Salary benchmarks
Milbank Salary 2026: US Scale, London NQ, Bonus and PEP
On 2 June 2026 the firm reset the US associate lockstep to $235,000 through $455,000, effective 1 July. The London careers page prints the associate start as the same dollars. This page is that contrast, then the bonus stack and the partner economics that fund it, and what a general counsel has to put on an in-house offer.
The US print and the London print are the same dollars.
New York's lockstep first-mover put a $235,000 first-year in force on 1 July 2026; London printed the associate start as the same dollars. Sartori maps about 67,000 lawyers in New York. The dated Milbank salary contrast on this page is that pair, then bonus and partner economics, not the market-wide lockstep.
US first-year base on the 2 June 2026 memo, effective 1 July 2026. TaxProf Blog reproduced the class-of-2025-26 rung at $235,000 on 1 August 2026; the law-students page still prints that first-year rate. TaxProf Blog ↗
Four published lines, two geographies, one employer. The market-wide match list belongs to the 2026 associate salary scale. This page stays on this firm's documents. The class-year table is below.
- $7.62M
- 2025 profits per equity partner, Am Law 100 rank 10.
- Legal Business, 16 April 2026; Above the Law, 15 April 2026
- $2.14B
- 2025 firmwide revenue, first year over $2 billion, up 15 percent.
- Legal Business, 16 April 2026
- $366.2M
- 2025 London office revenue, up 11 percent from $327 million.
- Legal Cheek firm profile, accessed 11 September 2026
- $6k-$25k
- 2026 global special bonuses, no hours gate, payable by 31 August.
- TaxProf Blog, 1 August 2026; Above the Law, 27 July 2026
The 2026 Milbank salary scale, class by class
TaxProf Blog reproduced the class-year table from the 2 June 2026 memo on 1 August 2026. Years 1 through 4 rose $10,000; years 5 through 8 rose $20,000. That is this firm's scale, not a census of the Am Law 100.
Above the Law dated the first-mover memo 2 June 2026, with a 1 July 2026 effective date, and recorded that summer associates were included. Legal Business, on 3 June 2026, confirmed the $235,000 class-of-2025-26 print and the $10,000 / $20,000 split, and named McDermott Will & Schulte as the first published matcher. Bloomberg Law, on 17 June 2026, wrote that over the past decade this firm had led all six US associate pay raises — 2016, 2018, 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2026 — and that more than a dozen firms had adopted the new scale within two weeks. The historical label “Cravath scale” is a market nickname, not a 2026 announcement that Cravath still sets the table.
The firm's own law-students page, accessed 11 September 2026, states that first-year associates are paid at a rate of $235,000 per year. That is the employer primary for the junior rung. Class-year dollars through the eighth year come from the memo as printed by TaxProf Blog and RollOnFriday, not from a second reconstruction.
| Class year | Seniority label | 2026 base | 2026 special | 2025 year-end |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Class of 2025-26 | First-year | $235,000 | $6,000 | $15,000 |
| Class of 2024 | Class of 2024 | $245,000 | $10,000 | $20,000 |
| Class of 2023 | Class of 2023 | $270,000 | $15,000 | $30,000 |
| Class of 2022 | Class of 2022 | $320,000 | $20,000 | $57,500 |
| Class of 2021 | Class of 2021 | $385,000 | $25,000 | $75,000 |
| Class of 2020 | Class of 2020 | $410,000 | $25,000 | $90,000 |
| Class of 2019 | Class of 2019 | $440,000 | $25,000 | $105,000 |
| Class of 2018 | Eighth-year | $455,000 | $25,000 | $115,000 |
Special counsel is paid at the $25,000 top of the July special (TaxProf Blog, 1 August 2026). 2025 year-end rungs are the Cravath match reported by the ABA Journal on 25 November 2025, paid 31 December 2025, not a forecast of 2026 year-end cash. Click a column header to re-rank.
NALP's 2025 U.S. Associate Salary Survey, as of 1 January 2025 (press release 28 May 2025), put the overall median first-year base at $200,000 and the median in firms of more than 700 lawyers at $215,000. The $225,000 figure was already the mode: 32.0 percent of all offices and 44.7 percent of offices in firms of 701 or more lawyers. In New York City the median starting salary had reached $225,000, and 56.5 percent of the 23 NYC offices that reported a first-year figure paid that number. That survey measures the lockstep this June memo then lifted. It is not a 2026 census, and it is not this firm's private payroll.
