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#Post#: 27018--------------------------------------------------
asking for a raise
By: Victoria Date: March 1, 2019, 4:02 pm
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I work as a lawyer and am a salaried employee inside a company.
For about three months things have been slow and I was working
~42-49 hours per week. My supervisor recently expressed that she
wanted me to work at least 50 hours, stating "everyone else here
is working 50 hours and up, so you can't be the only one who
isn't." I was told that if I didn't have enough to do, I could
read statutes relevant to our industry and count that as time
worked. I was also told that because the head of the legal
department is one of the "old guard" white shoe law firm
partners, she thinks that you're only a valuable employee if you
put in a ton of hours.
I've been working 50-52 hour weeks for a few months, but I have
reason to believe that my supervisor may try to bump up this
number to 60 hours at my performance review. I'm compensated
significantly less than a law firm associate with comparable
experience would be, and also less than other in-house lawyers
are in the area. However, I've always seen my lower salary as a
fair trade-off for the fact that I wasn't working 60-90 hours
per week, I wasn't putting out fires at all hours of the day and
night, and I didn't expect to make as much as a law firm
associate when I took the job anyway.
I don't believe that, at 60 hours, I would be getting
compensated fairly. This is something that I would like to
express to my supervisor if she brought it up, but I've never
been in a position to discuss or negotiate salary before. If she
said something like "I see that you've been working 50 hours,
but we want you to step it up to 60 hours" I had planned to say
"Cindy, I understand that you want me to work more, but right
now I don't believe that I'm compensated at the level of someone
who's expected to work that much. Would now be a good time to
discuss that?"
It feels like a sticky subject to me because I don't want to be
seen as trying to corner her and get her to assign me a dollar
value per hour. I'm also not trying to get her to set a minimum
or maximum cap on my hours, as things happen and I may be busier
one week than I am the next. I would love any feedback on this
plan. Should I go in with a specific dollar amount in mind? (If
I did ask for a raise I wouldn't be trying to bring my salary on
level with law firm associates in my area, but I would like a
bump before working more). Should I offer to work as much as she
wants for the next couple of months as long as we can revisit
the question later?
#Post#: 27019--------------------------------------------------
Re: asking for a raise
By: TootsNYC Date: March 1, 2019, 4:18 pm
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yes, have a dollar amount in mind, and a rationale for it.
Like, a law-form associate w/ your experience would earn X, and
they would work those hours, but they also have the pressure to
bring in business. So you want y% of X.
And say perhaps that you took this job at this lower salary
precisely because it was in-house, without the pressure to bring
in business, and with a more balanced workload.
I mean, you're a lawyer, sure, but you're a salaried employee,
and the marketing V.P. isn't work 50 hours regularly! Certainly
not 60.
How effective can you be at that many hours?
And insert eye roll here at the idea that a lawyer should pad
her hours by "looking busy."
I mean, if it's an important part of your job to learn local
statutes, etc., it should already have been something you knew
you were supposed to do.
#Post#: 27021--------------------------------------------------
Re: asking for a raise
By: Victoria Date: March 1, 2019, 4:29 pm
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[quote author=TootsNYC link=topic=1024.msg27019#msg27019
date=1551478705]
I mean, if it's an important part of your job to learn local
statutes, etc., it should already have been something you knew
you were supposed to do.
[/quote]
Thanks for your reply! She wasn't saying that I'm deficient in
that area (and to be honest knowing statutes "cold" has limited
use for me, just giving it as an example of something I could do
if I needed more hours.
#Post#: 27024--------------------------------------------------
Re: asking for a raise
By: ClothoMoirai Date: March 1, 2019, 4:52 pm
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With the other advice in mind, I wouldn't hesitate to ask for a
raise in that situation. The hours was part of the
work-compensation and that's being changed now so it's entirely
appropriate for the rest to change, too.
I'm in the IT operations field where we often face a related
matter. Much of my career was in university IT and the
long-standing aspect of that was less pay than corporate but
better hours, work/life balance, etc. And then it changed; I
went to corporate IT because of a university where my job had
become all of the worst of corporate but for university pay, and
I was actually criticized for "only" working 40 hours per week
rather than the 50+ my coworkers worked while my manager
admitted that I was getting my work done in that time (he tried
to reduce my annual performance rating for it; I beat that one
by insisting he be specific about what I needed to improve and
he didn't want to write that on the official review that would
be a permanent part of my file.) I asked for a pay raise to
match my coworkers (I was paid 33% less than they were and my
experience level was right in the middle) and was denied, hence
changing jobs.
