Article · Professional Services

How to secure a pay rise in professional services

Firms do not pay for effort. They pay for a case. Here is how to build one that a partner can take to the remuneration committee.

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Start with the market, not with your feelings about it. Know the band for your level and your city, and where you sit inside it. A free pay benchmark takes ten minutes and gives you a number nobody can argue with.

Then build the case in the language the firm uses. Pitches won and their value. Clients retained. Panels secured. Revenue you can point to, with the partners who will back you. Write it down. Two pages, no adjectives.

Ask at the right time. Mid year reviews and the weeks before budgets are set are when there is money to move. Ask in the fortnight after a pitch you won, not the month before a round of redundancies.

Ask for a number, not a review. Give the firm the figure, the evidence and a date. If the answer is no, ask what would need to be true for it to be yes, and when. If there is no answer to that, you have your answer.

Separate pay from title. Firms will often offer a new title in place of money because it costs them nothing. A title is worth having if it changes what you can do and who you report to. It is worth nothing if it is a label on the same job. Take the title and keep asking for the number.

Finally, know your alternative before you ask. Not a bluff, a real view of what the market would pay you to move and how long it would take to find that role. That is where a confidential conversation with a recruiter earns its keep. You may never use it. Knowing it changes how you sit in the room.

More on law firm BD and marketing recruitment.

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