Salary, Trust and Recruitment: Should You Tell a Law Firm What You Earn?

This divides opinion amongst lawyers. 

We’d estimate a minority of lawyers refuse to disclose their salary (but the trend to refuse it is growing). 

Legally a law firm in England can ask you for your current salary before an interview.  You don’t have to answer that.

So the practical question is: Should you answer it? 

We’d say: yes you should. 

Here’s why: 

Most law firms aren’t asking because they’re trying to pay you as little as possible. They’re trying to understand whether you’re likely to move from your current job and join them.

Everyone knows that most candidates move for a pay rise, and it’s only in truly “exceptional” reasons why they won’t do this.

Likewise, many candidates want to know the firm’s salary range before an interview. (In the future firms may have to offer this, but right now they don’t.) 

Firms generally have more leverage than candidates here because they’re deciding who to hire.

If you disclose your salary at any point, you’re not committing yourself to accepting the firm’s first (or any) offer.

You’re simply helping them work out if you’re worth interviewing or offering to. 

As ever, if you receive an offer, you still have three choices:

• Accept it.
• Negotiate (to improve it); and 
• Decline it. 

Some lawyers worry that disclosing their salary will lead to a lower offer.

This can happen.

Law firms are businesses, and businesses try to limit costs and maximise turnover, thereby being as profitable as possible (to survive). 

But in my experience, most law firms also care about their reputation. They know that underpaying people makes recruitment (and retention) harder in the long run.

Final thoughts: 

Recruitment isn’t just about legal rights; it’s also about relationships.

Both sides are assessing what it might be like to work together.

Transparency and trust matter just as much as salary.

I’ll finish with a story I’ve wanted to share for years … 

A candidate and a law firm partner met informally after work at a local bar for a chat about the lawyer (candidate) joining them. 

The candidate asked for water.

The partner ordered tap water from the bar.

The candidate later turned down the job, explaining they were “outraged” they hadn’t been bought bottled mineral water, instead of tap water.

So the firm lost out on a lawyer who, in theory at least, could have generated hundreds of thousands of pounds in fees every year…

… and all because they didn’t pay for a £2.50 bottle of water.

Recruitment leaves an impression on both sides. 

#recruitment #lawyers