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That's a lot of hours for not a lot of pay.
Tbh, 85-95K seems really low for a mid size firm (assuming this is actually a mid size firm and you’re not basing that assessment on the number of people in the office)
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L&E is a great area if you ever want to go in house. Lots of companies have their own in house employment counsel.
What state are you in and how many years in practice are you? That salary band is very underpaid.
Texas. Going into 2 years of practice.
I’m in L&E and love it, but that salary would be lowball for those hours in my area (greater NYC).
Former l&e lawyer, mgmt side, midsize firm. Speaking purely to the practice and not comp, I felt a moral conflict every day. I advised clients about the bare minimum they needed to do to be compliant, during Covid, when I strongly felt that the minimum was not enough. Clients constantly complaining that their employees are liars, trying to steal, not wanting to make reasonable accommodations for mental illness, it was not for me.
People are going to say I drank the defense kool-aid, but I just want to jump in re “moral conflicts” because it makes management-side clients seem like they’re 99% monsters and I truly don’t want you to be dissuaded from entering a great practice area! Frankly, this hasn’t been my experience the vast majority of the time. Most of my clients try to do the right thing, but they make mistakes, and that’s where you come in to mitigate the harm caused, usually accidentally. Remember, there are people behind the companies and people make mistakes. Then there are cases where the former employee was a poor performer, was terminated for poor performance, and is now vengeful and looking to use a protected class as a cop-out for why they were terminated.
Of course there are exceptions where your client truly has done something wrong. I had a case a few years ago where a client’s employee had a surgery and they let her work from home for a while, and when she was taking slower to recover than they thought was acceptable, they terminated her. And that’s messed up. And that’s an instance where you say to your client, “look, you can’t do that. These are your obligations going forward, and here’s how much you should pay to settle this one.” But in about 5 years of practice, I’ve really only seen a handful of these types of cases.
My old boss used to have a joke when people asked him what kind of employment law he practiced, he’d say “I represent the victims” and when people would inevitably say “oh so you represent employees?” He would say “no, I represent the companies that are being extorted.” This is extreme, but I’ve seen cases where it does ring true.
Love the practice. Salary would be low in NYC where I’m at
L&E can be very difficult to hit hours once you’re doing counseling work. It’s not bad if you’re doing litigation, but for the counseling side it’s a lot of jumping back and forth between smaller matters. I had an 1800 requirement and it was very difficult to hit when I didn’t have a busy litigation load. I felt like I worked a lot longer hours than my corporate and litigation friends to make the same hours. Keep that in mind with the salary, it’s low.
Pros: recession proof, good path to go in-house, if you handle anti-discrimination/retaliation/harassment cases, the facts are almost always entertaining (for better or worse)
Cons: depending on where you practice, you deal with a lot of unhappy clients (eg, in liberal states where employment laws are very favorable to employees) because you’re often the bearer of bad news, pay isn’t as high as in other fields because of insurance defense work
All that said, 1800 hours for $90k seems low. Granted I’m in a northeast market, but when I was a first year associate (4 years ago) with 1850 billing, I was making $125k
That was my salary as a 2nd year and I think my hours requirement was a bit higher. I was underpaid but can’t think of a better practice area. After a couple years at the mid size firm I got offers from big law firms and decided to take an in house offer. I loved my firm and I don’t regret taking the lower pay bc I got great experience and lots of exit options, so I say do it, unless you have a better offer on the table!
In my third year of L&E in Toronto, making $175k for a 1700 billable hour target. The offer you've received seems very low for those hours, even at a mid size firm.
I love being an employment lawyer. To me, it’s the most interesting practice area. I started my career in Big Law and went in-house as a 5th year. As a result, the lowest I’ve ever made was my first year in-house at $150k plus equity. Now that we’ve gone public, the equity has more than made up for the cash comp decrease. While I love employment law, if given the opportunity I’d probably choose privacy because I find it interesting, there seem to be as many or more in-house opportunities, and you make more money.
plaintiff side employment lawyer in DMV area. about to hit three years of practice and making $84K with same billable req. feel massively underpaid for the amount of work i do (duh) and know that it’s under market rate for the area.
clients are tough because law is stacked against them. most cases settle, so if you don’t want to be in a court room, that’s a plus. happy to chat more if you have specific questions!
What year are you?
L&E is generally very underpaid IMO unless you’re at a Big Law firm with a robust and busy practice. Base salary wise, management pays better than plaintiffs’ side, but some plaintiff side firms have bonuses tied to production so you get a cut of what the firm brings in on contingency matters that can bring the salary up depending on how well you’re doing.
Besides the pay, I’ve found it to be a morally hard practice for the same reasons A7 noted. You’re either helping management do the bare minimum or trying to get them off the hook for violations they actually did commit just to save a few bucks at the expense of their (usually) underpaid employees OR you’re constantly turning away people who have usually suffered real harm, just because their case probably isn’t worth enough to make it worth your firm’s time. Both sets of clients can be unreasonable and demanding for what feels like no payoff. It’s not to say that every employer is wrong and every plaintiff should prevail, but it’s definitely a practice where you see an unfortunate amount of “people with power screwing over people with no power” and either getting away with it, or paying a comparatively small price for it, all while you’re also getting paid pretty poorly compared to other practices. I would not do it again (NYC plaintiffs side work for several years, transitioned out).
I do L&E in the southwest $110k 2100 billable. Mid size almost 100 attorneys in all practice groups.
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Slavery.
I went to L&E almost a year ago. Work is very interesting. Your salary offer is extremely close to mine. They need to offer you a lot more. I'm at a mid size firm in TX too.