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Akin Gump caps salary exchange rate following drop in pound

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London NQs continue to earn £179k

US outfit Akin Gump has confirmed that it has placed a cap on the exchange rate it uses to calculate its London lawyers’ salaries.

Earlier this week Legal Cheek speculated that the drop in the value of the pound against the dollar might lead to jubilation amongst lawyers working at some US-headquartered firms’ London offices. That’s because many of these firms base their pay on a dollar figure which is then converted to pound sterling.

Many US firms decide a spot rate that fixes the exchange rate for a certain period of time. For Akin Gump that spot rate is decided at the beginning of each quarter, with the last quarter’s rate running from July to September being set at £1 = US$1.2005.

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At the start of the year, the firm decided on £1 = $1.3553 for its spot rate which put its March salary hike at £159k. The firm then tweaked this rate to £1 = $1.3109 for April to June, boosting NQ base pay to £164,000. The July to September adjustment handed NQs a base salary of £179,000.

The US outfit has now decided to stop matching the actual FX rate, introducing an upper limit of 1.2 and a lower limit of 1.5.

Class yearCravath scaleLive conversion rate (£0.92:$1 used here)Akin Gump pay based on capped conversion rate
2014$415,000£382,500£346,000
2015$400,000£368,500£333,500
2016$370,000£341,000£308,500
2017$345,000£318,000£287,500
2018$295,000£272,000£246,000
2019$250,000£230,500£208,500
2020$225,000£207,500£187,500
2021$215,000£198,000£179,000

Figures have been rounded

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19 Comments

Anon

Those poor kids. Should we start a GoFundMe to help them survive on such a measly 179k salary!!!! How will they survive on just 8 times the national average whilst in their 20s.

(13)(14)

Anon

No, £179k is a lot of money. Are you crazy? I won’t be contributing

(12)(11)

Anon

Don’t hate the player

(4)(0)

Age discrimination or

Hey I resent that, I’m 31 so please don’t age discriminate if I’m on 179k in my early 30s.

(8)(3)

Mrs Gump

Run Forr…

No…

I can’t be bothered…

(1)(2)

A

Good

(0)(0)

Mrs Curious

Are you at Akin, Mrs Gump?

Care to share which teams are the busiest?

(0)(0)

Anon

Looks like US firms have called the market!

(6)(1)

Boss

Weak sauce

(3)(2)

KLAXON

Thx fresher. Now back to Introduction to Contracts you go, first tutorial is coming up next week.

(7)(7)

Boss

If I’m a fresher I’m out drinking and getting laid every night. Enjoy being a desk jockey 😘

(5)(8)

sad

because clearly you’re no longer able to do this as a lawyer (?)

enjoy your fresher’s week

(1)(3)

Boss

Ask your mum

Hearer of Klaxon

Woo woo iz da sound of da poleez!

(0)(0)

Suffer

Lawyers truly suffer eh. 179k? Pft! lol

(2)(1)

Insider

Stephenson Harwood increased maintenance grant to 11.5k

(0)(7)

Lol

And so?

(3)(0)

who

who?

(1)(1)

what

what

(0)(0)

Comments are closed.

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