Salary benchmarks
Davis Polk Salary 2026: Associate Scale, Bonus and Partner Pay
Two credential gates, not one lockstep: a U.S. class-year associate on the last firm-attributed $225,000 grid, against a London newly qualified solicitor at £180,000. Then the dated bonus ladder and the $9.8 million PEP that funds it.
Two gates. One query. Different cash.
The 2026 Davis Polk salary still prices a U.S. class year against a London NQ. Sartori maps about 67,000 lawyers in New York. Pick the gate that matches the seat you are filling, or the credential you actually hold.
Above the Law, on 30 November 2023, recorded Davis Polk matching a first-year base of $225,000. The firm careers page still prices the 2026 summer class at that same annualized figure as of 11 September 2026. A JD class year. A dollar grid.
The interview work sits on a different base, named in the byline. The Am Law recap, the bonus memorandum and the careers pages are listed with the sources. Memos, rankings, careers pages.
- $225,000
- Last Davis Polk-attributed U.S. first-year base. Above the Law, 30 November 2023. The U.S. summer page still annualizes 2026 summers at this figure (accessed 11 September 2026).
- Above the Law, 30 Nov 2023; davispolk.com/careers U.S. Summer Program, accessed 11 Sep 2026
- £180,000
- London newly qualified solicitor base. Legal Cheek, 29 September 2025, still listed 5 June 2026; same print on the firm London careers page.
- Legal Cheek, 29 Sep 2025 and 5 Jun 2026; davispolk.com London training page
- $140,000
- Senior 2025 bonus stack a firm representative confirmed to Business Insider on 2 January 2026 — $115,000 year-end plus $25,000 special.
- Business Insider, 2 Jan 2026; Above the Law, 21 Nov 2025
The last published Davis Polk salary grid
The dated table is older than the search query. Bases below are the last firm-attributed U.S. lockstep; bonuses are the 2025 match. They are two instruments, not a 2026 all-in package.
Above the Law, on 30 November 2023, recorded Davis Polk matching the then-market U.S. lockstep: a first-year base of $225,000 rising to $435,000 for the eighth year and senior. That is the last grid the legal press attributed to this firm by class year. It is not a 2 June 2026 memo. Posted laterals on the firm careers page, accessed 11 September 2026, still sit on it: antitrust and competition, years 3–6, expected base $260,000–$390,000 in New York and Washington DC; IP litigation, years 3–7, expected base $260,000–$420,000 in New York and Northern California.
The 2025 bonus columns are a different print. Above the Law, on 21 November 2025, recorded Davis Polk matching the prevailing year-end and special scale, with no minimum hours, paid 30 December 2025. Cravath’s 18 November 2025 memorandum, titled “Year-End Bonuses & 2026 Base Salaries,” is the market document those bonuses follow. It is not a Davis Polk base memo. For class of 2022 year-end, this table uses the $57,500 figure in the Cravath memorandum and the bonus tracker; Above the Law’s Davis Polk article printed $57,000 for that rung.
| Rung | Last attributed base | 2025 year-end | 2025 special | 2025 bonus stack |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st year | $225,000 | $15,000 | $6,000 prorated | $21,000 |
| 2nd year | $235,000 | $20,000 | $6,000 | $26,000 |
| 3rd year | $260,000 | $30,000 | $10,000 | $40,000 |
| 4th year | $310,000 | $57,500 | $15,000 | $72,500 |
| 5th year | $365,000 | $75,000 | $20,000 | $95,000 |
| 6th year | $390,000 | $90,000 | $25,000 | $115,000 |
| 7th year | $420,000 | $105,000 | $25,000 | $130,000 |
| 8th year & senior | $435,000 | $115,000 | $25,000 | $140,000 |
Bases: Above the Law, 30 November 2023. Bonuses: Above the Law, 21 November 2025, read against the Cravath 18 November 2025 memorandum. Senior stack of $140,000 confirmed by a firm representative to Business Insider, 2 January 2026. Clerkship bonuses for former U.S. federal, state or Canadian clerks are described as eligible on the laterals page; dollar amounts are not published.
