Standard diao!

Hi guys,

What are the “best” practice areas in Big 4 firms in terms of work life balance?

Thanks!

Corp over Liti for sure.

Don't do M&A or practices where there will be hard deadlines. Advisory-type work is best.

Bakers raising NQ salary to £105k in london. Will SG salaries be raised too?

Throughout UK most int firms (including those partnering FLAs) salaries are being raised. Now with B4 raising.. if the other ints or faux ints don't start raising - they are gonna be left behind.

haven't they already increased to 8.5k?

As among the Big 4, there's an incentive to keep up with the Jones, otherwise they'll suffer headcount losses when disgruntled assocs move to a higher paying Big 4. Already Big 4 is constantly plagued with high churn and manpower shortage. Quality of life is more or less the same among the 4.

The faux internationals and FLAs/JLVs have such low headcount and lean teams that there's no pressure on them to keep up. Since theyre probably only looking to fill 2 or 3 roles, at most, at a time. They just need to offer a better proposition that the crappy deal that mid-sized firm assocs are being offered. They have the luxury of hiring from the pool of candidates from mid sized.

Better to stay in private practice or go in-house?

Heard it said that its only worthwhile to remain a private practice lawyer if you practice in top tier firms (minimum Big 4 but internationals better ofc). If you aren't or can't practice in these firms, better to go in-house.

Currently in a mid-sized local firm. Would going in-house be an improvement in my position?

It depends on what you quantify as an improvement, and what tier of in-house you can go to.

Do you mean pay or prestige or work-life balance?

In general, work-life balance is better for in-house.

If you are asking whether in-house is more prestigious, it depends on the tier level:
1. Top tier are Large Tech or Media firms (your FAANG or equivalent) or Multinational Banks or large MNCs (this can be broken down further but I'm too lazy).

These types of firms may even help your CV if you decide you want to come back to private practice.

2. Second tier are the China multinational firms (especially tech) or the large local corporations or small regional corporations.

3. Next tier would be your government depts or average-sized local firms.

4. Lowest tier would be the local small businesses (those small 10man operations).

Pay-wise, it depends on the firm's tier level. If you go to the top-tier type firms below, you can expect a paybump of around 15%-20% depending on your PQE. However, even if you enter a good-tier firm (and get a bump), your pay will stagnate as they will start giving you normal 3% payrises every year instead of the relatively higher payjumps in law. The only way to maintain a similar payscale to your peers is to keep jumping to better firms every few years.

Obviously, the top-tier firms benefit from a larger and better pool of candidates, meaning that you'll be competing against Big4 candidates anyway. If your CV is unable to allow you to jump to big4 (which is honestly not that high of a bar), it's also unlikely to allow you to get a top-tier inhouse job. Of course, that depends on your PQE, CV and firm's Chambers tier/ranking (if applicable).

Generally, you'll likely have to work your way up from the 2nd or 3rd tier firms, which then reduces the level of "improvement" (i.e. pay and prestige) from your mid-size firm job.

Is this true? Any thoughts