hahahahaha.

Short answer is no.

I know a number of small firms looking for juniors and not being able to hire any due to difference in salary expectations and/or experience/qualification. Usually, they will just go without juniors and refer cases to their friends in the interim.

It does not make sense to pay higher salaries for juniors in a small firm.

What usually happens - and this has been explained quite a number of times already in this forum - is that you start off low and then from 3rd year onwards move to a profit-sharing model where you negotiate a cut of your files rather than a fixed salary. A lot of us make quite a decent living on this model.

For sure it can't beat big4 salaries, but i would say that there is not much difference as compared to peers in many mid-size firms which do not offer profit-sharing so early.

Downside is that you earn only as much as you are willing to work.
Upside is that you earn only as much as you are willing to work.

Contrary to popular belief, there is a lot of good quality work at this level/price-point. I've never experienced a situation where there wasn't enough work to go around.