Norton Rose Fulbright has raised trainee and NQ salaries, but incurred the wrath of other junior solicitors who say it has failed to also increase their pay.

NRF trainees will now be paid £44,000 in their first year, up £2,000, and £48,000 in their second. Salaries for new NQs will be £75,000, up from £72,000.

However, RollOnFriday understands that the 4% hike will only apply to new NQs. Current NQs will remain on £72,000. Insiders told RollOnFriday that the firm has also frozen the base pay of 1PQEs at £76,000, which an astute insider pointed out "is only £1,000 more than an NQ". The result, a source told RollOnFriday, has been "much discontent in the junior associate ranks".

    Julia (1PQE) welcomes the new NQs. 

It comes just after rival firms Travers Smith and Macfarlanes increased all their junior solicitors' pay. NRF now matches those firms' £75k NQ salaries. But 1PQEs at Macfarlanes are now on a base rate of £81k. Those at Travers are on £82k.

Macfarlanes was also able to emphasise the value of its performance bonuses. Whereas at Norton Rose Fulbright, bonuses have become a bone of contention after an overhaul last year. The new scheme is, said a junior solicitor, "now linked to the value of work billed and not chargeable hours, meaning you get shafted if a partner decides to write off time or apply discounted rates". It has, said the lawyer, "annoyed a lot of associates".

However a spokeswoman for Norton Rose Fulbright told RollOnFriday that there is no selective pay freeze. She said, "we have a merit based approach to determining salaries beyond the NQ salary". She also said the performance bonus was "based on a number of considerations including fees billed, knowledge investment, firm and individual performance".

What is undisputed by juniors is the firm's "excellent work" and "collegiate spirit", as divulged by them in the RollOnFriday Firm of the Year 2017 survey. They also praised the Mint Clubs on the client floor. And the toilet flushes in London which "reverberate throughout the surrounding offices" like "that moment in Jurassic Park when Jeff Goldblum realises T-Rex is coming... except it's not T-Rex, it's a banking partner who's dropped off his heavy client lunch and now has a crippling proof-reading task for you on a Friday afternoon".
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Comments

Anonymous 14 July 17 12:28

anon 10:50 "knowledge investment" is what the consultant being paid half your raise told to the HR bod who is being paid the other half, when they met for a blue sky thought shower.

Anonymous 14 July 17 12:42

"The value of your investment can go down as well as up, and you can get back less than you originally invested." (Disclaimer from NRF training session)

Anonymous 18 July 17 15:54

"based on a number of considerations including fees billed, knowledge investment, firm and individual performance" ie just the same as every other prof serv firm - what the partner thinks they can get away with giving you so it doesn't affect their alimony/yacht/kids' school fees/holiday home payments and so that you will roll up your sleeves and do it all again next year...

Anonymous 26 July 17 13:46

If you changed the firm's name to Fieldfisher and dropped the NQ salary to 63k, this conversation sounds very familiar. Watch for the Fieldfisher exodus.....