Dallas litigation boutique Lynn Pinker Hurst & Schwegmann is the latest Texas firm to join the associate salary hike that began spreading across Big Law firms nationwide earlier this summer.
In an interview on Thursday, Lynn Pinker name partner Mike Lynn and hiring partner Andrés Correa told The Texas Lawbook they are matching the associate pay scale set by Davis Polk & Wardwell. They confirmed that the Lynn Pinker pay scale is an exact match of Davis Polk’s, beginning with a $205,000 annual salary for their first-year associates (class of 2020) and $365,000 for the firm’s most senior associates (class of 2013 and older).
The pay increase goes into effect Aug. 1, Lynn said, and Correa notified associates Wednesday in a memo.
Lynn said some of the reasons the firm decided to match included the fact that “the strength of the firm has been in the folks we hire” and the Lynn Pinker associates reflect some of the best talent in the market.
Correa agreed.
“I think we would trust any one of our associates to walk into a courtroom right now on behalf of our clients and I think that’s what we want to reward,” Correa said. “We believe in and trust them and want to compensate them accordingly.”
Lynn Pinker’s announcement follows a group of other litigation boutiques across Texas that joined the Big Law trend, including Yetter Coleman; Susman Godfrey; Reid Collins & Tsai; McKool Smith; Smyser, Kaplan & Veselka; Ahmad, Zavitsanos, Anaipakos, Alavi & Mensing; and The Brewer Firm.