$145,000 starting salary for 2009 for incoming first-year associates at Haynes and Boone

Incoming associates at Haynes and Boone will start work Nov. 30 with a starting salary for 2009 of $145,000. That’s below the $160,000 first-year salary that’s been the first-year BigTex market rate. Richard Fijolek of Dallas, the firm’s financial partner, says the firm hasn’t yet decided what it will pay the first-year lawyers in January. “We haven’t decided what we are paying in 2010. We are trying to figure out what the market is,” Fijolek says. The $145,000 starting salary was first reported in the Above the Law blog. Fijolek says the firm is waiting to see where the BigTex market rate settles before setting its 2010 salary for first-year lawyers. “We are not trying to set market. We typically pay at the market or the high end of the market,” he says. Fijolek says the firm has notified the associates of their 2009 salary but also told them that they will spend most of December in training and will do little billable work. When the firm sent the incoming associates job offers, it did not specify a starting salary, he says. According to Texas Lawyer’s New Associates Survey, published on Oct. 19, 38 incoming associates are scheduled to start work on Nov. 30 at Haynes and Boone offices in Texas.
-- Brenda Sapino Jeffreys

Comments

[Joe Marchelewski, Los Angeles, Cali]

I'd bet that incoming first-years are just thrilled to have a job with a six-figure salary. That extra $15,000 probably doesn't make much difference to them at this point in the economy.