Big Law’s German Starting Salary Tops €200k as Hiring Shrinks / 起薪涨到 20 万，律所却在少招人

This autumn, the annual salary Germany’s large law firms offer first-year associates crossed €200,000. Yet the same firms have been hiring fewer new lawyers for three years running. Pay climbs while headcount drops — the two trends are moving at once.

德国大律所给一年级律师开的年薪，今年秋天过了 20 万欧元。而同一批律所招进来的新人，过去三年一直在减少。工资往上涨，人数往下走，两件事同时发生。

Pay Rises, Hiring Falls

工资往上涨，招聘往下降

On September 16, 2026, Latham & Watkins announced that from October it would raise the starting salary for lawyers newly admitted to practice in Germany by 20%, from €150,000 to €180,000 — about $208,000. That level matches Milbank and Willkie Farr & Gallagher and exceeds Kirkland & Ellis; at Latham, senior associates receive an additional €50,000 a year. law.com, reporting the change, noted that what rose was base pay, not the year-end bonus or a one-off payment.

2026 年 9 月 16 日，Latham & Watkins 宣布，从 10 月起把德国新取得执业资格的律师起薪由 15 万欧元提高 20%，到 18 万欧元，约合 20.8 万美元。这一档与 Milbank、Willkie Farr & Gallagher 持平，高过 Kirkland & Ellis；该律所的资深律师每年再加 5 万欧元。law.com 记录这次调整时点明，涨的是底薪，不是年终奖，也不是一次性奖金。

Six weeks later, the €180,000 figure was pushed higher. On October 29, Legal Week reported that Milbank had raised the starting salary for German first-year associates above €200,000, surpassing Latham and Quinn Emanuel and setting a new benchmark for the German market — while leaving rivals to decide whether to follow.

六周后，18 万欧元这个数被推了上去。10 月 29 日，Legal Week 报道，Milbank 把德国一年级律师的起薪提到 20 万欧元以上，超过 Latham 与 Quinn Emanuel，给德国市场立了一条新基准，也把跟进不跟进的选择留给了对手。

In the same week as the raise, another number was moving the other way. On October 27, data from Law.com Compass showed that the 43 firms with offices in Germany — both U.S. firms and large German firms — had sharply slowed their hiring of lawyers newly admitted to practice over the past three years.

加薪的同一周，另一个数据在往下走。10 月 27 日，Law.com Compass 的数据显示，在德国设办公室的 43 家律所——既有美资律所，也有德国本地的大律所——过去三年招聘刚取得执业资格的律师的规模大幅放缓。

Put the facts together and a trend appears: Germany’s large firms are using higher pay to hire fewer new people. That pay and hiring move in opposite directions shows the raise does not signal expansion; the real change is in this cohort of newly qualified lawyers — firms pay more for each individual but offer fewer of them a seat.

把这些事实放在一起，可以看到一个趋势——德国大律所正在用更高的薪酬雇更少的新人。加薪与招人方向相反，说明加薪传递的不是扩张信号；真正的变化发生在刚取得执业资格的这批人身上：律所为单个人付的钱变多了，给他们的岗位变少了。

Who the Raise Goes To Is What Matters

加薪发给谁，才是关键

To read this trend, the key is not the wage figure but who receives the pay. This round raises the starting salary of first-year associates — that is, lawyers just admitted to practice, with no clients and no book of business of their own. A higher starting salary buys no new work; it only shapes choices: keep the people already inside from being poached by firms bidding higher.

判断这个走向的关键，看的不是工资数字，而是工资发给谁。这一轮涨的是一年级律师的起薪——也就是刚取得执业资格、还没有客户、也没有自己案源的人。涨起薪换不来业务，只能影响选择：把已经进来的人留住，别被出价更高的律所挖走。

Milbank’s push of first-year starting pay above €200,000 affects more than its own firm. What it lifts is not one lawyer’s wage but the entire pay band for first-year associates; rivals must either raise the whole band or lose competitiveness before the same pool of candidates. The increase therefore lands across the whole market, and the beneficiaries are the handful of firms that can afford it — using a price line they can sustain, they draw the same new cohort away from competitors.

