No real surprise, but the Above the Law blog is reporting that Faegre & Benson, like Dorsey & Whitney and several other local big firms, has scaled back its starting salary for new associates from $120,000 a year to $110,000 a year. (You may recall Faegre earlier this year laid off 29 associates. Dorsey chose to institute the salary cuts instead of lawyer layoffs. Faegre has now done both.)
Here’s Faegre’s explanation for the salary cuts (reportedly announced earlier this month), taken from an internal memo posted on Above the Law:
We have been monitoring changes in starting salaries across the country, including recently announced changes at firms with principal offices in Minneapolis and Denver, as well as changes in London. At the same time, we have been listening to concerns expressed by our clients regarding the cost of legal services. We did not come quickly to the decision to makes these changes. But all things considered, we believe our new starting salaries to be competitive in the evolving marketplace for talent and responsive to client expectations in the evolving marketplace for legal services.
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My firm also recently cut associate pay by 10%, and also justified the cut by citing “client concerns.” The general feeling here is that it’s a load of B.S. Our billing rates still increased on schedule, but our salaries were cut–in other words, the salary cut has no direct effect on the cost of legal services for clients, only on the firm’s bottom line. Firm managers should treat associates like adults, man up, and just tell the truth: they’re cutting salaries because they can. No one likes being lied to.
[...] for himself or herself. Here’s the latest such comment we received, this one as a response to a recent post on Faegre & Benson lowering its starting salaries. My firm also recently cut associate pay by [...]
[...] those of you keeping score, Faegre earlier this year laid off 29 associates, and later slashed starting salaries. Possibly related posts: (automatically generated)US cutbacks continue as Chicago duo cut 80 [...]