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Travers pushes NQ lawyer pay to £120k

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By Legal Cheek on

29

Rises for trainees too


Travers Smith has become the latest City law firm to increase the salaries of its newly qualified (NQ) associates, aiming to keep pace with similar raises implemented by many of its rivals.

The outfit has moved NQ base rates from £110,000 to £120,000, an uplift of 9% that sees it draw level with the likes of Norton Rose Fulbright and Mayer Brown.

The firm said that NQs have the potential to earn up to £20,000 as an additional bonus.

The 2024 Legal Cheek Firms Most List

The base move falls short of the £125,000 now on offer at Ashurst and Reed Smith which both announced pay uplifts last week.

Travers also confirmed trainee pay has increased to £54,000 in year one and £59,000 in year two. These previously sat at £50,000 and £55,000, respectively.

The Legal Cheek Firms Most List shows Travers recruits around 40 trainees each year.

29 Comments

Ray

They always were a small shop

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(7)(24)

J

What is NQ retention looking like?

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(12)(3)

Piggy Bank

The Travers partnership searched under every cushion in their office for pennies to scrape together enough cash for this pay-rise!

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(31)(18)

Anonymous

Traver’s HR team rally with the downvotes

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(24)(5)

C

Is Watson, SHed or AG rising yet?

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(7)(1)

Not great

This is not great considering what their competitors have done

(And yes it’s still a lot money to general public..)

Reply Report comment
(13)(13)

But also not bad

Eh, sort of, they’ve been a bit below HSF, HogLov and Macs for the last few review rounds anyway. A 9% raise in the current market isn’t awful. Doubt anyone is losing sleep over it!

Reply Report comment
(21)(3)

Huh

Mate I can’t keep up with these salary rises – who’s next to rise?

Reply Report comment
(10)(0)

lol

Ohh slaughters smh, they better rise to £155k or something lol

Reply Report comment
(16)(0)

Mr. Worldwide

Slaughter’s only boast nowadays is their high PEP – giving out higher NQ salaries and relieving bunching is going to eat into that. Feels like the 1 office + best friends model (like Macs and Travers) is on the decline, despite Mac’s recent pay uplift.

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(18)(4)

lolol

Why should they raise it? Slaughters are a full service SC firm that pays just about right for what they are

Reply Report comment
(6)(2)

salaryraisefortheebutnotforme

Any word from Jones Day, Morgan Lewis, Orrick, Cooley etc etc?

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(5)(0)

Plopped

Who?

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(5)(9)

Hierarchy

Is Travers still considered SC? What’s the agreed-upon list?

Reply Report comment
(5)(8)

The List Blesser

The SC has fragmented like the MC:

Traditional SC (based on the original criteria): Macfarlanes, Travers (hanging on) and now Slaughter and May.
SC firms that have global “elite” ambitions (and no longer fit the SC criteria): Ashurst and HSF
Defunct: BLP
No one seriously considers SC: Mishcon, CMS etc.

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(26)(1)

King Arthur

Agreed – Ashurst, Travers Smith, Herbert Smith and Macfarlanes were the traditional Silver Circle.

Ashurst and HSF are legacy Silver Circle firms, now in a different grouping, with SM joining the Silver Circle. Quite the full circle considering SM is the “child” of Ashurst Morris Crisp.

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(21)(0)

Chris

Slaughters is not Silver Circle. It needs a new category. Given its profitability (much higher than MC) and elite mandates, should it be Platinum Circle?

Reply Report comment
(0)(3)

J the chemist

Slaughters does have high PEP (but also has a tiny partnership) and doesn’t operate in less profitable markets (Europe & Asia for example) which eats into PEP of the other MC firms (and the likes of Herbies, Ashursts)

Slaughters does get elite public M&A mandates no doubt in the UK, but globally, no. It’s not exactly Skadden, STB and so on.

Maybe an Electrum Circle and Slaughters is its only member.

Reply Report comment
(1)(0)

?

Yes, they’re obviously still SC, it’s firms like BCLP that are questionable (whether they’ve ever been fully in the bucket is another question altogether)

Reply Report comment
(11)(2)

Make sense

No it’s very much the same question. Don’t let platitudes get in the way of making a point.

Reply Report comment
(2)(4)

Pedantphile Hunter

If you’re being pedantic, sure, the overarching question is the same. But there’s clearly a distinction between whether BCLP formed part of the SC two decades ago, i.e., did they originally belong, and whether they currently deserve to be ‘de-grouped’, seeing as many have long deemed them a SC-firm anyway, despite the historical contention.

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(3)(1)

Bryan Caved

BCLP is SC for real estate, and CMS/Shed/Pinsent etc. level for everything else lol

Reply Report comment
(9)(0)

Anon

I.e., they are not SC.

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(4)(0)

Truth

Just cos a firm has a higher salary don’t necessarily make them better than another firm

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(7)(1)

Dd

She’d rising to £110k

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(0)(4)

ES

Eversheds is 100k NQ.

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(3)(1)

C

Dentons to £125k in early 2025

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(0)(3)

Dentons

Clearly dont work at Dentons then

Reply Report comment
(2)(0)

McDentons

Do you want fries with that?

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(5)(0)

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