Associate Pay Depends on Practice Area at Post & Schell

Some practice areas are clearly more lucrative than others. So if an intellectual property associate, for instance, is being billed out at a higher rate than a law school classmate down the hall at the same firm who does insurance defense work, shouldn't the IP attorney make a higher salary?

The answer to that question is yes at Philadelphia-based Post & Schell, reports the National Law Journal in an article reprinted in New York Lawyer (reg. req.).

"We sell legal services. People pay different rates for those different services," says Brian Peters, the 170-attorney firm's president and chief executive officer. "We decided that having one salary for 80 different types of law was not suitable. It became apparent to me that we needed to understand our industry isn't different from other industries."