Bargaining with Big 4 Forum

[Anonymous User]

Received an offer from a big 4 for an associate position. I have about a year of experience from working during law school. I think the salary offer is a bit low. How should I go about asking for more? Also, do big 4 firms generally negotiate on the starting salary?

[Anonymous User]

Good luck. The low starting salary they offered me (not this year) was the reason I ultimately decided to try my luck elsewhere. I heard other people from my class try to negotiate, but with no luck.

From discussions I had with people at the firm, once you put a couple years in you start getting offers from clients for in-house positions. Those salaries are undoubtedly higher than consulting, and that's usually the bargaining chip associates/managers/directors use to get salary bumps.

[Anonymous User]

What salary would you expect for someone with a year of experience coming out of law school and going into a niche group? Its NYC btw, so I assume salaries would be higher here than elsewhere.

[Anonymous User]

I don't know about other Big 4, but PwC is pretty stingy on negotiating

[Anonymous User]

Bump. Thoughts on what a reasonable salary would be?

[Anonymous User]

Bump. Thoughts on what a reasonable salary would be?

Based on people I know who work at Big 4 and some of the past threads here, probably 90-100k in NYC. 70-80k elsewhere.

[bl1nds1ght]

Bump. Thoughts on what a reasonable salary would be?

Based on people I know who work at Big 4 and some of the past threads here, probably 90-100k in NYC. 70-80k elsewhere.

After three years of law school and possibly $150k+ in loans? Ouch.

[Anonymous User]

Bump. Thoughts on what a reasonable salary would be?

Based on people I know who work at Big 4 and some of the past threads here, probably 90-100k in NYC. 70-80k elsewhere.

After three years of law school and possibly $150k+ in loans? Ouch.

It's a JD-preferred job. Their salaries aren't designed to compete with biglaw and they don't care how many years law school takes. In fact, JDs in Big 4 get paid significantly less to start than MBA grads. Most people in these positions don't have JDs and hence don't have the debt associated with it. The only places that pay significantly more than that to start are biglaw firms and MBB consulting firms. Midlaw usually pays around 80-100k to start and so these Big 4 salaries are not at all out of the norm. I will mention though that the Big 4 firms have much better benefits than biglaw (like 401k matching), and this easily adds the equivalent of around 20k to the salary figure. Plus much better hours.

[Anonymous User]

During my offer interview with a Big 4, I was told by the partner that starting salary offers were final and non-negotiable.

[mirage1287]

Bump. Thoughts on what a reasonable salary would be?

Based on people I know who work at Big 4 and some of the past threads here, probably 90-100k in NYC. 70-80k elsewhere.

After three years of law school and possibly $150k+ in loans? Ouch.

Spoken like a true snowflake. Outside of biglaw, those are solid starting salaries and you'd be a fool to think otherwise.

[FSK]

Lets remember that the median salary in america is like ~50K. And you, theoretically, have on real experience and you're nearly doubling that.

[Anonymous User]

Who actually decides what the salary is going to be? Recruiters? Partners? Everyone senior who interviewed the candidate?

[Anonymous User]

Bump. Any thoughts on who actually makes the salary determination?

[Anonymous User]

Bump. Any thoughts on who actually makes the salary determination?

Big 4 have set starting salary for everyone with the same degree if they work in the same service and same office.
For example, all JD students in tax service of Chicago office will get the same starting salary. JD in consulting might get a different number, but it would be the same among every JD in consulting.
Apparently, the decision would at least be made by the managing partner of the service in the office, might even by managing partner of the office/region.