Milbank bumps trainee pay to £62.5k

Year one rookies now on £57.5k

Milbank has boosted the salaries of its trainee solicitors in London by as much as 15%, Legal Cheek can reveal.

The money move means year one trainees now earn £57,500, a rise of 15% from £50,000, while those a year ahead will receive £62,500, a 14% bump from £55,000. Newly qualified associates currently earn a salary of £158,480.

The Legal Cheek 2022 Firms Most List shows the firm’s second year trainees are now among the highest paid in the City, with only a select few US outfits including Akin Gump, Cleary Gottlieb, Davis Polk and Ropes & Gray providing the same five-figure sum.

The highest trainee salary up for grabs is courtesy of Weil Gotshal, with a recently-improved year two rate of £65,000.

Milbank provides around seven UK training contracts each year and chalked up an A for training in our latest Trainee and Junior Lawyer Survey.

Away from the dizzying heights of City law, research released this week by legal recruiter Douglas Scott showed that one fifth of rookie solicitors in the capital were being paid below the Law Society’s suggested minimum salary of £22,794.