Related Posts
I joined KGS in feb 2022, we recently got a mail regarding timeline of appraisal and bonus payout from the partner. My reporting manager hasn't yet reached out to me regarding goal setting, not sure if that happens here. Can you pls help me to know what all things we need to do from our end for the appraisal cycle and bonus payout? Since I'm new to this company KPMG KPMG India
More Posts
Conversation Starter
How to put a resignation in UKG ?
I have recently got selected in tcs and I have 10.5 years of experience with 25 LPA. Now for salary negotiation hr is asking me to go with ur current pkg otherwise it will be dropped bcoz it's already very high pkg for them. What should I do if I have an offer of 29 LPA from other company? Tata Consultancy@
Additional Posts in Law
New to Fishbowl?
Download the Fishbowl app to
unlock all discussions on Fishbowl.
unlock all discussions on Fishbowl.
First question: what is your rate and what did you bill for the year? Second question, why haven’t you entertained lateraling just to get an idea of what the other side looks like compensation wise?
Side note, I’m at a small business boutique with about 16 attorneys. I’ve always requested my realization rate without issue and I can see what everyone is billing on our billing software. Some firms care, others don’t.
As to the nice bag, if the partner has clients and makes money for the firm, she deserves to indulge. Get clients, make money for the firm, and you yourself will make good money.
OP - with the numbers provided you are making the firm $387.5k with 100% collections, or $330k with 85% collections, so roughly your total compensation would be 1/3 of that, or $110k. Considering you got a great review with $92k pay, I’d say you are underpaid, but every firm is different.
Like A1 said I’d be looking at lateraling options just to see what’s out there.
Frankly I didn’t become a lawyer to make under $100k at any point of my career. I would leave for a better firm.
Partner track is six years. Last month I got my annual review and it was amazing, even my supervising attorney remarked that it was a very good review. The next week I got pulled into an impromptu meeting with my supervising attorney and another partner at my firm and got ripped a new asshole for looking at a document in our system (that was accessible firm-wide) that housed everyone’s billable hours for the month and year, and the realization. I pretty much used it to see where I was at on my hours because the firm doesn’t give us our cumulative hours for the year so it was helpful it was right there for me to see and I didn’t have to keep track separately. I didn’t realize it was a big deal to look at this document, but let’s just say the partners in the meeting did not feel the same and I thought I was about to get canned. I didn’t, but I’ve never gotten an ass chewing like this ever and I was shocked. Still am.
Later a different partner tells me on regard to the whole debacle, “you don’t need to know how the sausage is made. One day when you’re a partner, you’ll get to know, but as an associate, you don’t.”
I’ve started feeling since then that this lack of transparency is not normal. But idk.
Anyway fast forward to today and one of the partners strolls in with a Birkin bag that she’s showing off to everyone she can find. Honestly this just pissed me off. You’re paying me $90k a year and you’re out making enough to buy a Birkin bag? Idk if it’s second hand or brand new but still, it’s so tone deaf and I can’t stop thinking now that I’m being boned on my salary and this has something to do with why I was reprimanded so harshly for looking at the billable hour document.
Any thoughts are welcome lol.
Based on those numbers and locations I don’t think your severely underpaid. But if we start hitting your billable hours consistently and remain at the same salary then you are. I’m at a 16 attorney firm too and I can see everyone’s billable hours and rates as well. And I think your partner is wrong, you get taught how the sausage is made before you make partner, typically.
I do not think that looking at the billable hours of others is wrong. I frequently check other attorneys’ time in Clio to make sure that I’m not falling behind their hours. It is a benchmark for me and I’ve done it at all of the firms that I’ve worked for right through our billing software.
I can't say much about the salary.
I get where they're coming from since this spreadsheet doesn't sound like it was anonymized. It's one thing to want to look at anonymously statistics on the average amount billed in your practice group, and another to want to look at records that tell you how much tour fellow junior associate Sally specifically has billed each quarter. When things calm down I'd ask if it's possible to get anonymized statistics instead (or to see if a colleague is willing to ask on your behalf).
That being said, I've worked at a firm where they refused to provide any statistics whatsoever other than the average hours billed each year per practice group; if I had to guess based on other stuff going on in the periphery, it was in part because keeping people in the dark made it easier for them to play favorites and to downplay/dismiss concerns and complaints about how work and various other opportunities were being distributed. For similar reasons I'd be wary of any firm that makes it extremely difficult to understand the range of salaries people may have and how they may get them.
You might be mildly underpaid. Figure out if more pay in a bigger city would be a wash in terms of cost of living and also whether you'd have to work harder. I'd be more concerned about the fact the partners seem like jerks. Even if you could stay and make partner, would you want to call these people your partners? If not, there's your answer.