Escalation in the salary arms race?

Williams announced this week that it was  bumping first-year salaries to $180,000, effective January 1, 2008.  (W&C has traditionally kept its salaries a bit above market to compensate for the firm’s no-bonus policy.)  So as we ring in the New Year, is the inevitable next round of salary brinkmanship already upon us?

 

By 2009, will a new BigLaw class system have emerged, as many have predicted (e.g. here), as smaller &/or less profitable firms concede that they just can’t keep up?

 

                                                                               -posted by brian