Cleveland’s Thompson Hine will impose an across-the-board $17,500 base salary reduction on associates and other non-partner lawyers.
Those lawyers will be able to earn back some or all of that sum as a bonus, if they bill at least 1,750 hours this year.
The firm also announced layoffs last week, eliminating the jobs of 12 associates, five paralegals and 29 secretaries. Furthermore, it has pushed back the starting date for its incoming first-year class to January 2010.
Roughly 210 lawyers will be affected by the salary change. Associate salaries vary among Thompson Hine’s eight offices: first-years in the New York office earn $145,000; those in Cleveland bring in $125,000; and Cincinnati first-years make $115,000. The reduction represents a 12% decline for first-years in New York, and a 15% decline in Cincinnati.