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No. Every year I’m not promoted I’m taking an inflationary pay cut. Sucks.
Subject Expert
Nope. Had to lateral to get a raise.
Subject Expert
I’m not aware of any firm that does annual raises once you’re off scale (unless you get bumped to counsel and can negotiate such, based on performance).
At my firm, it’s not uncommon to see 12 year associates or older. As share values increase, a lot of people are pushed to wait longer for promotion even to counsel
Yet the firms continue raising our billable rates each year…
Subject Expert
So basically OP, based on these responses, once you’re off scale, it’s the Wild West out there and totally firm dependent so YMMV.
Subject Expert
Nope my comp stayed flat
I’ll know for sure after next year, but I’m pretty sure ours does a $5k annual raise each year after you hit top of scale. But they have started routinely keeping almost everyone at associate for 10 years before promoting to partner or counsel.
Enthusiast
I this was my first year off scale and I got a $15k bump. I did bill 2450 last year though, so that could have been a factor, though I have heard from people that billed much less that they got a bump as well, though not sure how much.
Subject Expert
Would someone explain “off the scale” in this context, please?
Subject Expert
For the uninitiated.
This is typical in big law—you max out on base but if you are very profitable, you may get extra bonus $$ while they assess whether you have a path to partner or some other long term career there. Are you making your hours every year?
Curious how "very profitable" is measured? As one of the other commenters said, rates continue to go up each year while salary remains flat, so the more this keeps up, the more profitable these off-scale people are.