Above the Law's running scorecard listed this firm as first mover with “None” as the hours minimum on the new base. McDermott matched the same $235,000 / $455,000 endpoints the same day with a 2,000-hour bonus gate. Subsequent published matches on that scorecard include Quinn Emanuel (4 June 2026), Sullivan & Cromwell (26 June 2026) and Norton Rose Fulbright (30 June 2026). A handful of boutiques printed above-market first-year figures — Desmarais at $255,000, Susman Godfrey class of 2025 at $240,000. Those names are competing employers of the same seat. They are not this page's table.
London posts the NQ in dollars. Sterling is a press conversion.
The firm's London careers page, accessed 11 September 2026, does not print a sterling newly qualified salary. It prints USD $235,000.00 as the associate start, the same dollars as the US first-year.
A US memoA sterling figure the firm has not issued
- US class-year dollars A lockstep memo with eight rungs and a July effective date. The junior rung is a first-year base, not a converted NQ.
- London careers dollars The same associate start, printed in US dollars on a City careers page. No FX footnote on that page.
- Press sterling A spot conversion the legal press performed and labeled as approximate. Useful as a City comparison, not as payroll.
Legal Cheek, on 3 June 2026, treated the class of 2025-26 as the NQ equivalent at $235,000, “roughly £175,000 based on a straight conversion,” and wrote that the exact sterling figure would likely depend on the spot rate the firm opts to apply. RollOnFriday, on 5 June 2026, used the same ~£175,000 band and the same FX caveat. Legal Cheek's firm profile, accessed 11 September 2026, lists newly qualified salary as £175,000 as its compiled figure. The transatlantic first-year gap on the published documents is zero dollars. Any sterling gap is an unpublished FX choice.
The City comparison that is public sits next to that conversion, not inside it. Legal Cheek, on 4 June 2026, named Davis Polk, Gibson Dunn, Paul Weiss and Willkie as paying £180,000 NQ. That is four peer prints against a press conversion of this firm's dollar NQ. It is not a finding that this firm underpays in sterling, because the firm has not published sterling.
What the employer does publish in sterling is the trainee pipeline that feeds that NQ. The London FAQs, accessed 11 September 2026, set first-year trainees at £70,000 and second-year trainees at £75,000, a vacation scheme at £550 per week, and a PGDL/SQE maintenance grant of £20,000 per year plus course fees at the University of Law. Intake is approximately 15 to 16 trainees per year across Traditional and Leveraged Finance tracks, one September start. Legal Cheek, on 4 June 2026, reported the trainee lift from the prior £65,000 / £70,000 band. The vacation scheme is the exclusive path: the FAQs state the firm does not accept direct training-contract applications. The Solicitors Regulation Authority SQE route (page dated August 2025) still requires a degree or equivalent, SQE1 and SQE2, two years' qualifying work experience, and suitability checks; the two-year contract is that work experience. SRA number 78722 sits on the London legal notices.
London is the second-largest office in the network, in the City since 1979, and one of 11 offices on the firm's directory (New York at 55 Hudson Yards, Los Angeles, Washington DC, London, Frankfurt, Munich, Sao Paulo, Hong Kong, Seoul, Singapore, Tokyo). Legal Cheek's firm profile puts 2025 London revenue at $366.2 million, up 11 percent after a 40 percent rise the prior year, with headcount up 10 percent to just under 200 lawyers. Nonbillable, updated 28 May 2026, put 2024 London revenue at $327 million and described 100 Liverpool Street as over 200 lawyers. Band the office in the high-100s to low-200s; a 2026 point estimate is not on those pages. The UK Gender Pay Gap Report 2026, snapshot 5 April 2025, counts 270 employees — legal plus business-services staff, partners excluded as the regulations require — and states that associates are paid equally by class year regardless of gender.
The transatlantic first-year gap on the published documents is zero dollars.
The 2026 bonus that is public is a special. Year-end is last year's match.
Cash on top of base arrived twice in this cycle, and only one of those memos is a 2026 document. Treat them as separate instruments.
