Davis Polk Increases London Trainee Salaries to £70,000 (1)

Davis Polk & Wardwell has set a new high mark for trainee salaries in the UK as the fight for legal talent in London trickles down to entry-level positions.

Davis Polk raised second-year trainee solicitor salaries to £70,000 ($91,500) and boosted first-year pay to £65,000, according to the firm’s website. That marks a £5,000 increase at each level, and reflects the top rates for trainees among Big Law firms in the city.

The move by the Wall Street firm—a perennial leader in associate compensation stateside—is the latest in an ongoing pay war in the London market, which now extends from veteran rainmakers to the newest lawyers.

“The US firms have always paid more, but they’ve come over and basically pinched all of the good talent from all of the UK firms and the way that they’ve done that is they’ve offered better salaries,” said Larissa Rea, London-based managing director of Real Legal Recruitment.

Poaching among top US firms like Kirkland & Ellis and Paul Weiss has ratcheted up the going rate for deals-focused partners. Nearly 80 partners changed firms in London in July and August, the largest two-month total in at least 17 years, according to UK legal search firm Edwards Gibson.

Pay increases farther down the pipeline have nudged some of London’s oldest players to follow suit.

Salary Boosts

UK trainees are prospective lawyers who work at law firms or in-house departments for about two years. They are classified as newly qualified (NQ) solicitors after completing the training.

Davis Polk’s move “finally shifted the attention to trainees salaries,” following pay raises at higher levels across firms, Rea said. Those rates haven’t moved much in recent years, even to track inflation, she said.

Many top US law firms earlier this year flexed their profitability and bumped up the salaries for their newly qualified attorneys in London.

“I don’t think there really would much of a pay war if the US firms didn’t enter the UK market,” Rea said.

Davis Polk increased its NQ salaries to £170,000, while Sidley Austin bumped its salaries to £166,500. Ropes & Gray upped its salaries to £165,000. Paul Hastings topped all three of those firms, saying it would boost pay to £173,000.

The moves put pressure on homegrown firms to respond.

UK Magic Circle firms Linklaters and Freshfields responded by raising salaries for newly qualified lawyers to £150,000, up from £125,000. A&O Shearman later followed, also bumping its NQ salaries to £150,000. The newly formed firm also increased its trainee salaries to £56,000 for first-year trainees and to £61,000 for those in their second year.

US law firms in London will likely follow Davis Polk’s lead in upping trainee salaries, Rea said. “Whether or not the UK firms will get there, I don’t know,” she said.

London Calling

Leading US law firms began a concerted push into the UK market in 2015, gobbling up lucrative private equity work. Some of those firms are now poaching talent from each other.

High-profile moves have seen rainmakers jump between Kirkland and Paul Weiss over the last 14 months. London dealmaker Neel Sachdev joined the latter firm in August 2023, shortly after Kirkland raided Paul Weiss for the head of its UK office Alvaro Membrillera.

Paul Weiss has added a steady stream of London partners since then from Kirkland, as well as Clifford Chance and Linklaters. Kirkland has been on its own hiring spree, including adding a pair of private equity partner from Simpson Thacher & Bartlett.

Davis Polk, Simpson, Sidley Austin, and Paul Hastings have also been busy on the London hiring front during that time.

Meanwhile, some of the Magic Circle firms—once the dominant players in London—reported record-breaking financial performance last year. That’s thanks in part to their efforts to go on offense stateside.