There is, however, one important catch: the new salary scale won\u2019t take effect until January 1, 2027. <\/p>\n
Given the glacial pace of this year\u2019s salary wars, that may actually be some pretty savvy timing.<\/p>\n
Milbank kicked off the latest round of associate raises back in June<\/a>, and while several firms quickly matched, most of Biglaw has spent the summer doing approximately nothing. Ice Miller, meanwhile, has several months before it actually has to start cutting bigger checks to its New York associates, and it seems pretty safe to assume that by January, the rest of Biglaw will have finally gotten on board with the new scale. (Right, Cravath?)<\/p>\n For Ice Miller, bringing its New York associates up to market is also part of a broader push to build out its presence in the city, particularly in private equity, M&A, and private credit. New York Office Managing Partner Chase Stuart had this to say:<\/p>\n \u201cOur private equity and private credit practices have grown substantially over the last five years, both in the sophistication of the work and the strength of our client relationships. We offer associates the opportunity to work on complex transactions and work with experienced partners who are heavily invested in their success and growth. Increasing associate compensation reinforces our commitment to building a premier destination for talented transactional lawyers in New York.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n If you\u2019re trying to compete for transactional talent in New York, paying New York market salaries certainly helps.<\/p>\n Congratulations to Ice Miller\u2019s New York associates on the raises. They may have to wait until January to see the money, but considering how slowly the rest of Biglaw is moving, the firm may have just skipped ahead to the ending of this salary war.<\/p>\n Remember everyone, we depend on your tips to stay on top of compensation updates, so when your firm announces or matches, please text us (646-820-8477<\/a>) or\u00a0email us<\/a>\u00a0(subject line: \u201c[Firm Name] Bonus\/Matches\u201d). Please include the memo if available. You can take a photo of the memo and send it via text or email if you don\u2019t want to forward the original PDF or Word file.<\/p>\n And if you\u2019d like to sign up for ATL\u2019s Bonus Alerts (which is the alert list we also use for salary announcements), please scroll down and enter your email address in the box below this post. If you previously signed up for the bonus alerts, you don\u2019t need to do anything. You\u2019ll receive an email notification within minutes of each bonus announcement that we publish. Thanks for your help!<\/p>\n Staci Zaretsky<\/a>\u00a0is the managing editor of Above the Law, where she\u2019s worked since 2011. She\u2019d love to hear from you, so please feel free to\u00a0email<\/a>\u00a0her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on\u00a0Bluesky<\/a>,\u00a0X\/Twitter<\/a>, and\u00a0Threads<\/a>, or connect with her on\u00a0LinkedIn<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n The post Biglaw Firm Joins The Salary Wars, But Keeps Raises On Ice Until 2027<\/a> appeared first on Above the Law<\/a>.<\/p>\n It\u2019s been a long, quiet summer for Biglaw associate raises, with only a handful of firms matching Milbank\u2019s new salary scale. At long last, we\u2019ve got another match \u2014 but only for associates in New York.<\/p>\n Ice Miller just announced a significant associate salary increase for lawyers in its Manhattan office, bringing compensation \u201cin line with the top of the New York market.\u201d The firm didn\u2019t spell out the numbers in its announcement, but that sure sounds like a match for Milbank\u2019s new market scale, which starts at $235,000 for first-year associates.<\/p>\n UPDATE<\/strong>: Per Chase Stuart, \u201cThe Firm has matched the Milbank scale for first- and second-year attorneys, while making significant increases across the associate salary structure and taking a customized approach at other levels that reflects our client base and overall compensation model.\u201d<\/p>\n There is, however, one important catch: the new salary scale won\u2019t take effect until January 1, 2027. <\/p>\n Given the glacial pace of this year\u2019s salary wars, that may actually be some pretty savvy timing.<\/p>\n Milbank kicked off the latest round of associate raises back in June<\/a>, and while several firms quickly matched, most of Biglaw has spent the summer doing approximately nothing. Ice Miller, meanwhile, has several months before it actually has to start cutting bigger checks to its New York associates, and it seems pretty safe to assume that by January, the rest of Biglaw will have finally gotten on board with the new scale. (Right, Cravath?)<\/p>\n For Ice Miller, bringing its New York associates up to market is also part of a broader push to build out its presence in the city, particularly in private equity, M&A, and private credit. New York Office Managing Partner Chase Stuart had this to say:<\/p>\n \u201cOur private equity and private credit practices have grown substantially over the last five years, both in the sophistication of the work and the strength of our client relationships. We offer associates the opportunity to work on complex transactions and work with experienced partners who are heavily invested in their success and growth. Increasing associate compensation reinforces our commitment to building a premier destination for talented transactional lawyers in New York.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n If you\u2019re trying to compete for transactional talent in New York, paying New York market salaries certainly helps.<\/p>\n Congratulations to Ice Miller\u2019s New York associates on the raises. They may have to wait until January to see the money, but considering how slowly the rest of Biglaw is moving, the firm may have just skipped ahead to the ending of this salary war.<\/p>\n Remember everyone, we depend on your tips to stay on top of compensation updates, so when your firm announces or matches, please text us (646-820-8477<\/a>) or\u00a0email us<\/a>\u00a0(subject line: \u201c[Firm Name] Bonus\/Matches\u201d). Please include the memo if available. You can take a photo of the memo and send it via text or email if you don\u2019t want to forward the original PDF or Word file.<\/p>\n And if you\u2019d like to sign up for ATL\u2019s Bonus Alerts (which is the alert list we also use for salary announcements), please scroll down and enter your email address in the box below this post. If you previously signed up for the bonus alerts, you don\u2019t need to do anything. You\u2019ll receive an email notification within minutes of each bonus announcement that we publish. Thanks for your help!<\/p>\n Staci Zaretsky<\/a>\u00a0is the managing editor of Above the Law, where she\u2019s worked since 2011. She\u2019d love to hear from you, so please feel free to\u00a0email<\/a>\u00a0her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on\u00a0Bluesky<\/a>,\u00a0X\/Twitter<\/a>, and\u00a0Threads<\/a>, or connect with her on\u00a0LinkedIn<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It\u2019s been a long, quiet summer for Biglaw associate raises, with only a handful of firms matching Milbank\u2019s new salary scale. At long last, we\u2019ve got another match \u2014 but only for associates in New York. Ice Miller just announced a significant associate salary increase for lawyers in its Manhattan office, bringing compensation \u201cin line […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":160139,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-160138","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-above_the_law"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/xira.com\/p\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Staci-Zaretsky-bxsrNv.jpg?fit=150%2C100&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160138","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160138"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160138\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/160139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160138"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160138"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160138"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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