LEGAL SALARY DATAPOINTS Forum

[JohnMaynardKeynes]

Size: Investment Fund
Experience: 2017 grad
Location: Midwest
Practice area: Private Equity
Position: Associate (non-legal)
Hours: 35-80 depending on week, don’t work weekends
Comp: 120 + (50-150% of salary bonus), 3750 401k match, fully paid insurance + 2400 spend, don’t pay for lunch, 25+ days of PTO on top of vacation, no fee co-invest rights

Hi, very interested. Could you please PM me, thanks!

[Anonymous User]

Location: South (Secondary)
Position: Lit. Associate, AMLAW 200
Experience: 6th Year
Salary: $200K + secondary bonus ($10-15K)
Hours: 1900

[Anonymous User]

Location: Phoenix
Position: Manager Regulatory Compliance/Consultant (niche area)
Experience: 4.5 Years
Salary: $165,000 + 10% Bonus + generous 401K Match and Pension

Also, graduated lower half of my law school class (not proud but shows that law school stats are not the end all/be all)

[Anonymous User]

Recently changed firms. Here are the details.
Location: SF Bay Area
Position: (now) L&E Litigation; (prior) General Civil Litigation [small firm; ~20 attorneys]
Salary: (now) $155k + 25% base salary bonus [I believe raises are $10k increments only]; (prior) $95k + insignificant bonus ($500 last Christmas).
Hours: (now) 2200, lots of work to do, usually 8-6:30 + occasionally login at night; (prior) expected 1960 (160/month), but because workload was inconsistent (had to inform partners of light workload every month to seek additional assignments), I billed about 130-150 a month.

Comment: Main difference between the two is the workload. Let me tell you, the days are absolutely dreadful when (1) you don't have work to do and are sitting around waiting for assignments and (2) you're doing crappy cases that you have no interest whatsoever. However, I did not have much of a choice as to my first legal job--I didn't get a biglaw position from OCI [only about 5 people from my class got it; which is expected from my school], so I had to take whatever firm decided to offer me.

I think my current firm has pretty good worklife balance... though some of my friends in biglaw are killing it with the same hours (8-6:30). Yet they get paid significantly more. I think the biglaw workload in SF is significant less intense than in NY. No friends in NY so I cannot confirm. But if that's the case, I'd probably shoot for biglaw in about 3-5 years.

[dabigchina]

Location: Phoenix
Position: Manager Regulatory Compliance/Consultant (niche area)
Experience: 4.5 Years
Salary: $165,000 + 10% Bonus + generous 401K Match and Pension

Also, graduated lower half of my law school class (not proud but shows that law school stats are not the end all/be all)

wow congrats. you win at life (no sarcasm). you probably have a better lifestyle than most of my biglaw partners.

[Patriot29]

Location: Phoenix
Position: Manager Regulatory Compliance/Consultant (niche area)
Experience: 4.5 Years
Salary: $165,000 + 10% Bonus + generous 401K Match and Pension

Also, graduated lower half of my law school class (not proud but shows that law school stats are not the end all/be all)

Interesting. We have very similar stats:

Location: Phoenix
Position: Regulatory Compliance/Consultant (niche area)
Experience: 4 years as a licensed attorney in niche area, 9 years of total industry experience
Salary: $100k + 10% bonus + 401K match and pension

Can you please shoot me a PM if you see this? I'm interested to learn about your role and how you got there.

[Anonymous User]

Location: Phoenix
Position: Manager Regulatory Compliance/Consultant (niche area)
Experience: 4.5 Years
Salary: $165,000 + 10% Bonus + generous 401K Match and Pension

Also, graduated lower half of my law school class (not proud but shows that law school stats are not the end all/be all)

Interesting. We have very similar stats:

Location: Phoenix
Position: Regulatory Compliance/Consultant (niche area)
Experience: 4 years as a licensed attorney in niche area, 9 years of total industry experience
Salary: $100k + 10% bonus + 401K match and pension

Can you please shoot me a PM if you see this? I'm interested to learn about your role and how you got there.

Hey,

happy to answer any questions. I tried to send you a PM but it appears I am unable to send PMs at this time due to insufficient user activity (on my part). Can you try and send me a pm. Thanks!

[QContinuum]

Hey,

happy to answer any questions. I tried to send you a PM but it appears I am unable to send PMs at this time due to insufficient user activity (on my part). Can you try and send me a pm. Thanks!

Regular users can't PM anonymous posters. But, if you want, I can PM your username to Patriot29. Let me know.

[Anonymous User]

Hey,

happy to answer any questions. I tried to send you a PM but it appears I am unable to send PMs at this time due to insufficient user activity (on my part). Can you try and send me a pm. Thanks!