NALP’s June 2025 Bulletin, reporting the Associate Salary Survey as of 1 January 2025, put the overall median first-year at $200,000 and the median at firms of 701 or more lawyers at $215,000. The $225,000 first-year was the most frequently reported figure, not yet the national large-firm median. New York City is the geography of this firm’s headquarters lockstep: 13 of 23 reporting offices there sat at $225,000.
Davis Polk bonus: November matched, July did not
The bonus print is public, dated and confirmed. The July 2026 matching-firm base is not a Davis Polk figure.
November was a match. July was a silence. Above the Law recorded the bonus match on 21 November 2025; the tracker coded hours as none and the payout as 30 December 2025. Cravath had set that scale three days earlier, with New York and Washington paid 12 December 2025 and London 19 December 2025 on Cravath’s own calendar. Davis Polk’s calendar was the 30 December date. A firm representative told Business Insider, on 2 January 2026, that junior attorneys received bonuses of up to $140,000, in line with the Cravath scale.
Milbank announced, on 2 June 2026, a new matching-firm ladder of $235,000 for a first-year through $455,000 for the eighth year and senior, effective 1 July 2026. Above the Law’s summer scorecard lists firms that published a match through Massumi + Consoli on 31 August 2026. Davis Polk is not on that raises table. A 26 August 2026 Above the Law report, 85 days after Milbank, said most of Biglaw remained frozen, waiting on Cravath, with a possible wait until year-end bonus season or even January 2027 effective dates.
The live check is the employer’s own careers page. Summer associates in New York, Los Angeles, Northern California and Washington DC are still paid an annualized salary of $225,000, prorated for weeks worked, on the U.S. summer program page accessed 11 September 2026. New York summers must work eight consecutive weeks before splitting with another firm outside the city or with a government, nonprofit or financial institution. That split rule is how a bank legal department already sits on the on-ramp: the summer can spend part of the seat inside the institution that later matches the alumnus.
November was a match. July was a silence.
Who earns the figure, and who matches it
The lawyer who earns this cash sits on the firm side of the desk. The general counsel who matches it sits at the banks, sponsors and listed companies that already retain the firm.
U.S. class yearLondon solicitor
- U.S. JD lockstep Law school, a 2L summer on the dollar grid, then class-year associate pay. New York, California or District of Columbia admission to practice U.S. law in a non-U.S. office.
- Two products, one brand A general counsel who hires the alumnus has to name which gate is on the offer. Mixing them produces a number neither careers page will recognize.
- SRA solicitor NQ A law degree, SQE1 and SQE2, two years of qualifying work experience inside the London LLP, then a sterling newly qualified base. English law, not a dollar class year.
A general counsel matches two products, not one lockstep. The employer of record for the U.S. figure is Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP, a New York–headquartered partnership Bloomberg Law, on 8 May 2025, described as one of a handful of Wall Street firms with a single partnership tier. The employer of record for the London NQ is Davis Polk & Wardwell London LLP, a New York LLP authorized and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority under registration 566321. Legal Cheek puts the London team at just over 70 lawyers. The Lawyer, on 2 October 2025, reported the new City headquarters would make space for 50 more; that is desk capacity, not a 2025 hiring number.
Who pays the salary is the partnership. Who pays the fees that fund it — and who later hires the alumni — is the in-house reader. The firm’s Financial Institutions page states it represents all eight U.S. global systemically important banks. The Financial Stability Board’s 27 November 2025 G-SIB list names 29 banks globally; the ABA Banking Journal, on 1 December 2025, listed the eight U.S. names: JPMorgan Chase, Citigroup, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Bank of New York Mellon, Morgan Stanley, State Street and Wells Fargo. Higher loss-absorbency attaches from 1 January 2027 where a bucket increased. Those legal departments sit across the table from the firm, and they hire its alumni into deputy general counsel, chief legal officer and managing-director legal seats. In that New York interview cohort, 102 of 186 general counsel and heads of legal at U.S. G-SIBs, mega-sponsors and listed companies, over a 24-month window, said they still bench a Davis Polk alumnus against the last published class-year grid, not against the July 2026 matching-firm scale.
The earner is a class-year associate or an equity partner, not a staff attorney and not a nonequity partner.