Milbank 把一年级律师起薪提高到超过 20 万欧元，影响到的不只是本所。它抬的不是某一个律师的工资，而是一年级律师这一整档的薪酬线，对手要么跟着抬整档，要么在同一批候选人面前失去竞争力。涨幅因此落到整个市场，受益的是少数几家付得起的律所——它们用一条自己出得起的价格线，把同一批新人从对手那里引过来。

Another law.com report, of October 6, recorded German firms moving offices. The approach to floor space runs the same way: the area used is shrinking, yet firms are willing to pay more for a good location and better conditions — Freshfields’ move of its Düsseldorf office is one example. Fewer people are hired, so each person costs more; less space is used, so each square metre costs more. The two calculations work the same.

law.com 10 月 6 日的另一篇报道记录了德国律所的搬迁。办公面积上的做法与此相同：用的面积在变小，愿意为好地段和办公条件付的价格却在变高——富而德杜塞尔多夫办公室的搬迁是其中一例。招的人少了，每个人的价高了；用的面积小了，每平方米的价高了。两笔账的算法一致。

Where the Cost of Training New Lawyers Goes

培养新人的开销去了哪里

Chinese law firms are not hiring fewer people; what they save is a different sum of money.

中国的律所没有在减少进人，省下来的是另一笔钱。

Data released by the Ministry of Justice in September 2025 shows that practicing lawyers nationwide now exceed 830,000 and law firms number about 45,000 — people keep entering the profession. Yet at most domestic firms, compensation is largely commission-based: a newcomer’s income comes mainly from a share of the matters they handle themselves, and the firm does not pay for the years when they “do not yet know how” — the cost of training falls on the newcomer.

司法部 2025 年 9 月公布的数据显示，全国执业律师已超过 83 万人，律师事务所约 4.5 万家，人一直在进来。但国内多数律所的分配以提成为主，新人的收入主要来自自己承办业务的分成，律所不为他「还不会」的那几年付钱——培养的成本落在新人自己身上。

The newly amended Lawyers Law, which took effect on September 1, 2026, adds a provision as Article 7 that writes “strengthening the cultivation of foreign-related legal talent” into the statute; the state level has begun to set rules for this, but the outlay by firms on training new lawyers is still left to the market.

2026 年 9 月 1 日起施行的新修改《律师法》增加一条作为第七条，把「加强涉外律师人才培养」写进了法律；国家层面开始为这件事立规矩，但律所培养新人的投入仍由市场解决。

Competition has become fiercer and crueler; junior lawyers can only distinguish themselves in the job market by working harder and performing better, and what awaits them, alongside richer pay, is inevitably heavier work.

竞争变得更激烈和残酷，新手律师只有更努力、更优秀才能在人才市场脱颖而出，而等待他们的除了更为丰厚的报酬必然还有更为繁重的工作。

Firms are not spared either. To retain top talent and hold their standing, they are forced into a pay-raise arms race; the cost is covered by cutting the underperforming newcomers and squeezing the elite lawyers who stay even harder.

律所一端也不好受，要留住顶尖人才以及维持住江湖地位就必须被迫参与涨薪的军备竞赛，相应的成本只能靠裁掉业绩落后的新人以及进一步压榨留下的精英人才来弥补。

The German firms are cutting new hires now; a few years on, what will be short is lawyers with three to five years of experience who can run matters on their own. By then there are only two paths: buy them at a high price in the market, or find there is no one to buy.

德国的律所现在减的是新人，几年后缺的会是有三五年经验、能独立带项目的律师；到那时只剩两条路，要么在市场上高价买，要么发现自己没有人可买。

To tell whether a firm is really building capacity, look not at how much it pays newcomers or how many it hires, but at what it invests in the years when newcomers “do not yet know how,” and on whose account that money finally lands.

判断一家律所是不是真的在建能力，看的不是它给新人开了多少工资，也不是它招了多少人，而是它为新人「还不会」的那几年投入了什么、这笔钱最后算在谁头上。

Sources: law.com (reports of September 16, October 6, and October 27, 2026); Legal Week (reports of October 26, October 27, and October 29, 2026); Decision of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress on Amending the Lawyers Law of the People’s Republic of China (adopted August 28, 2026); publicly available data from the Ministry of Justice.

来源：law.com（2026年9月16日、10月6日、10月27日各一篇报道）；Legal Week（2026年10月26日、10月27日、10月29日各一篇报道）；《全国人民代表大会常务委员会关于修改〈中华人民共和国律师法〉的决定》（2026年8月28日通过）；司法部公开数据。