Firm Spy cannot guarantee the veracity of the figures quoted in this post
You’ve waited. Not patiently, but you’ve waited.
And now we’re finally going to start revealing the results from the Firm Spy Salary Survey (conducted with the excellent help of Legal Monkey). But we’re going about things slightly differently this year: instead of giving the salary information across all year levels on a firm-by-firm basis, we thought it made more sense to do so on a year level basis across all firms. Better comparisons can be made this way, we think. And we intend to break it down into a managable size, so it’ll be the top-tier, then the mid-tier and then boutique firms.
As you will note below, we still need more help. If you know any other salaries that are missing, please either email us at news@firmspy.com or fill in the survey here.
TOP TIER GRADUATE SALARIES
Sydney:
- Mallesons Stephen Jaques – $72,500
- Freehills – $76,000
- Allens Arthur Robinson – $73,000
- Clayton Utz – $73,000
- Minter Ellison – $70,000
- Blake Dawson – $70,000
Melbourne
- Mallesons Stephen Jaques – $66,000
- Freehills – $65,000
- Allens Arthur Robinson – $65,000
- Clayton Utz - $66,000
- Blake Dawson - $65,000
- Minter Ellison – $60,000
Brisbane:
- Mallesons Stephen Jaques- $61,000
- Freehills – $68,000
- Blake Dawson- $63,000
ACT:
- Mallesons Stephen Jaques – $55,000
Perth:
- Mallesons Stephen Jaques – $67,000
Much is said among the firms when selling the reasonableness of salary levels to staff about “following the market”, but who frames the market? Does it bear any relation to the property market? Or does it rely on “market-makers” like Freehills in the above statistics?
Is Freehills again setting the pace for the Firm Spy Corporate Firm of the Year Award?
Send the Firm Spy your news and views!
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Well done FS! You’ve managed to make me soil my pants in delight. That’s quite a feat so early in the morning…
Word on the street from some reputable sources is that CCW and Blakes in Melbourne pay $68k grad sal package. Cannot confirm this just yet.
Also, can you please confirm whether these figures are the total package or just salary??
Great work and well done!
I’m sorry, but if Minters is top tier then surely G+T and Corrs are, based on quality of work and charge out rates. If you’re basing it solely on size, then you need to add DLA and perhaps remove AAR.
Come on Kim, don’t get your panties in a knot; ‘top-tier’ doesn’t mean anything except a traditional reference to those 6 firms. Wiki uses the term ‘The Big Six’, but I’ve never heard any one else call them that. The latest ALB30 in any event shows those 6 to still be the Big Six at the top of the head-count.
Great work FS – looking forward to the next instalment. Perhaps a more permanent place on the site for these reports, ROF-style?
Remove AAR and add DLA to the top tier. You’re on some serious drugs.
Firmspy – good stuff, looking forward to seeing the rest of the numbers!
Kim – it’s based on many many industry accepted factors, like reputation, prestige, employee headcount, revenue, but not really charge out rates. On those factors, minters and aar are in the top 6, whereas DLA/G&T/corrs are not.
a little disappointed with blakes starting salary in sydney relative to other firms…
Depends on what you mean by graduate salaries…. at Freehills you are paid based on intake date for the first two years. So the amount of $76k in Sydney is true for one intake of those grads but there will be later intakes on less and earlier intakes on more. I am sure this applies to all firms. It will be easier to compare once you start comparing Solicitors with 2 years+ experience.
does it include super?
Interesting. I trust a similar survey will be published for firms outside of the top-tier?
@ Interesting – we have taken the highest salary for the grad year, rather than including lesser earned throughout the year. Another example is Mallesons whose grads received a pay rise on admission. We used the post-admission salary for the post above.
@ anonymous – yes, the figures above include super
@ SuperFly – yes there will be other firm salaries below the top-tier.
@ Kim Jong Il – hand the reigns over to your son wild boy!
The Melbourne AAR grad salary is wrong.