- The U.S. on-ramp is the summer. Programs run in New York, Los Angeles, Northern California and Washington DC. Summers do the same work as first- and second-year associates. Most summers sit in New York, the firm’s largest office.
- Admission is a separate clock. New York exam applicants file through one of four Appellate Division departments, pass the UBE, NYLE and MPRE, and complete 50 hours of pro bono before admission, a Court of Appeals rule for exam applicants after 1 January 2015. To practice U.S. law in a non-U.S. office, the laterals page requires New York, California or District of Columbia admission plus local rules. English law in London; English and Hong Kong law in Hong Kong; Brazilian law in São Paulo.
- The London on-ramp is SQE plus QWE. The firm sponsors SQE1 and SQE2 in the year after university, then a two-year program with seats in M&A, finance and restructuring and, typically, a New York or Brussels secondment. Applications for the September 2029 intake open 1 October through 30 November 2026. The Solicitors Regulation Authority, in SQE guidance updated 28 January 2026, still requires a degree or equivalent, a pass on the SQE, two years’ full-time qualifying work experience, and suitability.
The matcher is a general counsel, chief legal officer or head of legal at the institutions that already buy the work.
- Bank legal departments sit on both sides. They retain the firm on regulatory matters, capital markets, enforcement and governance, and they hire alumni. The Foreign Investment & National Security desk adds CFIUS, sanctions and AML/CFT. The white-collar page records more than 300 investigations since 2019, with counterparties including the Department of Justice, the SEC, the Federal Reserve, FinCEN, the OCC, the CFPB, New York DFS, the U.K. FCA and the U.K. SFO.
- Sponsor and public-company buyers fund the rest. Private equity, private credit, sovereign wealth funds and listed-company boards generate the M&A, sponsor finance and activism work. Law.com, on 16 September 2025, reported a managing director in legal and compliance at a mega-alternative-asset manager — previously deputy general counsel of that platform’s credit arm and chief legal officer of listed private-credit vehicles — joining the firm’s New York investment-management partnership. The direction of travel runs both ways: in-house legal at a mega-sponsor into the partnership, and partnership alumni back into those same legal departments.
- Do not invent an in-house scale. This page matches the firm figure. A bank or sponsor does not publish a Davis Polk-equivalent lockstep. The honest in-house exercise is to name the gate, take the last public print, and decide whether the company is buying U.S. class-year muscle or an English-law solicitor.
| Gate | Credential | Employer of record | Last public cash | As-of date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| U.S. class year | JD; NY/CA/DC bar in due course | Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP | First-year $225,000 | 30 Nov 2023; summer page 11 Sep 2026 |
| London NQ | SQE1, SQE2, two-year QWE | Davis Polk & Wardwell London LLP | £180,000 | Legal Cheek 5 Jun 2026; careers page |
Magic Circle NQ remained £150,000 and the average NQ across 100-plus Firms Most List outfits was £118,756 in Legal Cheek’s 29 September 2025 table. Eighteen U.S. outfits in London paid NQs more than £170,000. Davis Polk’s published London NQ is the sterling £180,000, not a dollar-linked conversion.
Davis Polk partner salary is PEP, not a wage
Search the partner number and the public print is profits per equity partner — an average, not a lockstep paycheck.
Published associate gridUnpublished partner draw
- Associate lockstep Class-year base plus a bonus scale the firm has been willing to match in public. The careers page still corroborates the pre-July grid.
- All-equity profit pool A single partnership tier. Profits per equity partner is the average split of that pool, ranked by The American Lawyer.
- Individual draw Not a public lockstep. A chief legal officer cannot read PEP as the cost of hiring a named partner, and an associate cannot read it as next year’s paycheck.
Profits per equity partner is an average, not a wage. Above the Law, recapping the 2026 Am Law 100 on 15 April 2026, put Davis Polk PEP at $9.8 million for calendar 2025, up 25.60 percent, rank 3 behind Wachtell at $12.152 million and Kirkland at $11.121 million. Revenue per lawyer was $2.588 million, up 19.70 percent, also rank 3 behind Wachtell at $5.085 million and Susman Godfrey at $2.876 million. Am Law 100 PEP as a whole rose 14.0 percent in 2025; revenue per lawyer rose 8.7 percent.
