Troutman Pepper Locke Will Pay Associates Market Compensation, Well, Some Of Them

It’s a match! With an asterisk… or two.

Troutman Pepper Locke is the latest firm to get on board with the salary scale Milbank set back in June, telling associates it will pay market — effective January 1, 2027. The firm is matching lockstep for associates in their first through fourth years, which puts those classes on a scale that starts at $235,000, as per the below.

Midlevel and senior associates are, as is the firm’s tradition, off the compensation grid entirely. That tradition goes back to the Locke Lord merger, when Troutman announced a comp model that paid market for first- and second-years and then sorted everyone senior to that onto a two-tier “standard” or “increased” scale. As per the firm’s announcement, only older associates on that higher tier will make the Milbank scale.

So credit where it’s due: the grid grew. It used to run out after year two, and now it runs through year four. Two additional class years of knowing what your paycheck will say is not nothing.

Then there’s the date. Milbank’s raises landed this summer. Troutman’s land January 1, which leaves associates doing the back half of 2026 at last year’s numbers. Troutman is not the first firm this cycle to match now and pay later, and it won’t be the last, but the firms picking that option aren’t really paying their associates top dollar.

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