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I'm a junior biglaw associate considering trying to negotiate a class year bump and am curious if people have experience themselves or have heard of others doing the same. (I found some other threads where IP folks negotiated starting as a second year, but I'm a 1st/2nd/3rd year who would be asking to get bumped to 2nd/3rd/4th year.)

Background - I'm a junior associate who works without partner supervision about 1/3 of the time and with nominal oversight another 1/3 of the time. This contrasts pretty sharply with the norms in my practice group, which generally don't allow associates to work without partner supervision until they're 5th or 6th years. The main reason I work alone so much is that I have expertise in an area of need that is shared by none of the other associates and only a couple partners. Obviously folks could be blowing smoke, but my feedback has been very positive and explicitly stated that work product/knowledge are way above seniority level. I think I would point to these comments and just say that I want to be paid commensurate with (or at least closer to) the level of work product, knowledge, and responsibility assumed.

I don't care what happens to my billing rate, because I will still be the cheapest available option in the firm for the work I do. Also don't care how partnership prospects could be affected - goal is to pay off loans, save a little, and GTFO of biglaw.

The only thing you get for being good at your job is more work, not more pay. Welcome to biglaw.

The partners will just make up some crap about "appreciating" your work, but they need to be "fair" to others and how it may be perceived.

If you're truly indispensable, you could try leveraging an offer to go to another firm, but that could backfire and they might prefer shooting themselves in the foot by losing you rather than risking the possibility of other associate upstarts getting some bright ideas of their own self worth and also asking for a bump.

No, sorry.