David Lat, on 30 April 2026, recorded Am Law 100 total gross revenue of $178.95 billion, up 13.0 percent, with average RPL of $1.39 million, average PEP of $3.59 million, and headcount of 128,868 attorneys, up 4 percent. The American Lawyer, on 10 April 2025, reported Davis Polk’s prior-year (calendar 2024) revenue at $2.54 billion, up 25 percent, and PEP at $7.8 million, “buoyed by strong performances across leveraged finance, restructuring, and a stronger-than-anticipated showing in M&A.” Legal Cheek’s firm profile states calendar-2025 revenue surged by almost 26 percent to $3.2 billion; that is Legal Cheek’s figure, not a 2026 Am Law gross-revenue table.
ILRG’s 2025 largest-firms profile, figures as reported by the firm, lists 1,175 attorneys and 182 partners, up 7.9 percent, rank 35 of 350, against 1,089 attorneys in 2024. Bloomberg Law, on 8 May 2025, put the U.S. M&A practice at 23 partners and said the firm had boosted the high end of partner pay to compete for laterals while keeping the single-tier model. That high end is not a published partner salary, and this page does not invent one.
Am Law 100 average PEP
Calendar 2025. David Lat, 30 April 2026.
David Lat / Original Jurisdiction, 30 Apr 2026 ↗Profits per equity partner is an average, not a wage.
What a general counsel already buys, and what that pays
The lockstep is paid from a capital-markets and G-SIB franchise in a cyclical boom, plus a regulatory rewrite that does not wait on deal count.
Deal-calendar cashRule-calendar cash
- Cyclical ECM and credit IPOs, leveraged finance, sponsor finance, liability management. Headcount follows closed-deal volume, which is lumpy.
- Bank capital and outbound G-SIB buffers, Basel comment, TLAC issuance, outbound-investment diligence. The file does not close when the IPO window does.
- Funds after vacatur The 2024 private-fund adviser build did not happen. The investment-management desk moved to private credit, secondaries and SEC examinations.
PwC’s U.S. Capital Markets Watch, dated 10 July 2026, put traditional U.S. IPOs through 30 June 2026 at about $114.1 billion versus $14.8 billion in the first half of 2025, on 65 deals versus 34. Davis Polk, on 7 July 2026, said it advised on more than $107 billion of IPOs in that first half, leading Bloomberg’s global and U.S. IPO-volume tables, with 19 number-one U.S. and global rankings. For full-year 2025 the firm reported Bloomberg number-one in 11 U.S. categories and top-three in 26, and LSEG LPC number-one in 18 U.S. categories. That is why a New York capital-markets associate on the last attributed lockstep is expensive, and why a general counsel at an issuer or underwriter already knows the desk.
M&A is lumpier. Bloomberg Law league tables, via PR Newswire on 2 July 2025, put Davis Polk fourth in the first half of 2025 at $149 billion, behind Latham, Kirkland and Wachtell, with global completed-or-pending volume about $1.4 trillion, up 18.5 percent. ION Analytics / Mergermarket, on 9 January 2026, had the firm displaced from the global top 10 for full-year 2025 deal value, at rank 15. Bloomberg Law, on 8 May 2025, put first-quarter 2025 M&A at $92.3 billion, rank 2, and described a strategy to grow private equity from mid-market sponsors toward larger asset managers, with more California scale. The Los Angeles office opened 1 May 2026 as the first Southern California seat, with civil litigation and global finance named now and a full-service build behind; the launch announcement points to permanent Century City space in 2027, while the summer-program page says 2028. San Francisco is slated to open in early 2027 on that same careers page. No office headcount was published.
Credit still pays. KPMG’s Credit Markets Update for the second quarter of 2026 recorded leveraged-loan issuance of $165.1 billion, high-yield of $101.1 billion, and first-half high-yield of $180.8 billion, about 25 percent above the prior-year half, with refinancing 41 percent of institutional loan volume. That is the leveraged-finance and restructuring franchise The American Lawyer tied to the 2024 revenue print, and it is why London training seats named by the firm are M&A, finance and restructuring.
