Allens Arthur Robinson corporate head Paul Quinn has called for associates’ remuneration to be based on performance to bring them in line with the partners and most corporate services staff.

Using his column in Business Spectator, Quinn said that the traditional lockstep model of remuneration in legal partnerships has slowly broken down over the past decade. Most Australian firms, he said, have sought to strike a balance between giving pay raises just for showing up to work each day and a “US-style ‘eat what you kill’ remuneration culture”.

However, he said that associate salaries have essentially remained on a lockstep structure and listed several challenges to moving away from that model. Those include the need for a firm to have a strong performance culture, the difficulty in administering performance-based remuneration, and resistance to changing a long-held tradition.

“None of the above arguments, in my view, presents a compelling case to rule out performance-based remuneration for lawyers,” Quinn said. “A strong and transparent performance culture is a good thing.”

John Moore, partner of Thynne & Macartney, said that the lockstep model is antiquated regardless of the level of a lawyer. “Lockstep is a dinosaur and I can’t see how firms can afford to keep it,” he said. “Whether you’re 30 or 60, everyone deserves to be paid on the basis of their performance.”

However, Mills Oakley CEO John Nerurker said performance-based models need to be looked at carefully to ensure they do not encourage unscrupulous practices. “There is no point in linking targets to huge bonuses if there is no prospect of meeting those targets – this creates incentives for lawyers to overcharge and inflate figures,” he said.

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