Tuesday, March 13, 2007 5:58 AM
The blawgosphere is looking at the rapid escalation in the cost of highly-credentialed associates; in this case, law firms which, according to an article posted at Slate over the weekend, pay Supreme Court law clerks signing bonuses in the $200,000 range.
In the article Bonus Round, Dahlia Lithwick asked What to make of those astronomical Supreme Court signing bonuses?
The so-called "law clerk bonus" is a one-way ratchet, it seems. In a bidding war between boutique appellate practices at the nation's fanciest firms, the bonus not only rises each year, but seemingly it does so exponentially. When it hit $150,000 two years ago, it was hard to pick myself off the floor. Thomas Goldstein, who recently started the Supreme Court litigation section at Akin Gump Strauss Hauer Feld, confirms that in the major markets, no large firm can expect to pay less than $200,000. "The only question," he says, "is whether it will be more."
Beyond the simple question as to value received, the bidding wars and escalation of pay apparently is becoming ammunition for other arguments, including judicial pay. A recently hired, former U.S. Supreme Court law clerk will make more--now much more--than their former bosses on day one of the new job, for example:
As he [Justice Anthony Kennedy] testified just last month before the Senate Judiciary Committee, "Something is wrong when a judge's law clerk, just one or two years out of law school, has a salary greater than that of the judge or justice he or she served the year before." The fact is that if the market is working to drive associate salaries higher and higher, the lack of a market is now ensuring that a first-year associate at a law firm who clerked on the court will earn more next year than Justice Antonin Scalia ($203,000), Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald ($140,300), or a well-paid public defender ($75,000). And whether or not those salary disparities make you weep in sympathy, it's hard to dispute the justices' claim that the opportunity cost of staying on the bench has become almost impossible to ignore.
In response to the Bonus Round article, the blawgosphere has taken up the bonus question as well:
That Phat $200,000 Supreme Court Law Clerk Bonus - The Wall Street Journal Law Blog
Supreme Court Clerkship Bonuses: What Do You Think? - Above the Law
Jeremy Blachman - Anonymous Lawyer
Lithwick on the Supreme Court Signing Bonus - PrawfsBlawg