Three dated rule families keep Financial Institutions, funds and foreign-investment associates occupied when deal count dips. Treasury’s Outbound Investment Security Program, implementing E.O. 14105, took effect on 2 January 2025. The Comprehensive Outbound Investment National Security Act was signed on 18 December 2025; existing rules stay in force until Treasury issues notice-and-comment regulations, no later than 13 March 2027. The Federal Reserve, OCC and FDIC issued Basel III endgame and G-SIB surcharge reproposals on 19 March 2026, comments due 18 June 2026. Freshfields, on 23 March 2026, put aggregate CET1 for Category I/II organizations at about 4.8 percent lower when stacked with complementary changes; Jones Day, on 1 April 2026, put TLAC about $46 billion lower. Those are proposals, not a final rule. The Fifth Circuit, on 5 June 2024, vacated the SEC private-fund adviser rules in full in National Association of Private Fund Managers v. SEC, No. 23-60471. The 2024–25 implementation build did not happen; 2025–26 investment-management hiring is private credit, secondaries, fund formation and SEC examinations instead.
How a company matches this figure without guessing July
We have worked the New York associate market for more than 10 years, for general counsel at banks, sponsors and listed companies as well as for the firms that feed those desks.
Over the trailing three years we closed 33 New York associate searches, with a 93 percent completion rate, a 37 percent counter-offer incidence, a median 11 working days from offer to acceptance, and a typical timeline of 6 to 12 weeks. Of those 33 closed files, 19 were in-house seats at banks, sponsors or listed companies and 14 were law-firm associate seats. Of the 19 in-house mandates, 11 were budgeted against an elite New York lockstep the hiring general counsel called Davis Polk money. Of the 14 firm-side searches, 8 were capital-markets, finance or funds seats in the 3–6 year band — the same seniority the careers page is advertising in antitrust and IP.
Sartori & Partners runs a continuous research program over nearly 1.5 million lawyer profiles mapped globally, with quarterly market surveys since 2019. A general counsel at a U.S. G-SIB told us they price the alumnus off the summer page, not off a matching-firm scorecard. A chief legal officer at a mega-sponsor credit platform said the London NQ is a different product, and they will not convert sterling into a New York class year without a dated FX source.
The uncomfortable number is the one that slowed us. Of those 19 in-house associate-level searches, 6 ran past the 6-to-12-week timeline because the company had loaded a July 2026 matching-firm first-year of $235,000 into the offer model as if Davis Polk had published it. We had to walk those files back to the last firm-attributed grid. That is not a market failure. It is a memo the buyer invented. In the same cohort, 41 of 88 senior associates (years 5–8) at elite New York firms, over an 18-month window, named an unpublished 2026 base as the reason they would take a competing firm’s match call — retention risk at the senior rungs if the July silence holds into bonus season, and a data gap we cannot close from outside the firm.
NALP’s Employment for the Class of 2025: Selected Findings, dated 5 August 2026, recorded a 37 percent drop in federal employment for that class. That is a government-side contraction, not a Davis Polk class cut; it is one reason former prosecutors move toward private-firm white-collar seats a chief legal officer will later hire as investigations counsel. It does not change the two gates on this page.
If you are the lawyer who earns the figure, the live documents are the last attributed grid, the 21 November 2025 bonus match, and the London careers page. If you are the general counsel who matches it, name the gate before you name the cash. For the market-wide lockstep that matching firms published in June 2026, see the BigLaw associate salary scale for 2026. For the sterling-to-dollar pressure on a UK-trained lawyer, see From UK lockstep to a U.S. firm. For what a company actually pays a general counsel, see general counsel salary 2026. When the seat is in-house, start with in-house counsel recruiting; when it is a class-year associate, associate recruiting.
Davis Polk pay in 2026: questions from both sides of the desk
What is Davis Polk salary for a U.S. first-year associate in 2026?
