Kellogg Hansen has announced a new associate pay scale, raising starting salaries to $275,000 effective July 1, cementing its place at the top of the legal market.
The firm had already been paying associates on a $260,000 scale, which itself exceeded the prevailing market rate established by Milbank’s widely discussed compensation announcement earlier this year.
The move also includes special bonuses of up to $75,000, further widening the gap between Kellogg Hansen and firms still benchmarking against more conventional pay grids.
The broader context for this shift is a boutique compensation arms race sparked by Susman Godfrey, which raised associate salaries to as much as $450,000, with first-year associates now earning $240,000.
Susman’s decision did not just clear the Milbank benchmark but surpassed it, creating what now appears to be a distinct compensation track for elite commercial litigation boutiques competing for top talent.
Holwell Shuster and Goldberg became the first firm to formally adopt the Susman scale, signalling that a new pay standard is taking root among the most prestigious litigation shops in the country.
Other firms that have moved on salaries since the Milbank announcement include Hueston Hennigan, Quinn Emanuel, Vartabedian Katz Hester Haynes, Groom Law Group, AZA, Elsberg Baker and Maruri, and Wilkinson Stekloff.
On clerkship bonuses, the competition is equally fierce, with Susman and Hueston Hennigan both offering a market-leading $180,000 bonus to federal clerks who join their respective firms.
Quinn Emanuel offers $175,000 for a single year of clerkship experience, with an additional $25,000 available to applicants who complete a second qualifying clerkship.
Boies Schiller offers a $150,000 bonus for all federal clerkships, rising to $175,000 for those who have completed multiple clerkships, rounding out a highly competitive landscape for recruiting top judicial clerk talent.
The cumulative effect of these announcements is a restructured compensation environment where elite boutiques are no longer simply following Big Law but actively setting their own benchmarks.
For law graduates and judicial clerks weighing their options, the gap between boutique and traditional large firm pay has never been narrower, and in some cases has reversed entirely.