Regular users can't PM anonymous posters. But, if you want, I can PM your username to Patriot29. Let me know.

Yes, please. I would really appreciate it!

[QContinuum]

Hey,

happy to answer any questions. I tried to send you a PM but it appears I am unable to send PMs at this time due to insufficient user activity (on my part). Can you try and send me a pm. Thanks!

Regular users can't PM anonymous posters. But, if you want, I can PM your username to Patriot29. Let me know.

Yes, please. I would really appreciate it!

Sent. I also told Patriot that you wouldn't be able to respond to their PM on TLS (since you haven't made 5 non-anonymous TLS posts yet), so recommended that they include their email address in their PM to you if they'd like to hear back.

[Anonymous User]

Size: Federal Government
Location: DC
Experience: 5 years
Practice: General Agency Practice
Hours: 40-45 hours/week
Compensation: $86,179
Benefits: Health/vision/dental, 5% TSP match, gym

Notes: consistently get good performance reviews, but management is extremely stingy about raises. I'm interviewing for new jobs, since it's clear to me that I'm getting taken advantage of by my current employer.

[clarion]

Size: Federal Government
Location: DC
Experience: 5 years
Practice: General Agency Practice
Hours: 40-45 hours/week
Compensation: $86,179
Benefits: Health/vision/dental, 5% TSP match, gym

Notes: consistently get good performance reviews, but management is extremely stingy about raises. I'm interviewing for new jobs, since it's clear to me that I'm getting taken advantage of by my current employer.

Wow. Fed Gov attorney here and shocked that you're being compensated that little, in DC, after 5 years. Is your job technically non-legal or something? Or am I misunderstanding when you say that the "size" of your employer is "Fed Gov"? Because while I've heard of attorneys in some agencies only laddering to GS-13 before they start going up the steps, even that is rare and seemed wild to me. Best of luck to you.

[Anonymous User]

Size: Federal Government
Location: DC
Experience: 5 years
Practice: General Agency Practice
Hours: 40-45 hours/week
Compensation: $86,179
Benefits: Health/vision/dental, 5% TSP match, gym

Notes: consistently get good performance reviews, but management is extremely stingy about raises. I'm interviewing for new jobs, since it's clear to me that I'm getting taken advantage of by my current employer.

Wow. Fed Gov attorney here and shocked that you're being compensated that little, in DC, after 5 years. Is your job technically non-legal or something? Or am I misunderstanding when you say that the "size" of your employer is "Fed Gov"? Because while I've heard of attorneys in some agencies only laddering to GS-13 before they start going up the steps, even that is rare and seemed wild to me. Best of luck to you.

Legal and federal government, believe it or not. I started out in a very niche agency (specific skillset that isn't easily translatable), so they were able to have a slower grade progression without worrying about the attorneys jumping ship. And so when I left, I wasn't eligible for very many positions as a result of time-in-grade requirements. Now I'm in a more general practice, and even though they're happy to increase responsibilities and expectations, they expect multiple years per grade, and always start low. Unsurprisingly, there are major issues when it comes to staff retention (low salaries create an incentive to leave, and high responsibilities make it easier to get better offers).

[clarion]

Size: Federal Government
Location: DC
Experience: 5 years
Practice: General Agency Practice
Hours: 40-45 hours/week
Compensation: $86,179
Benefits: Health/vision/dental, 5% TSP match, gym

Notes: consistently get good performance reviews, but management is extremely stingy about raises. I'm interviewing for new jobs, since it's clear to me that I'm getting taken advantage of by my current employer.

Wow. Fed Gov attorney here and shocked that you're being compensated that little, in DC, after 5 years. Is your job technically non-legal or something? Or am I misunderstanding when you say that the "size" of your employer is "Fed Gov"? Because while I've heard of attorneys in some agencies only laddering to GS-13 before they start going up the steps, even that is rare and seemed wild to me. Best of luck to you.

Legal and federal government, believe it or not. I started out in a very niche agency (specific skillset that isn't easily translatable), so they were able to have a slower grade progression without worrying about the attorneys jumping ship. And so when I left, I wasn't eligible for very many positions as a result of time-in-grade requirements. Now I'm in a more general practice, and even though they're happy to increase responsibilities and expectations, they expect multiple years per grade, and always start low. Unsurprisingly, there are major issues when it comes to staff retention (low salaries create an incentive to leave, and high responsibilities make it easier to get better offers).

Yikes--really sorry to hear that. Your failure to get boosted up even after leaving because of time-in-grade is peak-bureaucratic insanity. Hopefully you've gotten experience now that you can argue is "GS-13 or equivalent" experience. Good luck with your interviewing and apps!

