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What is the midpoint salary of Band 8?
Is it SAFE joining Wipro as technical lead (B3) with 37LPA? Knowing that package is pretty high as compared to collogues in same band. HR is not ready to give project manager(C1) position.
Appreciate your suggestions/input.
Would there be any scope of increment going forward?
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It's often said (some firms say first two years) but it's just not true. Do the math. Even if auditor slashes 20% of your time on the year, they are making money.
You don’t make the firm money for at least a year.
My first job overhead was $140,000 and my salary was $78,000. Overhead will screw you over.
It’s generally true. The thing you might not be considering is that the firm has an increased cost basis by paying you, but not necessarily increased revenue.
That’s mostly because at most firms the work could have gone to someone else. Shipping work to a green, inefficient, associate takes a burden off other people but doesn’t necessarily increase the total revenue.
I’ve heard it takes 2 years for profitability. Except for rare cases, I agree.
That doesn’t sound too far off to me. There is a lot of training that goes into the first year or two of practice, including time senior attorneys take to train. I’m sure you are covering your own salary and some overhead or you wouldn’t still be there, but there likely isn’t much profit for the partners yet.
Three years is my benchmark for young lawyers
Yes, we usually lose money at first on associates. There is a lot of upfront costs you may not appreciate, and you're training but with a salary. Which is a nice luxury U.S. associates have.
Agree. We all come out of law school and can’t do anything. Every first year Atty costs more than they produce. Will be easier to see this in a few years when you look back. It’s usually around year 3 when lawyers really start making the firm money.
I’m curious as to how a plaintiff firm determines whether a junior associate is “profitable” if they aren’t the ones running the file, building the case through experts, taking the Deps, negotiating settlements, trying the case, etc.
I know at defense firms at least you can quantify with some the billing/daily grind - for instance juniors help us with legal research (they aren’t trusted to write and actual motions), document review, some basics status reporting, etc., and they can get plenty of mileage out that sort of stuff. The downside is it takes a few years for them to get good hands on experience since pretty much everything we work on is 7 figure or more exposure.
At least at my firm I am running the case, takings the depos, negotiating settlements, etc. (1-2nd year associate)
There are still things I do under supervision or have partners put eyes on before it leaves the door, but I'm only valuable insofar as I can manage a case independently and they usually let me run with a case until I need guidance or help. This has been the case virtually since I started out of law school.
I dont believe I'm quantifiably clearing more than my salary + overhead just yet, but because all the revenue I generate comes in under cases technically assigned to a partner, I presume a lot of my value is measured in how much I can expand that partners portfolio by alleviating her workload and allowing her to work more cases. I have reduced a lot of their work on a case to simply rubberstamping decisions, expert expenses, motions, settlements, etc.
But, I work at a small PI firm that develops a low volume of high-dollar cases, so it is easier to measure a 10, 20, or 30% gain in cases worked after adding an associate. Other firms may have more difficulty
You need to reframe the issue as you making enough money for the firm so that the partner can take home more.
Also, the idea of training only in your first year is bullshit. If your doing ID (my area of practice) unless your doing purely car accidents you'll be learning until you retire. There are a lot of different insurance policies out there and people who do dumb shit. Even managing partner trial attorneys are still learning and training, its why it's called a practice and we have CLE requirements. Don't get to down on yourself, partnerstake on this kind of administrative responsibility for a reason.
More like 2-3 years. You’re in training. You won’t start making the firm money for 2-3 years and won’t really get good until about year 5. This will all be clear in hindsight.
Margins for ID firms tend to be quite thin. Also depends on the quality and quantity of support staff. If you don’t have support staff, this remark is probably an exaggeration that means you’re not making as much money as a more experienced associate would. If you have support staff, plus access to high-end legal research, and high quality insurance you’re likely not making much money for the firm.