The last Davis Polk-attributed U.S. first-year base is $225,000, published by Above the Law on 30 November 2023. The firm has not published a match to Milbank’s 2 June 2026 scale of $235,000 to $455,000, effective 1 July 2026, on Above the Law’s raises scorecard through 31 August 2026. The U.S. summer program page still pays New York, Los Angeles, Northern California and Washington DC summers an annualized $225,000 as of 11 September 2026. Treat $225,000 as the last firm-named U.S. floor, not as a confirmed post-July 2026 memo.
What does a Davis Polk newly qualified solicitor earn in London?
Davis Polk’s London newly qualified solicitor base is £180,000, listed by Legal Cheek on 29 September 2025 and still listed on 5 June 2026. The firm London careers page publishes the same figure after SQE1, SQE2 and a two-year qualifying-work-experience program: first-year trainee £65,000, second-year £70,000, then £180,000 on qualification. That is a sterling solicitor product regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority, not a dollar class year.
Did Davis Polk match the $235,000 Milbank scale in 2026?
No. Davis Polk is not on Above the Law’s 2026 raises scorecard through 31 August 2026. Milbank announced $235,000 to $455,000 on 2 June 2026, effective 1 July 2026. A 26 August 2026 Above the Law report said most of Biglaw was still waiting on Cravath, 85 days after Milbank. Posted Davis Polk laterals still sit on the pre-July grid: antitrust years 3–6 at $260,000–$390,000; IP litigation years 3–7 at $260,000–$420,000.
What is Davis Polk PEP, and is that a partner salary?
The 2026 Am Law 100 put Davis Polk profits per equity partner at $9.8 million for calendar 2025, up 25.60 percent, third behind Wachtell at $12.152 million and Kirkland at $11.121 million. Revenue per lawyer was $2.588 million, also rank 3. PEP is an average split of the equity pool, not a lockstep partner wage. Individual draws are not public. Bloomberg Law, 8 May 2025, described the firm as a single-tier partnership with no nonequity rung.
How should a general counsel match Davis Polk associate pay when hiring an alumnus?
Price the U.S. alumnus off the last published class-year grid and the firm’s own summer page, still $225,000 annualized on 11 September 2026. Price a London solicitor off the £180,000 NQ. Do not convert sterling into dollars without a dated FX source; Legal Cheek’s 1 September 2025 footnote converted other firms’ $225,000 London NQs to £167,000, which is not Davis Polk’s published figure. Of 19 New York in-house associate-level searches Sartori closed over three years, 6 stalled past the 6-to-12-week window because the company had loaded a $235,000 matching-firm first-year into the offer model.
What Davis Polk bonus did associates receive for 2025?
Davis Polk matched Cravath’s 2025 year-end and special bonuses on 21 November 2025, with no hours floor, paid 30 December 2025. The ladder runs from $15,000 year-end plus a $6,000 prorated special for the class of 2025 through $115,000 plus $25,000 for the class of 2018 and senior. A firm representative told Business Insider on 2 January 2026 that the senior stack reached $140,000.
The memos, the Am Law print, and the careers pages
Associate cash is taken from Above the Law, the Cravath bonus memorandum, Legal Cheek, Business Insider and davispolk.com. Partner economics are the Am Law 100. Sartori figures are the New York associate-line research program.
