Miriam Gonzalez’s firm leads way, upping NQ salary to £74,000
Dechert is the latest firm to throw a deflation-busting pay rise to its London junior lawyers as the Philadelphia-based practice bumped up newly-qualified starting salaries by nearly 9%.
That rate of increase matched the percentage rise announced last week at mid-tier firm Travers Smith, but Dechert far outpaced the English player in terms of cold hard cash.
While freshly-minted lawyers at Travers were put on starting whacks of £70,000, those at Dechert — where Miriam Gonzalez (pictured), the wife of ex-Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, is a partner — will now be taking home £74,000.
But juniors at Dechert were far and away the luckiest of the bunch at a further three firms where pay rises were revealed at the end of last week.
The other rises came at international firm Eversheds, which bumped up NQ pay in its London headquarters by 5% to £62,000, and the London office of Addleshaw Goddard, where new qualifiers received a boost of slightly more than 3% to take starting pay to £61,000.
Meanwhile, Addleshaw associates were given a pay boost from £61,000 to £62,000. While those operating out the firm’s regional offices also received a modest increase from £38,000 to £40,000. NQs at Eversheds’ regional office bagged an 8% rise to £40,000.
Some trainees also did well. Dechert bumped up first-year pay by £2,000 to £44,000; Eversheds doled out a pay rise of a grand, taking first-years to £37,000 — the same level as Addleshaw trainees, whose salaries will be unchanged in 2015.
Previously:
City law pay bonanza — three firms boost junior wedge by as much as 9% [Legal Cheek]