Published baseA year-end memo that is not out
- Class-year base The June lockstep. It moved. It is the number a compensation committee can verify on the careers page.
- Global special A July cash note to associates and special counsel worldwide, no hours minimum on the public scorecard, paid by the end of August.
- Year-end lockstep Last set as a match in November 2025. Repeating those rungs as 2026 annual bonus is a tracker habit, not a memo.
The 27 July 2026 memo paid special bonuses to all associates and special counsel globally on or before 31 August 2026. TaxProf Blog's 1 August 2026 table runs class of 2026/2025 at $6,000, class of 2024 at $10,000, class of 2023 at $15,000, class of 2022 at $20,000, and class of 2021 and earlier at $25,000, with special counsel at $25,000. Above the Law's scorecard carries the same endpoints, “None” as the hours minimum, and the 31 August 2026 payout date. Legal Cheek, on 28 July 2026, restated the NQ end as about £4,500 ($6,000) and the senior end as almost £20,000 ($25,000). Law.com, on 27 July 2026, confirmed the third consecutive year of specials and that they sit on top of the June salary raise.
A company offer that matches base and ignores the special is not matching the lockstep. At the first-year rung the omission is $6,000 of announced 2026 cash. At class of 2021 and earlier, and at special counsel, it is $25,000. That arithmetic uses two public memos. It does not invent a 2026 year-end.
Combined 2025 cash on top of base, as the ABA Journal printed it (year-end plus the summer special already paid), ran class of 2025 at $15,000 + $6,000 = $21,000 (prorated), class of 2024 at $26,000, class of 2023 at $40,000, class of 2022 at $72,500, class of 2021 at $95,000, class of 2020 at $115,000, class of 2019 at $130,000, and class of 2018 at $140,000. Those totals are 2025 history. They are the last complete bonus stack a general counsel can cite without guessing.
The associate earns the print. The general counsel has to clear it.
Two people read this table: the lockstep associate who earns it and the in-house chief legal officer who must put a comparable lawyer on a company payroll or price a panel against the published scale.
The people on the 2026 scale sit inside one employer type: an elite New York lockstep firm and the peer firms that match it. Chambers USA 2026 lists 231 partners and 979 lawyers; Chambers UK 2026 lists 46 UK partners, 150 UK associates, 358 UK staff and 1,183 worldwide fee-earners; the graduate brochure for 2026/2027 says 1,000+ lawyers and 220+ partners; the London careers page says over 1,000 lawyers in 11 offices. Band global lawyers in the 950 to 1,200 range depending on whether the census is “lawyers” or “fee-earners.” Do not collapse those four documents into a single headcount.
In the same New York interview cohort, 428 associates and special counsel at lockstep finance, restructuring or capital-markets desks over a 24-month window were asked what number a company written offer has to clear. Sixty-four percent named the published class-year base, not the bonus, as the line the compensation committee recognizes. A separate cut of 108 general counsel, chief legal officers and heads of legal in that cohort, over the same 24 months, had priced an in-house offer against a lockstep W-2; 71 of those 108 said they budget the first-year lockstep as a floor even when the seat is a year-3 to year-6 associate. Sartori's quarterly survey since 2019, read on the 2026 Q2 New York wave of 86 in-house respondents inside that group, found 41 percent would not reopen a counsel band mid-year to absorb a lockstep raise.
The seat is law-firm practice through special counsel. The partnership writes the paycheck.
- US on-ramps are campus and clerkship. New York runs a transactional rotation for class of 2027 3Ls (applications rolling to 10 November 2026) across Alternative Investments, Corporate Finance and Securities, Global Corporate, Global Project, Energy and Infrastructure Finance, and Transportation & Space. Los Angeles 3L hiring is labeled Project Finance only. Bankruptcy clerks are solicited into Financial Restructuring. Four of six New York associate ads accessed on 11 September 2026 required New York bar admission.
- Special counsel is a live title on the bonus memo. A 21 January 2026 firm announcement promoted 18 attorneys to special counsel. Practice seats in that class, counted without names: four in Global Project, Energy and Infrastructure Finance; two in Transportation and Space; two in European Leveraged Finance / Capital Markets; two in Financial Restructuring; three in Alternative Investments; one in Global Corporate / M&A; one in Tax; three in Litigation & Arbitration. Offices represented: New York, London, Washington DC, Los Angeles, Sao Paulo. The July special pays that title at the $25,000 top.
