Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan is raising its associate salaries, matching recently announced pay hikes by Milbank.
The litigation powerhouse is upping the pay by $10,000 for its junior lawyers and $20,000 for its most senior associates, mirroring the scale announced on Tuesday by Manhattan-founded Milbank. McDermott Will & Schulte also said it would be raising salaries.
Quinn Emanuel is “having another very strong year. I expect it’ll be another record-setting year coming on the back of three in a row and that success is a major function of our associates and the great work, the contributions, the sacrifices that they make,” said co-managing partner Michael Carlinsky.
Carlinsky said the firm hasn’t yet evaluated if it would issue bonuses in addition to the raises, but it wanted to match promptly to reward and thank associates. So far among the nation’s top firms, only McDermott and Quinn Emanuel have committed to matching the new salary scale.
Record-Setting Revenue
Quinn Emanuel founder John Quinn last month said that he would step back from firm management, the culmination of a leadership transition that started four years ago.
Carlinsky, who also serves as the global head of complex litigation, became co-managing partner of Quinn Emanuel in 2022 alongside William “Bill” Burck, one of the country’s top trial and white collar defense lawyers.
The following year, Carlinsky set out a challenge to the law firm to effectively double its metrics by 2026—getting to $3 billion in revenue and $10 million in profits per equity partner, he said.
The firm came close to hitting that goal in 2025, bringing in $2.7 billion in revenue and $9 million in partner profits.
“I’m confident at the end of this year we’re going to hit those challenges and meet the goals that I was setting at the time,” Carlinsky said. And associates are a big part of that success, he said.