may have more exciting salary news to report.

First-Year Associate Salaries Increase Sharply Since 2021 [NALP]

Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she's worked since 2011. She'd love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.