Sidley Enters The Associate Compensation Fray
Extra good news for extraordinary associates.
When Cravath announced a salary hike earlier this week, matching the Milbank scale for junior associates and coming over the top for the more experienced attorneys, it was a signal to the rest of Biglaw to get their acts together. Since then, there has been a flood of other top firms announcing their own set of raises.
The most recent firm to get on board with associate raises is Sidley. And this isn’t a surprise, the firm is ranked number 6 in the country with $2,922,634,000 in gross revenue last year. *Not* responding to the wave of raises swirling through the top of Biglaw would be the bigger story.
The announcement went out earlier this morning, and the salary scale at the firm is as follows:
| Class Year | 2024 Salary |
| 2015 | 445,000 |
| 2016 | 435,000 |
| 2017 | 420,000 |
| 2018 | 390,000 |
| 2019 | 365,000 |
| 2020 | 310,000 |
| 2021 | 260,000 |
| 2022 | 235,000 |
| 2023 | 225,000 |
This scale is in line with the Cravath scale announced earlier this week, with a small exception that is major for senior associates. The majority of firms that have announced raises so far have placed the class of 2015 off the compensation grid, meaning their salary is individualized. Sidley is the first firm to standardize ninth-year salaries.
Additionally, the firm announced their year-end bonuses:
| Class Year | 2023 Year-end Base Bonus |
| 2015+ | $115,000 |
| 2016 | $115,000 |
| 2017 | $105,000 |
| 2018 | $90,000 |
| 2019 | $75,000 |
| 2020 | $57,500 |
| 2021 | $30,000 |
| 2022 | $20,000 |
Plus there’s extra good news for the super high billers and those with “exceptional performance” at the firm:
As in prior years, we also recognize associates who have higher productivity and/or exceptional performance with additional bonuses that exceed the base bonus amounts, resulting in those associates receiving more than the base bonus for their class year, and in some instances significantly more.
The full memo is available on the next page.
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Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Mastodon @Kathryn1@mastodon.social.
