Associate Salaries Going Up!

At least in Los Angeles & possibly San Francisco, reports The Recorder:

"O’Melveny & Myers and Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker are lifting associate salaries to match Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, raising first-year base pay to $135,000.

"’We’re committed to paying top-tier compensation in all of our markets,’" said Greg Nitzkowski, Paul Hastings’ managing partner. "It’s clear that the market is moving up.’"

[snip]

"Legal consultants predicted that Gibson Dunn’s move in December would force other firms to follow suit. In September, smaller Los Angeles firms Irell & Manella, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart Oliver & Hedges, and Munger, Tolles & Olson lifted salaries in a market that had been largely frozen since the dot-com days."

Hmm, could an increase in paralegal salaries be coming too?