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What is the average salary paid by a small firm? Is there a good number to bear in mind as a bottom line? Asking because I received an offer paying $74k in a secondary Southern market. Should I ask for more?

TYIA!

Anonymous User wrote:What is the average salary paid by a small firm? Is there a good number to bear in mind as a bottom line? Asking because I received an offer paying $74k in a secondary Southern market. Should I ask for more?

TYIA!

Firms do not generally negotiate salaries for associates. Take the offer and be glad you have one.

$74k in say, Birmingham or Nashville sounds about right, perhaps even generous, for a small firm with a decent practice representing mostly local business and perhaps some individuals. Firms vary salaries considerably outside of big firms that make their salaries pretty public. You just don't have enough information or bargaining power to do any sort of meaningful negotiation. Maybe if a comparable firm gives you a higher offer you could ask them to match, but you're probably better off just taking the higher paying firm outright.

badaboom61 wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:What is the average salary paid by a small firm? Is there a good number to bear in mind as a bottom line? Asking because I received an offer paying $74k in a secondary Southern market. Should I ask for more?

TYIA!

Firms do not generally negotiate salaries for associates. Take the offer and be glad you have one.

$74k in say, Birmingham or Nashville sounds about right, perhaps even generous, for a small firm with a decent practice representing mostly local business and perhaps some individuals. Firms vary salaries considerably outside of big firms that make their salaries pretty public. You just don't have enough information or bargaining power to do any sort of meaningful negotiation. Maybe if a comparable firm gives you a higher offer you could ask them to match, but you're probably better off just taking the higher paying firm outright.

any idea for LA market?

Secondary Southern cities have a low COL. $74K in Savannah is equivalent to $148K in NYC. Even if your southern market is Atlanta size, $74K is like $138K in NYC and $100K in Philly. Just saying. . .$74K is fine.

hangtime813 wrote:

badaboom61 wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:What is the average salary paid by a small firm? Is there a good number to bear in mind as a bottom line? Asking because I received an offer paying $74k in a secondary Southern market. Should I ask for more?

TYIA!

Firms do not generally negotiate salaries for associates. Take the offer and be glad you have one.

$74k in say, Birmingham or Nashville sounds about right, perhaps even generous, for a small firm with a decent practice representing mostly local business and perhaps some individuals. Firms vary salaries considerably outside of big firms that make their salaries pretty public. You just don't have enough information or bargaining power to do any sort of meaningful negotiation. Maybe if a comparable firm gives you a higher offer you could ask them to match, but you're probably better off just taking the higher paying firm outright.

any idea for LA market?

Los Angeles or Louisiana?

For the former, look at the attorney salary page (pg. 8 ) on the link bk posted and multiply by 1.245. For the latter, if it's New Orleans, multiply by 0.99. If it's not New Orleans in Louisiana, I imagine anything in the listed range is probably good (and the bigger the city, the closer to the high end you should probably hope/expect it to be).

A lot of small firms use Robert Half to set their salaries, so it's a pretty good benchmark. (city multipliers start on page 13).

Somewhat related - anyone having experience going from a small firm SA to a full time position with them - have you found that there is some kind of rule of thumb as to salary - e.g. Your first year salary was double your summer pay?

Anonymous User wrote:Somewhat related - anyone having experience going from a small firm SA to a full time position with them - have you found that there is some kind of rule of thumb as to salary - e.g. Your first year salary was double your summer pay?

I believe this is entirely dependent on firm. I knew a guy who had this happen at a firm where summer pay was $23.50 an hour and first year salary was like $80 or $85k. No real correlation at all.

For another example, in some southern markets, market for 2L summer pay is $1400 a week, and firms tend to pay this regardless of whether they start at $75k or $110k

badaboom61 wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:Somewhat related - anyone having experience going from a small firm SA to a full time position with them - have you found that there is some kind of rule of thumb as to salary - e.g. Your first year salary was double your summer pay?

I believe this is entirely dependent on firm. I knew a guy who had this happen at a firm where summer pay was $23.50 an hour and first year salary was like $80 or $85k. No real correlation at all.

For another example, in some southern markets, market for 2L summer pay is $1400 a week, and firms tend to pay this regardless of whether they start at $75k or $110k

I appreciate the anecdotes that's exactly what I was looking for. Figured it was firm dependent for the most part