In a firm wide memo obtained by abovethelaw.com Foley Hoag has done just that. The salaries of all first through third year associates and some fourth years have been cut by ten percent in order to meet the aforementioned lofty goals. As bad as that sounds, this comes on top of salary freezes that had second year associates making the same as first years, so with the ten percent cut, second year associates and some third years are now making less than they did as first years.
Maybe this will be the start of a new trend. Maybe law schools around the country will pick up on the idea and charge less for second year students than first year students. Maybe student loans will lower the interest rate each year. Seems about as likely as retaining the best talent by cutting salaries.