The Cravath Scale: BigLaw Associate Salaries by Class Year

The Cravath scale is the law-firm market's name for the base-salary schedule large firms pay their associates — one number per class year, from the entry rung to the most senior associates on the published steps.

A scale in this sense is exactly what it sounds like: a list of annual base salaries, stepped by class year, announced in a firm-wide memo and applied across the class.

The name is where the history sits.

The schedule is not set by Cravath today: as reported in legal press, Milbank, not Cravath, led both of the last two base-salary raises, in 2023 and 2026, and the same schedule is now often called the Milbank scale.

The older name survives as the market's shorthand — which is why a page titled for it reports a Milbank memo.

Scope matters as much as the name.

The scale covers base salary only.

Bonuses are separate announcements on their own calendar, in their own memos — a boundary worth holding onto, because the two numbers move at different times of year.

And the class-year mechanic: each rung is a graduating class.

The Classes of 2026 and 2025 sit on the entry rung; the Class of 2018 sits at the top of the published steps.

What varies is the firm — and, below the top of the market, the entire structure of pay.

The scale is the pay layer of the associate job.

The role itself — duties, class years, the hiring path — is the associate attorney career guide.

The current market schedule comes from a memo Milbank sent on June 2, 2026, effective July 1, 2026, as reported by Above the Law.

The base salaries by class year:

Class year	Annual base salary
Class of 2026 / 2025	$235,000
Class of 2024	$245,000
Class of 2023	$270,000
Class of 2022	$320,000
Class of 2021	$385,000
Class of 2020	$410,000
Class of 2019	$440,000
Class of 2018	$455,000

The raise moved every step: $10,000 for the first four class years and $20,000 for fifth- through eighth-years, per the memo.

It replaced a schedule that had held since the 2023 raise and ran $225,000 to $435,000.

One correction worth underlining, because older writing gets it wrong: since July 1, 2026 the market scale starts at $235,000.

The $225,000 figure that fills older articles was the first-year step of the previous schedule — at firms that matched, that step is now $235,000.

The schedule spreads by matching: one firm announces, and other firms decide whether to follow.

By late summer 2026, the firms reported to have matched the June 2026 scale included McDermott, Quinn Emanuel, Sullivan & Cromwell, Katten, Norton Rose Fulbright and Troutman Pepper Locke — the running list legal press kept through the summer, illustrative rather than a census of the market.

Matching did not mean matching exactly.

Katten's schedule topped out at $440,000 for the Class of 2019 and above, and Susman Godfrey set its first-year base at $240,000.

Both are market firms; neither number is the scale's — which is the point.

Market rate identifies a cluster of firms paying at the top of the market, not a single uniform figure every one of them reproduces.

Hours expectations ride alongside the money in several of these memos.

In the scorecard's examples, Norton Rose Fulbright tied its scale to 1,900 billable hours and McDermott and Quinn Emanuel to 2,000, while Milbank's memo listed no hour requirement.

The same memo can bind pay to an hours target, so read both columns before you compare offers.

And the firm that gives the scale its name?

The sources we read, through October 2, 2026, do not confirm that Cravath itself matched the June 2026 scale.

What the record shows is the state before it: in November 2025, as the ABA Journal reported, Cravath told associates its base salaries would stay the same in 2026 — $225,000 for the Class of 2025 up to $420,000 for the Class of 2019, the pre-raise numbers.

Whether the firm has since moved to the new schedule is exactly the kind of detail to take from a current memo, not from a name on the scale.

The June 2026 raise is a complete, public worked example of the mechanism.

Step one is the memo.

Milbank's leadership announced the new schedule on June 2, 2026, with the raises effective July 1, 2026.

Per the memo as reported, it covered current associates and applied to current summer associates too — the raise reached the incoming class before their start date.

Step two is the match.

Firms that want to stay in the market announce their own memos, and legal press tracks them on a running scorecard; the matches accumulated through the summer, reaching firms including McDermott, Quinn Emanuel, Sullivan & Cromwell, Katten, Norton Rose Fulbright and Troutman Pepper Locke by late summer.

A firm that matches on different terms — a lower top step, a different entry number — lands on the same scorecard with its own numbers.

Step three is the wait.

The schedule Milbank's memo replaced had been in place since the 2023 raise.

Between raises the numbers sit still, while bonuses move on their own cycle, in their own memos.

For a candidate, the takeaway is about sources.

The number that governs is the one in the firm's current memo or your written offer — not a blog table, and not a year-old article.

A raise can leave older articles out of date within weeks.

Is the scale a New York number, or does it travel?

The honest answer from the sources available: top-of-market first-year pay is not exclusive to New York, but beyond that, city-by-city BigLaw schedules are thinly sourced — our research did not find confirmed separate base scales for secondary markets such as Texas or Chicago, and this page will not invent a regional discount the memos have not announced.

What is measured is the survey side.

In NALP's 2025 Associate Salary Survey, six cities showed a median first-year salary of $225,000: Austin, Boston, Houston, New York City, San Francisco and the Washington, DC area.

A $225,000 survey median, in other words, already appeared in a handful of cities that include Texas and California ones — not only the traditional coastal markets.

Outside NALP's 19 major-market cities, the same survey put median first-year salaries at $181,900 in the West, $170,000 in the Northeast, and $160,000 in the South and Midwest.

Those medians sit below the six-city figure — the geographic spread of law-firm pay, measured inside one consistent series.

Two cautions before you read these numbers against the scale.

First, series: a survey median of reported salaries and a firm-announced base are different measurements — read them side by side, not as one table.

Second, timing: this is the 2025 survey, so it predates the July 1, 2026 raise and describes the prior schedule's era.

The same NALP survey shows how differently the rest of the market pays.

Overall, $225,000 was the most common first-year salary reported — but by 32% of offices.

At firms of 701+ lawyers, 45% of offices reported it.

At firms of 250 or fewer lawyers, the most common first-year salary was $150,000 or less, at 44% of offices.

Same title, same year, one survey — and two different pay structures on either side of the firm-size line.

Set against the current schedule, the contrast needs both series named.

Firms that matched the June 2026 memo start at $235,000 — an announced base, as reported in legal press.

The most common reported first-year salary at firms of 250 or fewer lawyers was $150,000 or less — a survey figure from 2025, before the raise.

Side by side they describe two markets rather than one ladder, and where an individual firm sits is that firm's own decision, not a fixed spread.

For the occupation-wide picture — every firm size, every industry — the federal series is the reference.

BLS's Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics for May 2025 puts the median annual wage for lawyers (SOC 23-1011) at $159,670.

That is a wage series for the whole profession, not a BigLaw table, and it is the lawyers series this site uses as the closest match for associate attorney salary data.

Career information, not legal advice. Pay figures on this page are firm-announced numbers reported in legal press, plus the survey and federal series named above; pay is set firm by firm, so confirm the current number with the firm's own memo or offer letter.