- The New York ads still show the old dollars. The employer page accessed 11 September 2026 advertised a project-finance associate at $435,000 and a private-credit associate at $260,000. Those figures sit on the pre-July class-year lockstep. They are evidence of which desks were authorized to hire — project and energy finance, corporate finance and securities, derivatives, private credit and restructuring, cross-border leveraged finance, M&A — not a restatement of the 1 July 2026 scale.
The buyer who matches the figure is a company legal department, usually a bank, sponsor, fund or infrastructure corporate.
- Proxy tables show the chief, not the counsel seat. Corporate Counsel's 2026 GC Pay Report (17 August 2026) ranked 551 Fortune 1000 legal chiefs from FY2025 proxies and described compensation at record levels driven by long-term stock awards. The 2025 edition (28 July 2025) stated the method limit: SEC rules generally disclose only the five most highly paid executives, so many legal chiefs never appear, and the counsel / senior counsel seats that hire a 3-to-6-year associate are not in that table at all.
- Client types on the finance desks are the typical next employers. The Banking and Leveraged Finance page describes traditional banking and direct-lending clients, financial institutions, and private-equity sponsors on the other side of auctions. Chambers UK restructuring materials put about 75 restructuring specialists globally, with 30 lawyers in London and Germany, acting for boards, companies, banks, funds and creditor committees. Project, Energy and Infrastructure Finance claims more than 150 dedicated attorneys, including 20 partners, acting for sponsors, JVs, contractors, ECAs, multilaterals, funds, commercial banks and government agencies. Public bodies appear as project-finance counterparties, not as the usual next employer at this cash level.
- Campus supply into firms of this size is already tight. NALP's Class of 2024 findings (as of 17 March 2025) put overall employment at 93.4 percent, with 7,126 graduates in firms of 501 or more lawyers — 34.2 percent of law-firm jobs — and a $225,000 median at that size. NALP also flagged that the 2024-25 summer-hiring pullback implies fewer large-firm seats for the Classes of 2025 and 2026. That sizes the pool a general counsel is bidding against. It is not an offer count for this firm.
A general counsel at a PE-backed infrastructure platform told us the $235,000 first-year print is now the floor the compensation committee recognizes, even for a year-four project-finance hire. A head of legal at a New York direct-lending fund said a base-only match against a lockstep associate “looks like a pay cut on paper once the special hits in August.”
A company offer that matches base and ignores the special is not matching the lockstep.
Average PEP is not a partner salary. It is the pool that pays the lockstep.
The 2026 associate scale is funded by a partnership that crossed $2 billion in 2025. Individual origination credit is not public. Am Law averages are.
Legal Business, on 16 April 2026, put 2025 firmwide revenue at $2.14 billion, the first year over $2 billion, up 15 percent, and profits per equity partner at $7.62 million, up 12.1 percent from $6.8 million. Above the Law's 15 April 2026 Am Law 100 recap printed PEP at $7.620 million, up 11.86 percent, rank 10 of 100, behind Paul Hastings at $8.330 million. Bloomberg Law, on 17 June 2026, added 2025 revenue per lawyer of $2.085 million, up 8 percent, and restated PEP at $7.6 million, up 12 percent. Across the Am Law 100, 2025 PEP rose 14 percent; 70 firms posted at least 10 percent PEP growth; 62 firms cleared $1 billion revenue, up from 58. Those aggregates describe the peer set, not this firm's associate table.
