Need advice ahead of reading about salary

UPDATE: they told me to eat shit and die 🥰 couldn’t give me a reason why some in same position got bigger raise. Said it was partially cost of living (I live in the biggest/most expensive city we have an office in). Said I’ve only been licensed 3 months. Said, and I quote “$1000 is nothing in the grand scheme of your career”. I responded that it is now. This moment. When I have no safety net and $209,000.00 of loans accruing interest every day.

I finally stuck to my guns and now I have a meeting with managing shareholders and HR on Monday. I just graduated law school in the spring of 2024 and passed the July bar. I work at a local to my state but very successful personal injury firm with a number of offices throughout the state.

My intern to attorney class was six people and only three of us passed the July bar. My firm is generally a great place to work. No billable, nice people, reasonable benefits, and work life balance. The associate and shareholder attorneys there are very successful. We had a couple over $1 million jury verdicts in 2024. For how great my firm is, they are garbage at compensation.

I have been working for my firm since fall of 2L. I started as an intern and was told that since they reassess salaries in the new year, I have now worked there over two years and each year my intern salary has gone up by a dollar an hour. That was always great to me because I was still in class full-time, so any extra money was wildly appreciated. When I got my offer to come back as an attorney, I had no sense of what a reasonable salary was. Thankfully, I’d befriended another girl in my intern class and she gave me the scoop, including that the attorneys we were working under were regularly bringing in over $1 million each year in fees.

When I was first offered the job in August 2023, my intro salary for fall 2024 was going to be $76,000. When they reassessed in the new year, it went up to 77,000. At the time when I accepted the offer in August and when it went up to 77, I asked to negotiate both times for a higher salary. It didn’t make sense to me that my firm was bragging about these major verdict and settlements, and I was getting paid less than my public defender friends (I love my public defender friends, I think y’all should be paid more. I say that more because I think PD‘s are the teachers of the legal world, notoriously, overworked, and underpaid, doing it for the greater good.)

So I asked to negotiate my salary in August and they said to wait until the new year because it would increase anyway. I waited until the new year. I tried to negotiate my salary then because it did feel silly that my firm talked so much about it success, growth, development, and expansion, and by this time last year, my public defender friends salaries went up $10,000 thanks to their union, so I was actually making Significantly less than my public defender friends. I was told in January that they would discuss a salary and then it was denied. I’m a staff attorney, and the highest paid staff attorney at the time was getting 81,000 a year. I kept being told that I would be making plenty with production bonuses included, but was then told that I wouldn’t have my own caseload for at least nine months to a year.

Now we’re at January again, and I got the email saying my pay had increased a whopping $1000. I was told on Monday and apparently needed to sign by Wednesday so that they could do payroll for the new year. I asked the HR manager if the salary increase was calculated compared to inflation because the 1.3% increase was certainly not in line with the 2.7% inflation we’re currently experiencing. She said no and basically said it was based on vibes. Then I learned that my position as staff attorney had a 3% increase in salary overall, and the top of the bracket went from 81 to 83. I asked why my raise was so minor compared to others in the position and was basically told that I hadn’t even worked a full year and that I would be making a lot more in fees. I am trying to advocate for myself, but I am awful at it and a people pleaser. The main person that I would talk about this with didn’t pass and is studying for the February bar, so the last thing I’m going to do is bug them with my attorney salary issues.

They think they’re paying me reasonably, but I think that all of management just went out of state for a management retreat where they decided $1000 was enough of an increase for an employee of over two years.

There are so many other things going on and details I could share, but I’ve already probably over shared. Looking for people to share their salaries if they’re new to practice personal injury attorneys, hype me up for the firing squad on Monday, or share any tips or advice that might be useful. I’ll take anything at this point.