According to this article? in The Asia Lawyer? associate salaries in HK are now catching up with NYC.? We reported on huge partner salaries the other day and it looks as though this is now being reflected in the lower echelons of the bigger firms with offices in Hong Kong
?
Here’s the link and article (introduction only)
?
?
In an old joke, heaven is defined as having a wife, cook, house and salary of different nationalities. Depending on the teller, the cook might be Chinese or Italian, the wife Indian or Japanese, but the salary is always American.
U.S. firms’ big push into Hong Kong law practice over the last two years has now given more lawyers in the Chinese territory a shot at that particular slice of heaven.
Many of the American firms, including Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, have opted to pay all of their associates, whether U.S.- or Hong Kong-qualified, “New York scale” salaries starting at $160,000 for first-years. Such moves have raised the prospect of a salary war in a market where many international firms have heretofore maintained different pay scales for U.S., U.K. and Hong Kong practice lawyers. The locals generally earn slightly less than the British lawyers, who in turn start at salaries almost 75 percent lower than their U.S. counterparts.
“The legal community is very small in Hong Kong,” says an associate in the Hong Kong office of Linklaters. “Everyone knows everyone, so it’s very easy to find out how much firms are paying.”
Simon Wiggs, a consultant with legal recruitment firm Major, Lindsey & Africa, says the higher American salaries are definitely on associates’ minds. “When you are working until the small hours of the morning and you realize your peer who is also doing the same work some levels up in the same building is getting paid double what you’re getting, you are going to think about that,” says Wiggs.
The current uncertain economic climate has slowed activity to an extent, but American firms that have recently launched Hong Kong practices have been filling their associate ranks. Kirkland & Ellis, which last year laterally hired a group of eight partners in Hong Kong, has taken on at least 25 associates since then. Simpson Thacher, which started a Hong Kong law group in November with two partners recruited from Linklaters and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, has recruited 11 associates. Cleary, which launched its Hong Kong law practice in February 2011, has hired 10 new associates over the past 12 months.
