Negotiating your salary with your firm? Forum

[Anonymous User]

So I know most big firms are lockstep on salaries but I was wondering if anyone has any experience negotiating this. My sense is that this could come up most often with smaller/midsize firms; or perhaps with big firms when it comes time to lateral — maybe if you feel like you’ve been doing fantastic then instead of lateraling for a higher base/bonus elsewhere, you can just raise it with your firm?
I feel like given how open these salary data are tuere should be a way for lawyers under the right circumstances to have the conversation with their firm about compensation rather than being forced to jump ship if they feel the comp is better elsewhere. But was wondering about people’s experience with this.

[Lawman1865]

So I know most big firms are lockstep on salaries but I was wondering if anyone has any experience negotiating this. My sense is that this could come up most often with smaller/midsize firms; or perhaps with big firms when it comes time to lateral — maybe if you feel like you’ve been doing fantastic then instead of lateraling for a higher base/bonus elsewhere, you can just raise it with your firm?
I feel like given how open these salary data are tuere should be a way for lawyers under the right circumstances to have the conversation with their firm about compensation rather than being forced to jump ship if they feel the comp is better elsewhere. But was wondering about people’s experience with this.

I don't have too much experience with this but since you aren't getting any other answers (at the very least this will serve as a bump) you are generally correct that the salary negotiation is very limited at the big firms, at least until you get a few years in. I have not heard any stories of a second year associate negotiating up their salary at biglaw, or something similar.

The smaller/midsize firms are definitely more amenable to negotiating, especially once you've gotten a couple years in and are doing good work, etc. I might have heard a couple stories of people negotiating pretty early on in smaller firms and when it comes time to lateral there may definitely be an opening to sit with a partner and see if they can bump the salary. The issue is that a firm can sometimes be limited in their ability to increase pay significantly, and furthermore when you're lateraling, it's generally not a good idea to widely advertise that fact to your current firm.

As to the reason firms may be particularly unwilling to increase an associate's salary I can only guess. Maybe they feel they'd have to bump everybody up, or the firm can't sustain the increased salary, etc. Maybe just the culture of the legal profession. In biglaw, the constant movement of associates in-and-out is an important part of the system. There are few situations where a 3rd year associate is valuable enough to have that kind of pull. When they are 5-8 years in, then I assume there can be more of a conversation regarding pay increase/partner talks, etc.

[QContinuum]

BigLaw firms do not negotiate associate salaries. This is true whether or not the firm is on the Cravath scale or a non-Cravath scale or no scale at all ("black box"). They also do not negotiate annual bonuses (again, whether lockstep or hours-based or "black box"), the one exception being that it is often (though not always) possible to negotiate a bonus when you first join (whether as a lateral or after a clerkship). Typically this involves asking for a full, non-prorated annual bonus for the first year at the new firm (the default is to prorate the bonus to account for the fact that you'll have worked at the new firm for less than a full year by the time bonus season rolls around - so you'd lose out, because you'd be eligible to receive a full bonus had you stayed at your old firm). Less common/less successful asks include a signing bonus (which only a few BigLaw firms offer) and a higher clerkship bonus (the modern trend seems to be standardized clerkship bonuses; historically there seemed to be more flexibility to squeeze out a bit more money here).

Small and midlaw firms can and do negotiate associate salaries. Also, BigLaw firms can and do negotiate non-associate salaries - for example, paralegal or patent agent salaries.

[UnfrozenCaveman]

Possible to negotiate class-year, especially if the firm is offering something less than your graduating year, which can be common.

To the above response, how can it be possible that black-box salary is non-negotiable? Can you explain further?

[ghostoftraynor]

Not sure about negotiation, but I know of people offered special bonuses. Happens when a partner in a small group leaves and tries to take a senior with them. Firm has a lot of incentive to retain the institutional knowledge they can.

Wouldn't recommend pushing for something like that outside a pretty narrow band of exceptional circumstances.