[Anonymous User]

in case anyone is interested in the region:

MT/ND/SD/WY at the best firms* 1st years can expect $70k-$90k; senior associates that are not partner probably max out somewhere around $120k-$135k
On the flip side, the hours requirement is pretty low, 40-50 hours a week is totally normal.

[+] Spoiler

best firms include local 'powerhouse' firms like Crowley Fleck or Vogel, regional offices of biglaw firms like Fredrickson Byron or Dorsey Whitney or Ballard Spahr with only a handful of staff, and large or highly respected single-town firms

[Anonymous User]

Size: <10
Salary: 65K
Benefits: full medical, dental, vision; 4 weeks vacation; unlimited sick; 10 holidays; 401k
Location: NJ
Position: associate at plaintiff's side L&E
Hours: no billable usually 10-5/6 no weekends
1st year of practice, just graduated in May
no student loans

[HarrisonK]

Size: <10
Salary: 65K
Benefits: full medical, dental, vision; 4 weeks vacation; unlimited sick; 10 holidays; 401k
Location: NJ
Position: associate at plaintiff's side L&E
Hours: no billable usually 10-5/6 no weekends
1st year of practice, just graduated in May
no student loans

Can you PM me? I'm a current NJ law clerk looking for firms for another law clerk interested in L&E. Would love to recommend your firm to her.

[Anonymous User]

a) Big4 tax (non-legal)
b) 5 years (no prior experience)
c) non-NYC large metro area
d) $200K w/ $20K+ annual bonus

hours: 40-65 hrs/wk (approx.1500 billable hours/yr requirement, but substantial non-billable hours expected.)
equity partner opportunities: positive
lateral opportunities: positive

[Anonymous User]

a) Big4 tax (non-legal)
b) 5 years (no prior experience)
c) non-NYC large metro area
d) $200K w/ $20K+ annual bonus

hours: 40-65 hrs/wk (approx.1500 billable hours/yr requirement, but substantial non-billable hours expected.)
equity partner opportunities: positive
lateral opportunities: positive

Would love to hear your comp progression. I'm starting in NYC (M&A/ITS) at $125k + $10K LLM bonus, but I can't find anything about comp progression.

[Anonymous User]

Phoenix
Litigation-Municipal work, Insurance Defense, Plaintiffs work.
4 Lawyers
87000/year with 3–5k bonus
2nd year Associate
5% 401K Contribution
180hr/month billable requirement

[Anonymous User]

Recently changed firms. Here are the details.
Location: SF Bay Area
Position: (now) L&E Litigation; (prior) General Civil Litigation [small firm; ~20 attorneys]
Experience: Going into 2nd year. Grad from TT/TTT.
Salary: (now) $155k + 25% base salary bonus [I believe raises are $10k increments only]; (prior) $95k + insignificant bonus ($500 last Christmas).
Hours: (now) 2200, lots of work to do, usually 8-6:30 + occasionally login at night; (prior) expected 1960 (160/month), but because workload was inconsistent (had to inform partners of light workload every month to seek additional assignments), I billed about 130-150 a month.

Comment: Main difference between the two is the workload. Let me tell you, the days are absolutely dreadful when (1) you don't have work to do and are sitting around waiting for assignments and (2) you're doing crappy cases that you have no interest whatsoever. However, I did not have much of a choice as to my first legal job--I didn't get a biglaw position from OCI [only about 5 people from my class got it; which is expected from my school], so I had to take whatever firm decided to offer me.

I think my current firm has pretty good worklife balance... though some of my friends in biglaw are killing it with the same hours (8-6:30). Yet they get paid significantly more. I think the biglaw workload in SF is significant less intense than in NY. No friends in NY so I cannot confirm. But if that's the case, I'd probably shoot for biglaw in about 3-5 years.

Can you share which firm you're at?

[worklifewhat]

Location: California
Experience: 6 years of experience
Position: Employment in-house counsel
Pay: $150k. Raises are ~5%/year, no bonuses, decent number of shares
Hours: Usually 9-6 and rarely weekends

[Anonymous User]

Location: Washington, DC
Experience: 3-4 years
Position: Associate at a boutique
Pay: $210k. Lock-step raises that cap at $300k. Market bonus at 2000 hours. Above market for significantly more hours.
Hours: 9-7, work some weekends

[AllyMcBail]

Location: California
Experience: 6 years of experience
Position: Employment in-house counsel
Pay: $150k. Raises are ~5%/year, no bonuses, decent number of shares
Hours: Usually 9-6 and rarely weekends

Nice. Where did you get the 6 years of experience?

[Sporty1911]

Location: Washington, DC
Experience: 3-4 years
Position: Associate at a boutique
Pay: $210k. Lock-step raises that cap at $300k. Market bonus at 2000 hours. Above market for significantly more hours.
Hours: 9-7, work some weekends

Which practice area, if you can say?