King & Wood Mallesons, Allen & Overy, Clayton Utz, Piper Alderman, Lander & Rogers, Herbert Smith Freehills and Gilbert + Tobin have all confirmed their own underpayment reviews.

A spokesman for Minter Ellison said the firm "had controls in place which include monitoring total hours as well as workloads".

"We conduct reviews as part of our regular processes and we are not aware of any underpayments but, if we do discover any, we will immediately rectify them."

Pay and overwork issues

The reviews were launched as firms brace for new award rules this March that will require them to record graduate lawyers' hours and conduct annual pay reconciliations to ensure they do not earn below the minimum hourly rate.

In Ashurst's case, graduates were underpaid thousands of dollars in a nine to 12-month period before receiving their practicing certificate, which is when they come off the award.

While Ashurst assessed underpayments based on hours worked, not billable hours, it remains unclear how it and other firms reviewing pay know what those work hours are.


During Fair Work hearings last year, a group of 20 firms – including Ashurst and others reviewing underpayments – submitted a survey that said 42 per cent of them had no capacity to record start and finish times or unpaid breaks.

'He made more money bartending'

Meanwhile, in response to reports of underpayments, the Law Council has sought its members' views on whether it should lobby to extend the industry award to cover admitted junior lawyers, not just law graduates.

The proposal is unusual for the council, which often represents the interests of law firms but is now facing pressure from its lawyer members to address pay and overwork for early career lawyers.

One young lawyer in a recent survey by the Law Society of South Australia said he made more money bartending then he did in his first law job, which paid him $600 a week for seven days a week work, 16 hours a day.

Law Council president Pauline Wright said she hoped qualified lawyers had enough strength to negotiate pay with firms themselves but that the council wanted principles to ensure the issue was addressed consistently.

“I think that what needs to happen is that lawyers who are being asked to work these kind of hours under difficult situations are properly remunerated so they can actually make an informed decision," she said.


"Obviously they do take on a risk if they agree to accept a high-level salary. They have to accept that coming with that is a high level of responsibility and they have to make sure they’re able to do that work.”

State awards

Before 2010, employees in private law practices, including admitted lawyers, were covered by state awards in Victoria and South Australia.

However, they were excluded when the awards were nationalised as the coverage of admitted lawyers was not extensive enough.

The Australian Services Union's submission to the Law Council backed expanding the award to cover all employees in law firms so as to regulate "structural underpayment" caused by excessive amounts of overtime.

"The lack of an award makes these practices incredibly difficult to challenge and overcome as the culture of long hours is pervasive and the workforce relatively unorganised compared to other professional industries," it said.