Salary Story: I’m A Lawyer & I Still Can’t Believe I Make 100k
In our series Salary Stories, women with long-term career experience open up about the most intimate details of their jobs: compensation. It’s an honest look at how real people navigate the complicated world of negotiating, raises, promotions and job loss, with the hope it will give young women more insight into how to advocate for themselves — and maybe take a few risks along the way.
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Age: 31 Location: Midlands Current industry and job title: Law, in-house senior lawyer Current salary: £100,000 Number of years employed since school or university: 11
Starting salary: £13,000 in 2011 Biggest salary jump: £65,000 to £100,00 in 2022 Biggest salary drop: £18,000 to £13,000 in 2013
Biggest negotiation regret: Having always just been grateful to be in the career that I am (due to a number of reasons ranging from years of rejections to my background), I have never queried or challenged any salary increase even when I felt it didn’t reflect my performance. I recently had a concern that I was being paid less than a white male colleague in the same role and still regret not raising the issue.
Best salary advice: Speak to recruiters regularly even if you aren’t looking to move roles – this will help to benchmark your salary. I would also advise discussing salary with friends/former colleagues in the same sector or role as you. I’ve found my friends and ex-colleagues are much more open to talking about this when we no longer work together as there is no longer that competitive element.
I hated this job (which paid £13,000 a year) from the outset due to the type of work in a personal injury firm (whiplash claims from road traffic collisions, which just didn’t sit right with me, especially as many didn’t appear genuine) and the very toxic working environment. I was ready to leave almost as soon as I joined and left as soon as I could.My first role was a very toxic environment and in an area of law I knew I didn’t want to practise in. I started looking for a new role almost immediately and found a fixed term position at a university, with a decent pay increase to £17,000. I enjoyed this new role much more and began my career in the area of law I eventually qualified into and still work in.When my fixed term contract was almost up, I was offered a permanent position doing a similar role in another department. As I was enjoying the role and it was a much better working environment than my previous role, I decided to take the position (and slight pay rise to £18,500) while I considered my longer term options.Although I was enjoying my role at the university, I was still on the hunt for the ever elusive training contract. Having done a law degree and the LPC, I had intended to qualify as a solicitor but had been unsuccessful in the many rounds of training contract applications since my second year at university. I applied for numerous paralegal roles in law firms and got offered a role in a small firm up north, which could lead to a training contract. Although I agonised over the salary decrease to £13,000 and whether the gamble would pay off, I was still living at home rent-free and decided it was now or never and potentially my last opportunity to secure a training contract and qualify as a solicitor.The gamble paid off and after only eight months in my paralegal role I got offered a two-year training contract at the law firm. I started in April 2014 and my salary increased to just over the minimum for a trainee solicitor. This increased to £18,500 in the second year of my training contract.I eventually qualified as a solicitor in April 2016 and moved to a much larger law firm closer to home on a salary of £40,000. I had applied to (and been rejected by) this firm on a few occasions as a student for training contracts so felt very lucky to finally be offered a position, especially with such a huge pay rise. Shortly after starting, the firm increased its salary for NQs (newly qualified) across the board so my salary went up to £41,500 within the first few months. In 2017 I received a fairly incremental salary rise at annual pay review to £43,500 and a discretionary bonus of £1,000.
In 2018 the annual pay rise took me to £47,500 and bonus of £4,000, and in 2019 I was bumped to £52,500 and bonus of £6,000.
In line with my law firm’s promotion cycle, I applied for my first promotion at the beginning of 2020 before the pandemic. While I was promoted in May 2020, pay reviews were put on hold until the autumn of 2020 to preserve cash flow. I had a contractual increase in salary in September 2020 of 5% up to £55,650 in line with my new job role (which, controversially, was not backdated to when I actually began my new role), then a further pay rise to £62,400 a few months later as part of the normal yearly pay reviews. No discretionary bonuses were awarded in 2020 but I was pretty content with my salary increase and just grateful to still have a job during the pandemic. I had become quite unhappy in my role by the beginning of 2021, due to changes in my team and frustration over not getting the range of experience I wanted. By the time it came round to annual pay review I was pretty disappointed with the increase to £65,000 plus £8,000 bonus (especially after the firm had announced an increase in revenue during the pandemic compared to the previous financial year) and made this clear to my line manager. A number of people had left my team, meaning I’d had to step in and pick up a number of projects. Despite raising my concerns, there was no change to my pay rise nor to my general feeling towards work by that point and I mentally checked out. A couple of months after my pay review at the law firm, I was contacted by a recruiter who was recruiting for an in-house lawyer at an international technology company. A colleague I had previously worked with at my law firm now worked there and had a vacancy in her team. It was a London-based role but would be mostly working from home with a day or two in London each week, meaning a London-weighted salary too. I went to meet the team but wasn’t entirely sure I wanted the role or that I would be able to do it (classic imposter syndrome again as I was more than qualified). However, when I received an offer I couldn’t justify turning down the role given the package they were offering. On top of the £100,000 base salary, I get a car allowance and a 15% annual bonus if the business hits its annual profit target.
I’ve been in the role for four months now and despite my initial concerns that I would struggle with the change of role or that I’d have to work so much harder to prove I was ‘worth’ my high salary (PSA: no one needs to prove they are worth their salary), I’m so much happier in this role. I definitely feel like I get paid way too much for what I do but I am trying to feel less guilty about this as I do work hard and I know it’s my knowledge and experience that add value, not necessarily the hours I put in each day, as was the mentality at my previous law firm.
I am the first generation of my family to attend university and, coming from a working class background with immigrant parents, I never dreamed that I would one day be capable of earning a six-figure salary, especially as I struggled to find a training contract. Being only six years into my career as a solicitor, I still consider myself quite junior and have a long way to go before I reach my peak.
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