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I recently interviewed with MITRE for a systems engineering role to make the move from Leidos where I feel underpaid for the work I do and for my experience ($85K). I have 4 YOE, a STEM degree, and soon will have a Masters Degree. I’m looking to make around $120K in the new role at Mitre. Does anyone have any insight into comp there? This would be in the DC metro area. Does $120K seem reasonable or am I dreaming?
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I haven’t made any switch but I would recommend thinking hard about what your long term goals are from a family and personal standpoint in addition to professional. If you want to make a lot of money as a lawyer, the hours also tend to be crazy (from what I’ve seen, crazier even than accounting) for a long time. Working at a law firm is client serving driven so there’s tons of client relationship building and sales type work associated as you grow within a firm. Exit opps from a law firm to private practice results in better hours but likely results in a pay decrease as well.
If you do want to jump into it, just make sure it’s something you actually want to do and are passionate about, not something you’re considering to run away from your current situation which sounds not ideal.
I’m definitely gonna at least move to a different firm but my group sucks so bad that my entire team is in the office every day working past midnight half the year (and >100 hours a week during busy season) and it’s probably going to get worse as I become a manager. Probably not gonna have kids tbh
I would totally take this, no loans, T14 law school? Regardless of if you end up in big law or not you’ll double your salary within 2-3 years as long as you don’t have an issue with long hours which it sounds like you don’t mind as long as you’re compensated fairly. I say do it!
In the end, what matters if you want to go BigLaw will be 1L grades and activities/journals. The CPA/Private Client service won’t give you a leg up in recruiting.
I moved from BigLaw to B4 for a few reasons: specialization (more transfer pricing/supply chain planning), larger exposure to other items (compliance/provision), and just better hours. Not a lot of tax counsel roles in industry, but if you have some provision and compliance experience, you are frankly a more viable candidate.
I have a friend who left B4 as a senior to do this and to this day tells me to do it. He did get some money though. Think it might have cost him less than 100k. He did say you recoup that very quickly. Think he went to GWU he’s doing way better than me now
Yeah it’s fairly cheap to go to a lower-ranked school but the lower you go the higher the chances you place poorly. GWU places 35% of grads at national firms whereas lower T14 all but guarantees Big Law with a 70-80% placement rate (excluding people who self-select out)
I’d check out BigLaw sub reddit for comparable perspective. Based on your comment above on hours worked, your hourly pay could easily go up big, especially with BigLaw bonuses
Are biglaw bonuses actually relatively small? If you hit the hours expectations at cravath-scale firms, I think the bonuses get fairly substantial %wise compared to here.
Def. do it.
Wild to see so many people saying yes. I’d say hard no unless law is your passion or you love working 90 hour weeks 52 weeks a year. Majority of lawyers aren’t doing big law (aka no $$$)
No, I’m saying it’s excluding people who deliberately self-select out. So the rate of students who could get it if they want it is higher. Not everyone goes in for big law. That’s a much easier path at top law schools than unicorn PI and certain clerkships for example. Many students go with the intention of doing public service and get their loans forgiven
Speaking as a tax LLM in B4 - Do you want to be a lawyer and actually practice law? If the answer is yes, consider it. If you just want more money to do the same stuff, I would just move to another firm for the pay bump. Law school isn’t cheap-but if it won’t cost you anything, than this is a different conversation.