The 2024 year that funded the last special-bonus cycle was steeper. Above the Law, on 10 February 2025, quoting The American Lawyer, put 2024 revenue at $1.86 billion (up 23 percent), average PEP at $6.8 million (up 33 percent), net income for equity partners at $1.16 billion (up 36.5 percent), lawyer headcount up 6.6 percent, revenue per lawyer at $1.91 million (up 15.2 percent), the equity tier at roughly 170 after adding about four partners, the nonequity tier at 42 after adding three, and average compensation for all partners at about $5.46 million (up 26 percent). Law.com's 10 February 2025 dek confirmed the 33 percent PEP growth and 23 percent revenue rise; the body sat behind a paywall and is not used here.
| Measure | 2024 | 2025 | What it is not |
|---|---|---|---|
| Firmwide revenue | $1.86B | $2.14B | A practice-by-practice split |
| Profits per equity partner | $6.8M | $7.62M | An individual partner offer |
| Revenue per lawyer | $1.91M | $2.085M | Associate origination |
| Equity / nonequity partners | ~170 / 42 | Not published as a 2025 pair | A 2025 partnership census |
| All-partner average pay | $5.46M | Not published | 2025 take-home |
2024 figures: Above the Law quoting The American Lawyer, 10 February 2025. 2025 revenue and PEP: Legal Business, 16 April 2026. 2025 RPL: Bloomberg Law, 17 June 2026. The 2025 equity-count pair was not in the Am Law recap.
A chief legal officer who reads $7.62 million as “what a partner takes home” is reading an average across an equity tier, not a distribution. The eighth-year associate base of $455,000 is the last published rung before that partnership pool. The step between them is not a salary band. It is a promotion, a credit system the firm has not published, and a wait.
Finance and restructuring generate the cash. A general legal department does not.
The 2026 scale is payable because a leveraged-finance and restructuring book is still busy. The hiring consequence sits in years 2 through 6, not in a first-year volume spike.
US credit papersUK public capital
- Amend-and-extend finance A refinancing year, not an LBO boom. Junior and mid-level leveraged-finance associates stay on recut papers. Acquisition-finance hiring is spikier and more senior.
- Restructuring dockets Chapter 11 filings are up, still far below the 2010 peak. Liability-management documentation after Serta sits with mid-level finance and financial-restructuring seats, not with first-years.
- Infrastructure capital A dated UK public-capital reason to add London partner teams in 2025. Project and energy-finance associates, including the Los Angeles 3L project-finance opening, sit on that book.
William Blair's Q4 2025 newsletter, citing PitchBook LCD, put US institutional loan volume at $439.1 billion in 2025, 13 percent below $501.7 billion in 2024, still above the 10-year average. Including repricings and extensions, annual volume surpassed $1.0 trillion, 25 percent below 2024's $1.4 trillion. Seventy-six percent of 2025 activity was refinancings, amendments or repricings. LBO-related institutional volume was $59.4 billion, in line with 2024 and 27 percent below the 10-year average. Cross-market refinancings between broadly syndicated loans and private credit ran over $30 billion each way. Q2 2026 year-to-date institutional new-issue volume was $214.5 billion, 5 percent below the same period in 2025.
The documentation overlay on that book is a court opinion, not a slogan. The Fifth Circuit's 31 December 2024 decision in In re Serta Simmons Bedding, L.L.C., 125 F.4th 555, revised in January and February 2025, held that the 2020 uptier was not an “open market purchase” under the 2016 first-lien credit agreement and excised the chapter 11 plan indemnity. Binding in the Fifth Circuit only. Cleary Gottlieb (6 January 2025) and Jones Day (March 2025) flagged knock-on drafting of “Serta blockers” and a same-day New York Appellate Division decision in Mitel that upheld a differently drafted uptier. The split is documentary. Mid-level leveraged-finance associates who hold sacred-rights and blocker language, and financial-restructuring associates who hold LME challenges, are the seats that move — not a first-year hiring spike.
US Courts figures size the restructuring docket without counting this firm's matters. In the 12 months ending 31 December 2025 (published 4 February 2026), Chapter 11 filings ran 9,201, against 8,884 the prior period; business filings were 24,737, up 7.1 percent. In the 12 months ending 31 March 2026 (published 23 April 2026), Chapter 11 filings ran 9,941 and business filings 25,960, up 11.4 percent. Totals remain far below the September 2010 peak of nearly 1.6 million. The January 2026 special-counsel class already included Financial Restructuring seats in New York and London.
On 5 December 2025, OCC Bulletin 2025-44 withdrew, with the FDIC, the 21 March 2013 Interagency Guidance on Leveraged Lending and the 2014 FAQs. Banks under those agencies are to apply general safe-and-sound commercial-lending principles. The Federal Reserve has not withdrawn SR 13-3, so Fed-supervised institutions remain under the old letter. That split is a 2026 origination question for lender-side associates and private-credit specialists. It is not a finding that G-SIBs have already re-entered.
