Now in its 10th edition, the Top 25 Attraction Firms ranking serves as a significant component of the Legal Firm of Choice Survey, which sets out to identify the most desirable private legal practices across Australia.

The latest survey was conducted from 30 January to 13 February 2025 and garnered a total of 434 responses from legal professionals currently engaged in private practice throughout the country. It recorded the attitudes, priorities, and perceptions of these practitioners, offering a valuable glimpse into the evolving landscape of the legal profession.

In the last few months, Lawyers Weekly published the Top 25 Attraction Firms Ranking for 2024-25, published how more than 20 per cent of lawyers plan to leave their firms, revealed which BigLaw firms gained and lost popularity among lawyers this past year, uncovered which firms young lawyers want to work at, and where senior lawyers want to work.

Which lawyers aren’t happy with their pay?

The survey asked participants about how they would evaluate their compensation in comparison to their peers, taking into account their “current role, years of experience and performance”.

VIEW ALL

Only 34 per cent of respondents felt that their pay was above or significantly above average – a figure that remains unchanged from last year’s survey.

Meanwhile, 21 per cent believed their compensation was below or notably below what their peers were earning. However, there’s been a slight improvement compared to last year, with 22 per cent of respondents indicating in 2024 that they perceive their pay as lower than average.

The findings indicated significant disparities between male and female respondents regarding their perceptions of compensation. Among male respondents, 40 per cent believed their salary was above or well above average, while only 31 per cent of women felt the same way.

Conversely, a larger proportion of women perceived their pay as below or far below average, with 22 per cent expressing this view compared to 20 per cent of men who held the same belief.

This gap is consistent with last year’s results, where 41 per cent of men felt they were well paid, compared to the same 31 per cent of women. Interestingly, a larger portion of men, at 22 per cent, felt their pay was lacking, compared to 21 per cent of women who expressed similar concerns about their salaries.

Post-pandemic salary boom still impacting remuneration

In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, the legal profession witnessed a substantial increase in entry-level salaries offered to recent law graduates, with compensation levels climbing by “at least 25 to 30 per cent” compared to pre-COVID-19 figures.

Phillip Hunter, Carlyle Kingswood Global’s Australian director (legal and governance, in-house), stated that the primary reason the legal profession experienced a surge in entry-level positions following the COVID-19 pandemic was the presence of “acute talent shortages”.

He described this period as one where “international borders were slowly reopening, talent was scarce, and firms were facing significant attrition as Australian Lawyers were lured overseas with significantly higher salaries”.

In light of these changes, Hunter emphasised that law firms “had little choice but to offer aggressive salary increases to retain staff”.

Following this post-pandemic salary surge, recruiters have previously warned that law graduates may develop an “inflated” outlook regarding their salary expectations as the profession “pivot[s] back” towards more reasonable raises compared to the substantial raises observed in FY21–22 and FY22–23.

Daniel Stirling, director of the Australian division of G2 Legal, also noticed this trend, observing that many junior lawyers have “generally experienced large salary increases year on year”.

However, as the market returns to “a more ‘normal’ rate” of salary increases – potentially “lower than anticipated” – Stirling remarked that it is not surprising that a “reasonable proportion of lawyers are unhappy with their [current] salaries”.

Hunter echoed this sentiment and agreed that “many lawyers still benchmark their expectations against those COVID-era salary peaks, without recognising that those conditions have passed”.

“The dissatisfaction we are now seeing is, in part, a lingering misalignment of expectations, not necessarily a failure of firms to offer fair or competitive remuneration,” he said.

Last year, Naiman Clarke managing director Elvira Naiman said that anecdotal evidence suggested firms were offering raises of only $5,000 or less.

“There’s certainly not appearing to be anywhere near the sort of 15 per cent plus, or even the 10 per cent plus that another third of the market is expecting,” she said at the time.

Paul Burgess, director of Burgess Paluch Legal Recruitment, explained that the current trend of firms offering smaller salary increases compared to the post-COVID-19 period could largely be due to “a slight reduction in demand for lawyers in some commercial areas, and a resulting increase in supply”.

This shift in the market, Burgess pointed out, has allowed firms to adopt a “more conservative” approach to the raises they offer their lawyers.

This notable shift towards smaller salary increases can also be attributed to a change in the “power dynamic” within the legal market. The landscape is gradually transitioning back to an employer-driven environment, in stark contrast to the previously candidate-driven market, which resulted in inflated salaries in the profession.

Alison Crowther, partner at empire group, also indicated that the “number one” reason lawyers are considering moving firms within the year is the pursuit of “a salary increase”. However, she noted that this aspiration may be somewhat unrealistic due to observing a “slowing of firm-wide [salary] increase for staff”.

But despite some lawyers voicing their dissatisfaction with their current salaries, Hunter emphasised that “it’s important to remember that law firms – and the legal market more broadly – are still paying well”.

“The real issue is a matter of expectation versus reality and a failure to recognise the extraordinary context that created recent salary spikes,” he said.