Sources
40 references- Sartori & Partners — New York Legal Talent Research Programme (1,675 structured interviews; ~67,000 lawyers mapped; quarterly surveys since 2019; mandate telemetry) sartoriglobal.com ↗
- Davis Polk Joins The Biglaw Associate Salary & Bonus Wars abovethelaw.com ↗
- Davis Polk Weighs In On Associate Bonus Madness abovethelaw.com ↗
- MEMORANDUM FOR ALL LAWYERS, November 18, 2025, Year-End Bonuses & 2026 Base Salaries abovethelaw.com ↗
- Associate Compensation Scorecard: Biglaw’s 2025 Bonus Blitz abovethelaw.com ↗
- Here are the bonuses lawyers ended 2025 with at top US firms businessinsider.com ↗
- ALERT: Milbank Does It Again — Associate Salaries Are Going Up!!! abovethelaw.com ↗
- Associate Compensation Scorecard: The 2026 Summer Of Salary Increases abovethelaw.com ↗
- Cravath May Be Waiting Until Year-End Bonus Season To Make Its Biglaw Pay Move abovethelaw.com ↗
- Money talks: What newly qualified solicitors earn at the UK’s top law firms legalcheek.com ↗
- Quinn Emanuel smashes London NQ lawyer salary record with £189k pay packet legalcheek.com ↗
- Davis Polk & Wardwell — Legal Cheek firm profile legalcheek.com ↗
- Training in London davispolk.com ↗
- U.S. Summer Program davispolk.com ↗
- Laterals & Clerks davispolk.com ↗
- The 2026 Am Law 100 Is Out, And Surprise: The Rich Law Firms Got Richer abovethelaw.com ↗
- The Top 20 Most Profitable Law Firms (2025) davidlat.substack.com ↗
- 'A Record Year, By a Significant Amount': Davis Polk Sees Revenue Surge 25%, PEP Jump to $7.8M law.com ↗
- Davis Polk & Wardwell – Law Firm Profile ilrg.com ↗
- $225,000 Entry-Level Salaries Not Yet the Standard at Large Firms nalp.org ↗
- Davis Polk leads Bloomberg’s H1 2026 capital markets league tables davispolk.com ↗
- US Capital Markets Watch - Q2 2026: PwC pwc.com ↗
- Bloomberg Law League Tables Unveil Top 20 M&A Law Firms in the Second Quarter prnewswire.com ↗
- Kirkland & Ellis, Latham & Watkins amass colossal volume hauls to sit atop FY25 M&A legal rankings ionanalytics.com ↗
- Davis Polk Is Ready for Private Equity Closeup, Says M&A Boss news.bloomberglaw.com ↗
- Financial Institutions davispolk.com ↗
- 2025 List of Global Systemically Important Banks (G-SIBs) fsb.org ↗
- Financial Stability Board releases 2025 G-SIB list bankingjournal.aba.com ↗
- Additional Information on Final Regulations Implementing Outbound Investment Executive Order (E.O. 14105) home.treasury.gov ↗
- US Treasury’s ‘Reverse CFIUS’ Authority Is Codified in the National Defense Authorization Act skadden.com ↗
- Basel III Endgame, Take Two: 8 Key Takeaways from the Federal Banking Agencies freshfields.com ↗
- U.S. Banking Agencies Propose Sweeping Overhaul of Capital Framework — Part I jonesday.com ↗
- National Association of Private Fund Managers v. SEC, No. 23-60471 ca5.uscourts.gov ↗
- SQE questions and answers sra.org.uk ↗
- Admission Information — New York State Board of Law Examiners nybarexam.org ↗
- Legal Notices - United Kingdom davispolk.com ↗
- Davis Polk launches in Los Angeles davispolk.com ↗
- White Collar Defense & Investigations davispolk.com ↗
- Credit Markets Update Q2 2026 corporatefinance.kpmg.com ↗
- Employment for the Class of 2025: Selected Findings nalp.org ↗
Associate cash is firm-attributed lockstep bases, posted laterals, London NQ and 2025 bonuses. Partner economics are Am Law profits per equity partner and revenue per lawyer. Headcount is ILRG’s firm-reported 2025 ranking year. Sartori figures are the New York associate-line interview cohort and mandate telemetry. A 2026 Davis Polk U.S. base at the July matching-firm level is not in the public record and is not estimated here.
Keep reading
BigLaw associate salary scale 2026
The matching-firm lockstep Milbank set on 2 June 2026 — $235,000 to $455,000 — which this page refuses to label as Davis Polk pay.
See the 2026 market scaleFrom UK lockstep to a U.S. firm
What actually changes when a lockstep-trained UK lawyer joins a U.S. firm — cash, hours, title and origination. London NQ is a contrast there, the subject here.
Read the transatlantic guideGeneral counsel salary 2026
What companies pay a general counsel and chief legal officer — the in-house number a GC is matching when they hire a Davis Polk alumnus.
Read the GC benchmarkFor the company that matches this figure
Name the gate, then name the cash.
Whether you are hiring a Davis Polk alumnus onto an in-house payroll or benchmarking what your legal department pays against this lockstep, we map the seat against the last public print — not against a July memo the firm has not issued. Confidential, no obligation.