London's 2025 partner-team builds sit on dated public capital. The Chancellor's 19 March 2025 statement of strategic priorities to the National Wealth Fund, under section 3 of the UK Infrastructure Bank Act 2023, launched the fund with £27.8 billion, at least £5.8 billion this Parliament into green hydrogen, carbon capture, ports, gigafactories and green steel, and a 1:3 mobilization target. On 8 May 2025 a four-partner European Infrastructure M&A and Finance team joined the London office; Legal Business, on 27 May 2025, described the energy-and-infrastructure initiative at around 50 people. On 13 October 2025 the firm launched a European real estate finance practice. The 2026 gender-pay brochure names both new lines. FCA PS25/9, in force 19 January 2026, rewrites the UK prospectus and admissions regime; that is an ECM/HY associate story for NQ through 4 PQE, not the leveraged-finance volume driver.
Industry hours still support paying the raise. Bloomberg Law, on 17 August 2026, citing Citi's law-firm group, put H1 2026 billable hours up 4.2 percent against a 1.5 to 2 percent long-term average, with revenue up 11.7 percent and expenses up 9.7 percent. AI spend was 0.25 percent of revenue at end-2025. Citi's quoted conclusion: hours are still rising, so AI is not yet eating demand. Bloomberg Law / David Lat, on 17 June 2026, noted that the $235,000 raise landed while AI can do junior tasks and that the mix has not settled. This page does not write that AI eliminated NQ demand in 2026. The hours series and the pay raise still point at first-year hiring, with a possible mix-shift toward fewer, more expensive juniors over a multi-year window.
Copying the first-year base is not a compensation strategy.
A company that copies the first-year base and ignores the special is not matching the lockstep. Sartori has worked New York associate search for more than 10 years. The telemetry below is that desk, not a second city.
Over the trailing three years the New York associate line closed 33 searches, with a 93 percent completion rate and a typical timeline of 6 to 12 weeks. Median offer-to-acceptance on that line is 11 working days. Counter-offer incidence is 37 percent. Of those 33 closed files, 19 were firm-side associate laterals and 14 were company-side searches for an associate or counsel seat. Nine of the 14 company-side files drew a lockstep-firm counter-offer. Two of 33 closed files ended without a start date, both of them company-side, after the approved counsel band lost to lockstep total cash. That is the number that cuts against the easy story: when the company will not put special-bonus cash into a first-year package, the process can close empty.
Two composites, anonymized, sit inside that envelope. A PE-backed infrastructure platform asked us to hire a year-four project-finance associate off a lockstep finance desk onto an in-house energy-and-infrastructure seat. The search ran nine weeks. The company matched the published class-year base and omitted the July special; the lockstep employer countered on total cash; the candidate stayed. A New York direct-lending fund hired a year-three private-credit associate in seven weeks. The written offer cleared base plus the dated special; acceptance took 11 working days; no counter arrived. Neither file names a firm, a fund or a lawyer.
Retention architecture on the firm side explains why the counter is available. The associate-development page runs Deals@Milbank from year 1, Advocacy@Milbank through year 6, and Milbank@Harvard from the end of year 3 / fourth-year PQE. Pro bono sits at a 25-hour floor per lawyer per year; the graduate brochure cites over 53,000 hours firmwide last year. London FAQs: no international seat as a trainee; post-qualification secondments are needs-based. That is a retention machine, not an in-house secondment pipeline. A general counsel who wants the person, not a secondment, is buying them off that machine.
| Line | What is public | What is not |
|---|---|---|
| US first-year | $235,000 on the law-students page and the June memo | Hours actually billed |
| London NQ | USD $235,000.00 on the London careers page | The sterling FX rate the firm applies |
| 2026 special | $6,000-$25,000, no hours gate, paid by 31 August | A 2026 year-end bonus memo |
| Partner pay | 2025 average PEP $7.62 million; 2024 all-partner average $5.46 million | Individual take-home or origination credit |
| In-house match | 551 Fortune 1000 GC packages in FY2025 proxies | Counsel-band cash at named clients |
Employer primary pages accessed 11 September 2026; PEP from Legal Business, 16 April 2026, and Above the Law, 10 February 2025; GC universe from Corporate Counsel, 17 August 2026.
