Login
Top 10 pay and salary stories in 2024
Following a massive year, Lawyers Weekly counts down the most-read stories around salary and pay for 2024 – from Fair Work Commission cases to overseas salaries to the ongoing gender pay gap.
Lawyers Weekly
10. Are firms using alternative benefits as bargaining chips as salaries stall?
9. Women more likely to see gender pay gap in law than men
Today (27 February), the gender pay data of Australia’s biggest employers will be made public by the Workplace Gender Equality Agency. Such a release is timely, given that new research shows that an overwhelmingly greater number of female practitioners believe a gender pay gap exists in the profession compared to their male counterparts.
8. The ‘inflation-busting’ salaries Aussie lawyers can expect in London
It’s “no secret” that the salaries on offer for practitioners are much higher in the UK capital than Down Under. Here, a recruiter details what Australians can expect if they make the move.
7. Tax cuts may mean lower salary increases for lawyers in FY24–25
The revised stage-three tax cuts, together with other market factors, may well provide justification for employers not to give up-and-coming lawyers a larger salary bump for the new financial year.
6. Aussie associate salaries ‘competitive’ with UK (at least for now)
New salary data shows that lawyers with up to nine years’ PQE in Australia’s major metropolitan cities are raking in remuneration that is starting to rival those based in the United Kingdom – although it may not last.
5. Former Dentons partner demands salary records
A former Dentons partner said the firm’s salary records for equity partners would support his claim for loss and damages arising out of alleged breaches of the Fair Work Act.
4. Corporates pay highest average legal salaries, report says
Legal professionals have an average salary of $102,100 – but new research from the College of Law has shown that law firms pay, on average, less than government and big corporates, with 35 per cent of lawyers in firms also not receiving a salary increase over the last two years.
3. Slater & Gordon self-reports to Fair Work over underpayments, understated leave balances
National law firm Slater & Gordon has identified a payroll error in leave accrual, which it believes has resulted in a collective underpayment of at least $300,000 for around 100 of its current and former employees.
2. What the gender pay gap looks like at Australia’s biggest firms
New workplace data has revealed the gender pay gap at Australia’s largest legal workplaces. Here, Lawyers Weekly lists the firms with the best and worst gender salary divide.
1. Sydney lawyer fired after salary cut in half
A lawyer claimed she was fired the day after she called in sick for mental health distress by a director who regularly threatened to terminate her employment and halved her salary without sufficient notice.
