Entering The Race: How To Negotiate Salary With A Solo Practitioner

Here are three pieces of advice, from columnist Shannon Achimalbe -- but be prepared for your pay to be low, unfairly low.

A reader sent me this email (lightly edited):

I have recently been admitted to the bar. While waiting for admission, I was fortunate enough to find a family law solo practitioner who was willing to hire me as a law clerk. Now, upon admission, he is considering adding me on to his practice as an associate, but we have yet to discuss compensation. It may be the case that he wants to set up incentives for me to bring in business which may be difficult for a new attorney to achieve.

I am concerned as to how to navigate the legal market. I attended a good  law school in New York, albeit not at the top of my class. After graduation, I spent a few years not pursuing a law career due to family health complications. I don’t fit neatly into expectations of Biglaw in regards to graduation, grades, experience, and my admission to the bar years later in another state.

Ultimately, I would appreciate if you could opine as to what a financial arrangement should look like for a new attorney, such as myself, working with a solo practitioner. The solo practitioner seems accommodating, but I would like to go into negotiations well informed.

Dear reader:

When negotiating with a solo practitioner over compensation, unfortunately, like many others in your situation, you will be flying blind. But expect your pay to be low. Unfairly low.

In the world of small law, there is no socially acceptable minimum salary. Solo practitioners and small law firms are free to be as cheap as they want with little to no consequences. Biglaw cannot do this. Otherwise, their associates will complain to ATL. Or they will quit and choose to work for Uncle Pierce’s hedge fund instead.

I know of small firms that pay shockingly low amounts, even to attorneys with a few years of experience. I cannot in good conscience reveal the numbers I have seen because I do not want to give the cheapskates any ideas.

It is hard to compare one firm to another because small-time solo practitioners generally do not advertise their compensation packages online or elsewhere.

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You are also in a difficult position because you are practicing in a different state from where you attended law school. So you will be competing against young attorneys who have established professional relationships while in school.

So if you want to be able to navigate the legal market in your area, I recommend doing the following things.

First, try to get an idea as to how much similar solo practitioners and small law firms pay new associates. You will need to know what the going associate pay rate is or you may end up getting lowballed. I know its going to be hard to find reliable information. But try to do it anyway.

You can try asking your classmates or other attorneys who graduated a few years before you. But money is a sensitive topic so you may not get a response. If you push too hard, it may negatively affect your relationship with them. Also, if they are paid a low wage, they may not give you an honest answer, especially if you notice them driving an expensive car and wearing an expensive purse.

I also recommend joining a local group of solo practitioners or small-firm lawyers. It can be a local bar association, a Facebook group, an e-mail listserv, or even a small lunch group. Ask the group how much they would pay new associates.

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The problem is that if you ask them directly, you may get something nonresponsive (“it depends”) or a patronizing answer (“experience is important, not money”). It may be better to have an older attorney ask on your behalf because a few of his colleagues are likely to respond with their anecdotes. As an added bonus, this topic tends to bring the curmudgeons out of their caves. They then complain about how the young deserve less than minimum wage while reminiscing about the good old days when they walked uphill during a snowstorm (both ways), ate shredded legal documents for lunch, and were thankful for it.

Second, you should try to have other options. If you are fortunate enough to have multiple job offers, you are in a better position to negotiate. You will get a more accurate idea as to how much you are worth. Also, your employer will see that you are in demand so you can feel more confident demanding a higher salary. Ideally, you should have offers from other law firms. But even respectable non-legal or quasi-legal positions are better than nothing.

Finally, you might still fail. While I was a law student, I was told that solo practitioners and small firms hire on a holistic basis, especially if they want to keep someone for the long run. Top students from top law schools are expensive and are likely to leave once something better comes along.

This is good news for someone who went to a good law school in New York albeit not at the top of her class. But this also means that you might not get hired for arbitrary reasons — even if your salary demand is competitive yet reasonable, and you have other options. Keep in mind that there are others applicants who may be willing to work for less.

When you are trying to navigate the legal market, you should understand that as a newly admitted attorney, you are not bringing anything to the table other than whatever you learned in law school. You are a malpractice magnet and will need to be trained. Your written work must be reviewed. And your court appearances will have to be supervised. So if you want to get noticed, you will have to prove that you will be up to speed in a short period of time — and more importantly, that you can be trusted.

The good thing is that you already have an existing employment relationship with your boss so he knows what you are capable of. Assuming you do good work, once you are admitted to the bar, you can ask for a raise without sounding like a greedy, entitled milliennial who was raised by helicopter parents.

While you should try to get the highest salary possible, it should not be the deciding factor. If I could do it over again, I would be willing to take a slightly lower salary to work for a more reputable lawyer or a lawyer who was willing to mentor me and help me achieve my career goals.


Shannon Achimalbe was a former solo practitioner for five years before deciding to sell out and get back on the corporate ladder. Shannon can be reached at sachimalbe@excite.com.