If the seat you are filling is an in-house counsel or deputy general counsel role that has to clear this cash, the in-house and general counsel search is the mandate. If you are a lockstep firm hiring the same class year, the associate recruiting desk is the mandate. Method for the interview program and the mandate telemetry sits on our methodology page. For the market-wide eight-rung lockstep this firm reset, use the 2026 associate salary scale; for the first-year distribution outside this employer, use first-year pay reality.
Memos, Am Law figures, and the firm careers pages
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 ↗
- After Raising Associate Salaries, Milbank Announces Summer Bonuses taxprofblog.aals.org ↗
- ALERT: Milbank Does It Again — Associate Salaries Are Going Up!!! abovethelaw.com ↗
- Associate Compensation Scorecard: The 2026 Summer Of Salary Increases abovethelaw.com ↗
- Law Students | Milbank LLP milbank.com ↗
- London Careers | Milbank LLP milbank.com ↗
- London Careers FAQs | Milbank LLP milbank.com ↗
- Milbank pushes NQ lawyer pay to $235k legalcheek.com ↗
- Lawyers smell the money as Milbank triggers pay race rollonfriday.com ↗
- Milbank ups trainee lawyer pay in London to record breaking £75k legalcheek.com ↗
- Milbank (Legal Cheek firm profile) legalcheek.com ↗
- Summer Surprise: Milbank Announces Special Bonuses Up To $25K abovethelaw.com ↗
- Milbank Doles Out Special Bonuses for Associates, For Third Year in Row law.com ↗
- Milbank announces bonuses; did it beat Cravath? abajournal.com ↗
- Milbank crosses $2bn in firmwide revenue, with London up 11% legalbusiness.co.uk ↗
- The 2026 Am Law 100 Is Out, And Surprise: The Rich Law Firms Got Richer abovethelaw.com ↗
- Latest Associate Pay Raises Reflect Start of 'Prestige Law' Era news.bloomberglaw.com ↗
- Milbank Spread The Wealth Through Special Bonuses Because 2024 Was Yet Another Record Financial Year For The Firm abovethelaw.com ↗
- Despite Expectations, $225,000 Entry Associate Salaries Lag at Large Law Firms nalp.org ↗
- $225,000 Entry-Level Salaries Not Yet the Standard at Large Firms nalp.org ↗
- Class of 2024 Achieves Record Employment nalp.org ↗
- Employment for the Class of 2024 — Selected Findings nalp.org ↗
- Biglaw Salary Scale + Bonuses (1968 - 2026) biglawinvestor.com ↗
- Milbank LLP, USA 2026 | Chambers Profiles chambers.com ↗
- Milbank LLP, UK 2026 | Chambers Profiles chambers.com ↗
- UK Gender Pay Gap Report 2026 milbank.com ↗
- 2026 GC Pay Report: The Full List, From No. 1 to No. 551 law.com ↗
- Milbank Announces 2026 New Special Counsel milbank.com ↗
- Associate — New York openings | Milbank LLP milbank.com ↗
- Leveraged Finance Newsletter Q4 2025 williamblair.com ↗
- Bankruptcy Filings Rise 11 Percent uscourts.gov ↗
- Bankruptcies Increase 11.9 Percent uscourts.gov ↗
- In re Serta Simmons Bedding, L.L.C. (5th Cir.) ca5.uscourts.gov ↗
- OCC Bulletin 2025-44 — Leveraged Lending occ.gov ↗
- Statement of Strategic Priorities to the National Wealth Fund gov.uk ↗
- PS25/9: New rules for the public offers and admissions to trading regime fca.org.uk ↗
- Big Law Demand Soars on M&A Revival as AI Drives Up Expenses news.bloomberglaw.com ↗
- Leading Four Partner European Infrastructure M&A and Finance Team Joins Milbank milbank.com ↗
- Milbank bumps associate pay to $235k as McDermott becomes first firm to match legalbusiness.co.uk ↗
- United Kingdom | Milbank LLP milbank.com ↗
Scale dollars reproduce the 2 June 2026 class-year memo as published by TaxProf Blog on 1 August 2026. London associate start is the firm's own careers page, accessed 11 September 2026. Partner economics are the 2026 Am Law 100 cycle as reported by Legal Business and Above the Law. Press sterling for the London NQ is attributed to Legal Cheek and RollOnFriday, not to the employer.
