Ed. note: Welcome to our daily feature, Quote of the Day.
What we understand is that the firms that are paying the most also often give the highest bonuses, and there are reasons for that. Those are the firms that are really competing with [Biglaw] for talent, that’s why their salaries are the same or reaching towards [Biglaw], and the bonuses tend to be significantly higher than in [Biglaw].
— Jay Edelson, founder of plaintiffs firm Edelson PC, in comments given to the American Lawyer, concerning compensation transparency at plaintiffs firms. “It’s only been more recent where plaintiffs firms have been going to [on campus interviews], especially at the top schools, and part of that was that the career services department didn’t really support plaintiffs work,” Edelson continued. “When we started going there years ago, we’ve been going for about 15 years, we had to explain that no, we don’t pay $30,000 a year. That’s just not how it works, but that’s the messaging they gave to their students because frankly they just didn’t know.” The National Plaintiffs Law Association is currently conducting an anonymous survey to gather pay data from plaintiffs firms, while Edelson has compiled his own tiered list of starting salaries at more than a dozen of the largest plaintiffs firms in the country.
Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Bluesky, X/Twitter, and Threads, or connect with her on LinkedIn.
The post Can You Make Biglaw Money At A Plaintiffs Firm? appeared first on Above the Law.
Ed. note: Welcome to our daily feature, Quote of the Day.
What we understand is that the firms that are paying the most also often give the highest bonuses, and there are reasons for that. Those are the firms that are really competing with [Biglaw] for talent, that’s why their salaries are the same or reaching towards [Biglaw], and the bonuses tend to be significantly higher than in [Biglaw].
— Jay Edelson, founder of plaintiffs firm Edelson PC, in comments given to the American Lawyer, concerning compensation transparency at plaintiffs firms. “It’s only been more recent where plaintiffs firms have been going to [on campus interviews], especially at the top schools, and part of that was that the career services department didn’t really support plaintiffs work,” Edelson continued. “When we started going there years ago, we’ve been going for about 15 years, we had to explain that no, we don’t pay $30,000 a year. That’s just not how it works, but that’s the messaging they gave to their students because frankly they just didn’t know.” The National Plaintiffs Law Association is currently conducting an anonymous survey to gather pay data from plaintiffs firms, while Edelson has compiled his own tiered list of starting salaries at more than a dozen of the largest plaintiffs firms in the country.
Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Bluesky, X/Twitter, and Threads, or connect with her on LinkedIn.
