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Wanted to know if anyone is aware of any raises in the Maine market or the current salaries across offices. Also just a general breakdown of the top firms would be nice. My wife’s family has just made a permanent move up to Portland and my own parents are looking to move in the New England area as well. Right now doing general corporate work at V10 as 4th year associate in NYC.

Not clear where the raises stand but very insular market--ties are extremely important. Think having both sets of parents up in the area is enough.

Not a ton of "gen corp." the way you're thinking about it -- a lot of RE, utilities transactional, tribal transactional, land use, public works, etc. There is definitely some gen corp. but if you do an M&A deal you will be responsible for doing the entire deal--ie, you're expected to handle the M&A and the finance, there may be a specialist partner (utilities, public works, housing, tribal matters, RE, etc.) who is the actual relationship involved but it's not like v10 gen corp. where you have a big corp. team and 20 specialists to farm stuff out to.

It's been a while since I looked at this market but the northern NE market generally is choosy because the big firms take like 1-3 summers a year - they're likely to pick a summa UNH grad or a HLS grad who went to Bowdoin for UG who makes a good pitch for coming back to ME. Best advice I can give you is to make sure you know the practice groups of whatever firm you're looking at due to the gen corp issue above. There are a few larger shops which have offices sprinkled throughout MA/ME/NH instead of 3-4 offices in ME/NH alone, so those places might be a slightly better fit for gen corp. generally.

Given the current climate, I think you'd have a fair shot at negotiating full remote work at certain NYC V20s.

junaman wrote: ↑

Fri Jul 09, 2021 1:19 am

Given the current climate, I think you'd have a fair shot at negotiating full remote work at certain NYC V20s.

Kirkland for sure. Believe someone on TLS mentioned they have full remote options out of Chicago

To OP, salary is going to vary but I believe it’s in the ballpark of $80-100k for first year associates, so you’d probably be a little higher (someone please correct me if I’m wrong). In older TLS threads the paycut from NY—> ME has been described as “basically 50%”. But keep in mind that 100k in Maine is roughly 200k in Manhattan.

Based on my research the top shops seem to be Bernstein Shur, Pierce Atwood, Verill Dana. Brann & Isaacson attorneys have some pretty impressive backgrounds but not sure about their rep or how much they pay. This list has about all the firms you’d be interested in: https://www.bcgsearch.com/bestlawfirms/loc-2627/maine

OP in a similar situation with my spouse with her parents moving to the Portland area. From the few people I’ve connected with that do law you there seems fairly chilled. What would be the best route to get there if not originally from the area and currently in NYC V10 firm? Would searching for a fully remote option at another Biglaw firm be the only way or maybe a remote in house role?

Bump

Bumping this up. I’m currently in Boston and want to move to Maine. No ties, but I’m also from a more rural state originally and I’m ready to get out of the city. Does anyone have any insight on how difficult a sell this will be to Maine firms? Also average hours billed at the major firms in Portland would be great if anyone knows. Thanks!