Adjacent benchmarks
BigLaw associate salary scale 2026
The eight-rung market table this firm's June memo reset, including year-end bonus mechanics across matching firms.
Read the market scale First-year distributionFirst-year pay reality 2026
NALP's median is not this firm's first-year print. Where $225,000 actually sits, and where it does not.
Read the first-year correction The in-house matchGeneral counsel salary 2026
What chief legal officers earn by company size and stage — the company-side counterpart to a lockstep W-2.
Read the GC benchmarkMilbank compensation: the questions both readers ask
What is the 2026 Milbank salary for a first-year associate?
A first-year on the 2026 US scale earns a $235,000 base from 1 July 2026. TaxProf Blog reproduced that class-of-2025-26 rung from the 2 June 2026 memo on 1 August 2026; the firm's law-students page, accessed 11 September 2026, prints the same first-year rate. A $6,000 special, announced 27 July 2026 with no hours gate, sits on top. The 2026 year-end bonus had not been announced as of 11 September 2026, so all-in cash for 2026 is not a published figure.
What does a newly qualified solicitor earn in Milbank's London office in 2026?
The London careers page, accessed 11 September 2026, prints the associate start as USD $235,000.00 — the same dollars as the US first-year, not a sterling NQ. Legal Cheek on 3 June 2026 and RollOnFriday on 5 June 2026 converted that print at a spot rate to about £175,000 and both flagged that the firm's own FX rate is not public. Davis Polk, Gibson Dunn, Paul Weiss and Willkie were paying £180,000 NQ in the Legal Cheek round-up of 4 June 2026. That sterling gap is a press comparison, not a firm table.
What is the 2026 Milbank bonus for associates?
The dated 2026 bonus is a global special of $6,000 to $25,000, announced 27 July 2026 and payable by 31 August 2026, with no hours minimum on the Above the Law scorecard. Special counsel is paid at the $25,000 top. Law.com reported on 27 July 2026 that this was the third consecutive year of specials. The 2025 year-end lockstep, which the firm matched rather than led, ran $15,000 to $115,000 (ABA Journal, 25 November 2025). A 2026 year-end memo is not public.
What is Milbank partner salary, and what was 2025 Milbank PEP?
Individual partner take-home is not public. The 2026 Am Law 100 cycle put 2025 profits per equity partner at $7.62 million, up 12.1 percent from $6.8 million, with firmwide revenue of $2.14 billion (Legal Business, 16 April 2026). Above the Law's 15 April 2026 recap ranked that PEP 10th of 100. The 2024 all-partner average, a wider cut than equity PEP, was about $5.46 million (Above the Law quoting The American Lawyer, 10 February 2025). A general counsel pricing a partner hire cannot treat average PEP as an offer.
How should a general counsel match a lockstep associate on an in-house offer?
Budget the published class-year base plus the dated special, then decide whether your counsel band can clear that cash. A $235,000 first-year match that omits the $6,000 July special is $6,000 short of announced 2026 cash; at class of 2021 and earlier the special is $25,000. Corporate Counsel's 2026 GC Pay Report (17 August 2026) ranked 551 Fortune 1000 legal chiefs from FY2025 proxies — equity-heavy packages that do not disclose the counsel seats that actually hire year-3 to year-6 associates. Sartori's New York associate desk works to 6 to 12 weeks; two of 33 closed files over three years ended without a start date, both of them company-side.
Has Milbank announced 2026 year-end associate bonuses?
No. As of the 11 September 2026 research date, a 2026 year-end memo had not been published. The last dated year-end lockstep is the $15,000–$115,000 scale the firm matched on 24–25 November 2025, paid 31 December 2025. Tracker columns that reprint those rungs as a 2026 annual bonus are an assumption, not a firm announcement.
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If you are a general counsel, chief legal officer or head of HR matching this scale on an in-house offer, we run the search against the published base and the dated special — not against a tracker column that has not been announced. No name circulated until you say so.