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Having faced many challenges since the COVID-19 pandemic commenced, the Australian law firm industry demonstrated its resilience and adaptability, resulting in a better than expected industry performance over the 2020-21 financial year.
Taylor Root is pleased to announce the release of our “2021-22 Salary Guide & Market Report for the Australian Private Practice sector”, which outlines remuneration data for legal teams and individual lawyers cross Australia and Internationally.
The past financial year has witnessed the market turn from concern regarding job security and enforced pay cuts, to a buoyant market where lawyers utilisation levels are high and a lawyers’ value in the marketplace has never been greater.
The data Taylor Root has collected over the past 12 months on recent placements across Australia, confirms that salaries have shifted in this increasingly competitive landscape for recruiting and retaining talented lawyers. This corresponds with the skill shortage observed across the broader professional services sector and the accelerated wage growth forecasted and witnessed.
The supply and demand imbalance, or the “war for talent” as it if often called, is heavily tipped in favour of associates and senior associates presently and this imbalance is likely to continue beyond the findings contained in our salary report. Continued border restrictions and a fee earner pay war offshore will dramatically affect the supply of mid to senior level lawyers in the Australian market for the remaining of 2021 and perhaps beyond. Compensation packages are now valued above all other factors when evaluating potential employers, which is a dramatic shift from the value of work-life balance so highly sought after in previous years. What this means for salaries beyond mid-year reviews is unclear but what is clear, is that a diminishing pool of available lawyers will put pressure on law firm’s remuneration strategies until visa restrictions are eased.
The information contained in our salary survey relates to the base salaries of thousands of lawyers across Australia and the data is collected from offers we have secured for candidates. A lot has changed since we presented our last report, and we hope that our salary benchmarking continues to assist both law firms and lawyers as we all work together to ensure the success of the legal profession during COVID-19 and beyond.
We invite you to download the full report, complete with breakdowns of salaries for private Practice Lawyers across regions and years of experience, by clicking on the link below, or for an in-depth discussion on any of the material in the report please contact one of our dedicated Private Practice consultants today.
