Jones Day has set a new rate for its London based newly qualified lawyers as firms continue to up figures across the city.
According to the firm’s website, it will now pay that group £140,000.
U.S. headquartered firms like Jones Day continue to pay their London NQs far beyond the rates at many elite U.K. outfits. Clifford Chance and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer both offer their NQ lawyers £125,000.
In July, fellow U.S. led firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld made its NQs the best known paid in London after the firm raised base rate salary to £179,000. In March, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher boosted its pay packet by to £161,700, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett’s rose to £158,000 and Covington & Burling also increased to £151,000.
In 2020, Jones Day cut NQ salaries by £5000 in a bid to curb the initial impacts of the coronavirus pandemic.
Several law firms have continued to up their NQ rates this year, as the traditional pay war for junior talent continues to rage. Different perspectives on the issue are now evident across the U.K., however.
Allen & Overy and Linklaters both recently announced that they have no plans to increase their NQ rates in the near future. But CMS managing partner Stephen Millar told Law.com International in August that high pay is ” something that the sector should celebrate more than it does.”
He added that he thought the talent war market was still very strong, and that “any talk of a bubble bursting seems misplaced”. Some figures in the industry have previously argued that the current pay war is unsustainable.
