Latham & Watkins bumps trainee pay to £50-55k and increases maintenance grant

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By Legal Cheek on

Future rookies to receive £10.5k in financial support

The London office of US law titan Latham & Watkins has upped trainee lawyer pay by as much as 10%.

Legal Cheek can reveal first year trainees will now receive a salary of £50,000, up 9% from £46,000, while those in their second year will earn £55,000, up 10% from £50,000. The rises are effective from 1 March.

Our Firms Most List shows that the uplifts put the firm’s rookies on the same levels of cash as their opposite numbers at a host of US outfits, including Kirkland & Ellis, Ropes & Gray, Sidley Austin and Weil Gotshal.

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Upon qualification, UK associates receive a salary of $190,000 (around £137,000 based on current conversion rates).

Latham, which recruits around 24 trainees each year, also confirmed it had upped its Post-graduate Diploma in Law and Legal Practice Course maintenance grants to £10,500 — a rise of 31% from £8,000. The boosts will take effect from 1 August.

Earlier this week Legal Cheek reported that fellow US player Goodwin Procter had bucked the COVID pay cut trend, upping London NQ salaries by 10% to £137,500.

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