#Post#: 27028--------------------------------------------------
Re: asking for a raise
By: TootsNYC Date: March 1, 2019, 5:38 pm
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[quote author=Victoria link=topic=1024.msg27021#msg27021
date=1551479386]
[quote author=TootsNYC link=topic=1024.msg27019#msg27019
date=1551478705]
I mean, if it's an important part of your job to learn local
statutes, etc., it should already have been something you knew
you were supposed to do.
[/quote]
Thanks for your reply! She wasn't saying that I'm deficient in
that area (and to be honest knowing statutes "cold" has limited
use for me, just giving it as an example of something I could do
if I needed more hours.
[/quote]
Exactly! I mean, she wants to pay a lawyer to do busy work?
#Post#: 27031--------------------------------------------------
Re: asking for a raise
By: Hanna Date: March 1, 2019, 6:35 pm
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Is your supervisor also a lawyer?
#Post#: 27033--------------------------------------------------
Re: asking for a raise
By: Victoria Date: March 1, 2019, 7:15 pm
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[quote author=Hanna link=topic=1024.msg27031#msg27031
date=1551486904]
Is your supervisor also a lawyer?
[/quote]
Yes!
#Post#: 27034--------------------------------------------------
Re: asking for a raise
By: Hanna Date: March 1, 2019, 8:24 pm
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[quote author=Victoria link=topic=1024.msg27033#msg27033
date=1551489308]
[quote author=Hanna link=topic=1024.msg27031#msg27031
date=1551486904]
Is your supervisor also a lawyer?
[/quote]
Yes!
[/quote]
That’s kind of nuts! She wants you just pretend to be busy for a
few extra hours every day? That would bother me more than the
money. I’d tell her I’m willing to stay when there is work to
do. If it becomes a frequent thing, I’d explain that I took a
corporate job for better work/life balance and need to be paid
more to spend hours at the office above a normal corporate work
week.
My job requires frequent work outside of normal hours, but I’m
given flexibility in return. So I work late one night but the
next day I might come in late or leave early or whatever. It’s
not tracked or exactly 1:1 but it’s fair and makes me feel they
value my time. I think that’s how it should be.
#Post#: 27035--------------------------------------------------
Re: asking for a raise
By: Victoria Date: March 1, 2019, 8:35 pm
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[quote author=Hanna link=topic=1024.msg27034#msg27034
date=1551493443]
[quote author=Victoria link=topic=1024.msg27033#msg27033
date=1551489308]
[quote author=Hanna link=topic=1024.msg27031#msg27031
date=1551486904]
Is your supervisor also a lawyer?
[/quote]
Yes!
[/quote]
That’s kind of nuts! She wants you just pretend to be busy for a
few extra hours every day? That would bother me more than the
money. I’d tell her I’m willing to stay when there is work to
do. If it becomes a frequent thing, I’d explain that I took a
corporate job for better work/life balance and need to be paid
more to spend hours at the office above a normal corporate work
week.
My job requires frequent work outside of normal hours, but I’m
given flexibility in return. So I work late one night but the
next day I might come in late or leave early or whatever. It’s
not tracked or exactly 1:1 but it’s fair and makes me feel they
value my time. I think that’s how it should be.
[/quote]
When she said that I needed to bump my hours up, she made it
very clear that "I don't have much work to do" or "I don't have
any upcoming deadlines" aren't reasons for dipping below 50
hours, and that's not negotiable, as going below that would draw
the ire of our head boss. But at 50 hours, I'm still willing to
do things like extra CLEs and reading relevant cases/legal news
for a few hours each week. I can also do a lot remotely. I'm
only required to actually be physically present in the office
for 8 hours a day, Monday through Friday.
#Post#: 27050--------------------------------------------------
Re: asking for a raise
By: Contrarian Date: March 2, 2019, 8:04 am
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Why wouldn’t you ask for a salary comparable to associates in
your area?
From the outside, the fact that you don’t seek a competitive
salary and are ok with working less than average hours speaks to
someone without ambition.
However, my sister is a lawyer and the first job she worked had
her working 7am to 11pm 6 days a week with an occasional 7th day
thrown in. It did pay well but she had no life.
So she took a job as a lawyer at a bank instead of a firm, took
a pay cut and had some time for herself. So the less hours,
less money isn’t necessarily low ambition. I just think it may
look like that to your employer.
My sister now, still working for the same company, has 13
lawyers under her supervision, makes a crazy amount of money and
travels the world. That took about 15 years.
Anyway, I think you should really do some research about what a
competitive salary would be, what other law firms in your
particular field expect and pay and start there, with hard
facts, with your supervisor when you ask for a raise.
But when you’re doing your research you may find another firm
that pays their employees a fair salary for the work they put in
and consider submitting your CV.
I’m not suggesting quitting and getting a new job. I’m very much
saying to know what’s out there and be able to speak confidently
with your supervisor about it when asking for a raise. But if
you see an opportunity worth looking into, look into it.
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