Follows Magic Circle firm’s decision to up newly qualified salaries last September
Slaughter and May has opted to hold its salaries for newly qualified (NQ) solicitors at £150,000 as part of its spring pay review.
The move is unsurprising given that the firm raised NQ remuneration by £25k from £125,000 as recently as September 2024 and doesn’t preclude the possibility of an autumn pay rise this year.
The other Magic Circle firms — A&O Shearman, Clifford Chance, Freshfields and Linklaters — all increased their NQ pay levels to £150k last May, with Slaughters then playing catch-up a few months later. None have yet come out publicly to say what they are doing with NQ pay this year. With some US firms in London offering up to £180,000 for NQ solicitors, they are under constant pressure to boost rookie salaries.
The Financial Times has this morning framed the news as “a sign that a fierce war for legal talent in the City may be cooling for the first time since the Covid pandemic”, citing “lower dealmaking volumes resulting from Donald Trump’s US trade war, along with higher salary costs following sharp increases in recent years”.
All eyes will now be on the other Magic Circle firms to determine whether this narrative is correct.
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