Hogan Lovells enters the chat
The London salary war continues to burn well as Hogan Lovells has just upped its NQ pay by £15,000 to £135,000 – surpassing the last remaining Magic Circle firm (Slaughters), who have opted to keep its NQs on £125,000.
It’s a great move in a lot of respects from HL as it: (i) keeps them in touching distance to Freshfields, Links, CC and A&OS; (ii) all but matches some other US firms such as Orrick, Jones Day and S&C; and (iii) adds some decent daylight between them and the chasing pack, namely HSF, Mayor Brown, NRF, Bakers, and Ashurst.
The vital question of to what extent these rises have been made equal all the way up the PQE ladder will of course be an extremely important one, especially as the four MC firms that made the rise to £150,000 at NQ matched the £25k bump all the way up ladder. Stay tuned for updates on this.
Slaughters – arguably above all other firms – are now going to come under even more pressure to raise its associate salaries, as will a host of other firms of course.
I can’t imagine this will be my last post related to salary increases in June – and potentially not even this week!
