BIG BIG MONEY
Look, this headline is definitely, in large, clickbait.
Mainly because the overwhelming majority of the Partners getting the coveted $20m/year pay packet are in the US. HOWEVER, following a couple of recent marque moves between Kirkland, Paul Weiss, and Simpson Thacher, there are a handful of lawyers in London (subject to performance metrics being met) that are part of this elite group of lawyers / rainmakers.
The crux of this article though is that firms are starting to see NYC and London as a single market, which is being reflected in pay – both at associate level, where, for a long time now US and London based associates are paid the same, and increasingly now, at the Partner level. My eagle-eyed readers will remember me making this very point a few weeks ago btw .
For those unwilling to click through to read this article in full, here is a great paragraph: “The comp stretch will require genuine buy-in from UK partners and will unsettle many, but it’s the logical endpoint of the top UK firms’ US strategies. But it also has strategic consequences for firms even at the upper end of the mid-market. Those firms can forget any serious Stateside ambitions unless the UK firm in question fancies being taken over, restructured, and its culture pummelled. So we had better get used to multiple connotations of what globalisation represents to commercial firms. For most of the City mid-tier it will mean Europe, with a sprinkle of Singapore, Dubai and Riyadh. For the big UK players, adopting the galactico bracket will mean black-box remuneration and a dirigiste management. That’s some cultural shift.”
