Excited associates were seen whooping and burning £50 notes as Allen & Overy confirmed minor pay rises for junior lawyers this week.

RollOnFriday revealed rumours of pay rises for junior lawyers at the firm a few weeks ago, and now those rises have been set in stone. According to a spokesman from the firm, there will be a £500 rise for newly qualified, 1 PQE and 2 PQE lawyers (to £61.5k, £68.5k and £74.5k respectively), and those at 3PQE will get a whole £1,000 (up to £86,000). Trainee solicitors will not get a rise this time round, but then £38,000 straight out of law school still isn't bad.
 
    Associates celebrate the generosity of Allen & Overy
 
So it's hardly earth-shattering, although as A&O is also continuing to move junior associates up the pay ladder each year (unlike in 2009-10), NQs will for example receive an extra £7,000 as they move to 1 PQE.

1 PQE lawyers will no doubt enjoy thinking of ways to spend their extra 79p after tax per day. RollOnFriday considers a single song on iTunes, a bottle of diet Coke or a Yorkie bar to be excellent investments. Or they could save up £5.57 over the course of a week and treat themselves to a slap-up lunch at McDonalds (just don't go large). Or just donate their salaries to the Deidre Dare Defence Fund.

Tip Off ROF

Comments

Anonymous 20 April 12 01:49

Gents, a few typos in the final paragraph - they could "treat" themselves to a slap-up lunch, or they could "donate" their salaries.

Your better than this (that one's for free).

Anonymous 20 April 12 11:57

Typical journalistic hypocrisy here. Criticise firms when they pay too much, criticise them when they freeze wages, criticise when they make pay cuts... Sure, it may only be 79p a day but its certainly better than last year, no?

Anonymous 20 April 12 12:56

79p a day? The 1PQEs, having just come up from NQ, will still be sitting on nearly £135 extra a week so I doubt they'll be grumbling too much.

The wage progression at any City law firm is brilliant by comparison to most careers at the moment. (if you are one of the ever increasing numbers of CoL/BPP alumni that manages to get in, but that's another unpleasant story)

A&O:
1st seat through to NQ - pay rise 62%
NQ to 1 - pay rise 11%
1 to 2 - pay rise 19%
2 to 3 - pay rise 15%

Anonymous 20 April 12 16:26

So a pay rise of somewhere between 0.8% and 1.2% when inflation is running at 3.8%...?

The increase in pay from band to band in law firms can hardly be compared to the average annual pay rise. Essentially the job is changing dramatically from year to year - look at the difference in responsibilities and expectations between a NQ and a 3PQE. If the difference between bands was just a 2 or 3 percent annual pay rise I bet a lot of lawyers would opt to stay at the lower salary and forgo the additional stress that comes with experience.

Anonymous 24 April 12 20:28

Ah! US firms that pay 40% more for the same (or less) hours and non-US firms that pay the same amount for 30% less hours are getting increasingly appealing.
Seriously A&O, are you losing your mind? I love the work and the people at this firm, but the money/hours package is repulsive.