Faegre Drinker Salary 2026: A Posted Range, Not a Memo

Milbank’s 2 June 2026 memorandum, hosted by Above the Law, set bases effective 1 July 2026: Class of 2026/2025 at $235,000, then $245,000, $270,000, $320,000, $385,000, $410,000, $440,000, and Class of 2018 at $455,000. Legal Business, on 3 June 2026, corroborated the first-year $235,000 print. Above the Law’s matcher table, published 5 June 2026 and carrying raise rows through 31 August 2026 on the same URL, does not name Faegre Drinker. That absence is a reading of a running list, not a denial memo from the firm. The full class-year ladder belongs to our market-scale page, not here.

The advertised first-year ceiling of $225,000 sits $10,000 under that July 2026 floor. The Minneapolis public-company seat at $245,000 to $265,000 for years 4 to 5 sits below Milbank year-4 $320,000 and year-5 $385,000. The Investment Management $260,000 to $435,000 compensation band is the only posted Faegre Drinker range that reaches the upper lockstep. Those gaps are derived from two public instruments sitting next to each other. They are not proof that the firm underpays, and they are not a 2026 Faegre Drinker raise.

NALP’s same 28 May 2025 release put the intellectual-property first-year median at $225,000 and recorded that 73 percent of offices offered some judicial-clerkship bonus, without printing the dollar. Faegre Drinker’s Judicial Clerks page confirms a competitive bonus for former clerks joining from federal or state appellate and supreme courts, plus development-year credit for clerkship experience. The dollar is not on that page. More than 200 of the firm’s attorneys have served as judicial clerks, the same page says. Up to 100 hours of pro bono time can count toward an associate’s annual creditable-hours expectation.

Cravath announced year-end and special bonuses on 18 November 2025. Above the Law’s 26 November 2025 bonus scorecard lists the class-year dollars and the firms that matched. Faegre Drinker is not on that matcher table either. Biglaw Investor’s 2026 compilation of the Milbank ladder plus Cravath-style year-end bonuses — $20,000 for a first-year through $115,000 for an eighth-year — is market-wide lockstep economics. It is not a Faegre Drinker package. Every posting that states a range also states that the range is “just one component” of total compensation, which “includes, but is not limited to, productivity and discretionary bonuses.” That is the whole public bonus record.

The SEC, on 19 May 2026, proposed eliminating accelerated-filer and smaller-reporting-company statuses in favor of an expanded non-accelerated filer, raising the large-accelerated-filer public-float threshold to $2 billion and stretching scaled disclosure to that larger set. The firm’s 21 May 2026 summary is the mechanics; the SEC release is the proposal home. Comments run 60 days after Federal Register publication; if the package is effective in 2027, reassessment sits as of 31 December 2026. That is a Public Companies & Governance and Capital Markets seat for the general counsel of an issuer already on the desk. It is a proposal, not a final rule.

Nasdaq 23/5 received SEC accelerated approval on 10 April 2026 to extend NMS trading to 23 hours, five days a week. The firm’s 2 June 2026 update timed a Night Session of 9:00 p.m. to 4:00 a.m. Eastern, with launch late 2026 or early 2027 after SIP and DTCC readiness. Confidentially marketed public offerings lose the closed-market window that made wall-crossing and next-morning pricing work; life-sciences and data-center issuers are named as heavy users. Capital Markets associates at the posted mid-level band rewrite underwriting agreements now. Who pays: a public-company general counsel and a capital-markets AGC.

The FTC, on 14 January 2026, raised the HSR size-of-transaction threshold from $126.4 million to $133.9 million. The Department of Justice, on 23 July 2026, returned to targeted Second Request investigations and published a model timing agreement; the FTC did not join the announcement. The firm’s 27 July 2026 alert, citing the FY2025 HSR Annual Report covering October 2024 through September 2025, recorded 41 second requests, 2.1 percent of notified deals, against 3.0 percent in FY2024, and 18 merger enforcement actions against 32. Mid-level Corporate and Antitrust associates still run threshold math on every deal above about $134 million. Hours per deal may fall. Health, agriculture and technology deals stay heavy. Who pays: a deputy GC for M&A at a manufacturer or health-system buyer.

The Fifth Circuit, on 19 March 2026, denied a stay of an Eastern District of Texas vacatur and put the pre-February 2025 HSR form back in use pending appeal, as the firm reported on 20 March 2026. The 2025 form had, in the firm’s later word, roughly tripled average preparation time. Merits briefing completed 10 June 2026; a decision is expected December 2026 through March 2027. That is a short-term cut in junior diligence grind, not a headcount freeze, and it is uncertainty until 2027 for the same antitrust desk.

The Supreme Court, on 11 June 2026, held in FS Credit Opportunities Corp. v. Saba Capital Master Fund, Ltd., No. 24-345, that Investment Company Act §47(b) is not an implied private right of action. The Investment Management litigation docket of ICA-rescission activist suits shrinks; SEC enforcement and fund-governance counseling remain. The same desk still posts a 3-to-8-year partner-track associate. Who pays: a registered-fund or adviser general counsel. The CFTC, on 18 August 2026, proposed a new CPO registration exemption for SEC-registered RIAs, restoration of a CTA cross-exemption, and a doubling of the small-pool threshold from $400,000 to $800,000, as the firm summarized on 19 August 2026. That is a 2026 autumn comment-then-implementation wave for IM regulatory mid-levels, not a headcount surge.

Indiana’s 2026 session is the Indianapolis construction desk in statute form. The firm’s 6 April 2026 update records HB 1210, now law, requiring data centers that use transaction-award certificates to agree with the municipality to contribute up to 1 percent of retail and use tax savings; SB 277 converts 40-plus IDEM “shall” duties to “may,” including dropping state environmental-impact statements unless federal law requires them, and 14-day permit-completeness clocks. The May 2026 Construction and Infrastructure Transactions associate, 3 to 6 years, is the hiring label that prices that work. Who pays: a hyperscaler or developer general counsel, with local government as the permitting counterparty. Virginia’s Data Center Alley appears on the firm’s topic page as client geography; the Locations directory accessed 11 September 2026 does not list a Virginia office.

The Small Business Administration’s final rule of 11 August 2026, effective 10 September 2026, removes the 8(a) rebuttable presumption of social disadvantage for individually owned applicants under 13 CFR 124.103. Pending individually owned applications had to meet the new documentary test by that date. That is a D.C. Government Contracts scramble, not a first-year class. The D.C. office colocates Faegre Drinker Consulting, consortia management and Tritura; the consulting careers page seeks Capitol Hill, administration, agency and corporate public-affairs backgrounds, not a JD. A general counsel still pays that desk.

Product liability remains a volume practice even as an MDL resolves. The firm’s 3 September 2026 news reported a 22 July 2026 Southern District of New York order granting Rule 702 exclusion and summary judgment for a medical-device manufacturer in remaining Zimmer M/L Taper hip cases, the second such win in the MDL, after a 2021 bellwether summary judgment preceded roughly 95 percent resolution. Remaining inventory still needs associates. The resolution rate argues for senior trial and expert specialists over another large junior wave. Who pays: a manufacturer general counsel and a product-litigation AGC.