Has anyone else heard of a firm reducing your base salary at the income partner or counsel level? Should I start looking for a new position?

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Yep. It happened to me. Was hired as NEP with no expectation of book, then rainmaker partners’ business dried up so my hours were low. I expected no bonus but was blindsided by base comp reduction.

Spent some time trying to bring in my own work but it was not easy starting from basically scratch and I hated it. Ended up moving.

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It was my third year and I left after 5. Spent the last year and a half or so trying to bring in work and had a promising client for steady work that ended up not panning out (long tortuous story that’s not my fault) and further solidifying that I really had no desire to be a business generating partner.

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Start looking

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Yes, if the value you are delivering has changed some firms will pay you accordingly. It's not a great sign, but you should definitely ask yourself why.

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Haven’t heard of it happening, but my firm does tell us base salary is recalculated every year based on realization and can go down.

McDermott makes you “fit into their scale” (which is wildly below market for base) so potentially, yes

Can you share more about how this works?

Yes, not uncommon at all across the firm. It’s more often to have your base stay flat because they try to avoid the dreaded cut, but it happens to people every year. The economics and pressures driving comp are totally different once you’re off the associate lockstep.

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