Library · Methodology
Every BigLaw Bear tool surfaces an estimate. This page is the audit trail: where the data comes from, how the math works, and what we deliberately don't model. If a number on the platform looks wrong, this is the first place to check.
BigLaw Bear uses each verified office ZIP code to anchor the office to its local market, then maps it to a cost-of-living index normalized so the national average = 100. Reviewed city-level indices take priority. When a city is not yet in that table, the map uses the latest all-items Regional Price Parity for its state. U.S. territories outside the BEA state series use a clearly labeled national baseline. This ensures that every mapped U.S. office has a comparison while preserving more specific city data where available. The tables live in src/lib/cost-of-living.ts in our public repo.
Sources
Quarterly CPI by metropolitan area. We use the most recent available quarter.
Quarterly composite index across housing, groceries, utilities, transportation, healthcare, and miscellaneous goods. Q4 2025 release.
Official 2024 all-items state price levels, released February 19, 2026. Used as the fallback when a reviewed city index is unavailable.
Why we use a composite index: housing alone is the most-cited COL metric, but it underweights the day-to-day delta - groceries, transportation, and utilities are also meaningfully different across BigLaw markets. The composite index captures this.
What we don't model:
Every tool that returns a "post-tax take-home" estimate uses the same progressive 2026 single-filer model for federal income tax, FICA, state tax, and applicable city tax.
Federal tax is calculated bracket by bracket after the 2026 single-filer standard deduction. FICA separately applies Social Security up to the 2026 wage base, Medicare, and Additional Medicare above its statutory threshold. Federal and payroll taxes do not vary by city, but they are not represented as one flat percentage.
Reviewed market rules show the combined state + city marginal band around first-year BigLaw pay. New York combines the 6.85% state band with NYC's 3.876% city band; California is in its 9.3% state band at this income, and Massachusetts remains 5% below its surtax threshold. WA, FL, TX, NV, and TN show 0% state income tax. For another U.S. city, the map applies a labeled state-rate approximation. Estimated take-home uses progressive federal and payroll calculations rather than multiplying pay by one flat national rate.
Sources
2026 state rates used for the labeled fallback estimate outside reviewed city models.
NYC publishes a separate progressive rate on top of NY state income tax. Top bracket ~3.876%.
What we don't model:
The Salary Calculator shows every BigLaw firm's first-year salary adjusted for cost of living in the city you'd actually work in. The math is straightforward:
adjustedSalary = nominalSalary × (100 / colIndex[city])
Each firm's starting_salary is displayed as estimated first-year cash compensation, combining the published 2026 first-year base scale with the expected first-year bonus where the market bonus convention is known. Firms that haven't published a 2026 scale fall back to their most recent known scale; firms with no usable compensation signal are excluded from the ranked list.
The salary calculator surfaces published bonus structures (market scale, off-market scales, and above-market bonus conventions) per firm, but treats bonus assumptions as estimates because bonuses vary year-to-year and can mislead when presented as guaranteed pay.
The Cost-of-Living Adjuster takes one offer in market A and shows what it's worth in market B. The math is the inverse of the salary calculator:
equivalent = nominal × (toIndex / fromIndex) takeHome = nominal × (1 - 0.28 - stateCityTax[market])
The "tax burden delta" surfaces the difference in state+city rate between the two markets - the federal piece cancels out. Take-home delta then surfaces what your bank account actually sees per market.
The Total Comp Comparison stacks up to four offers side-by-side. Total cash is the sum of:
COL-adjusted total cash uses the same formula as the salary calculator, applied to the summed total. Take-home is the same approximation as elsewhere.
What we don't model: retention bonuses, stock components (very rare in BigLaw), in-firm class-year jumps mid-year, or the tax timing on signing bonuses (which usually clear before December).
The Practice-Area Fit Quiz asks 12 questions on a 5-point Likert scale (Strongly disagree to Strongly agree, mapped to -2..+2). Each answer multiplies a per-practice-area weight (-3..+3); scores are summed across questions and normalized to a -100..+100 scale. The top three positive-score areas surface as "best fits."
The quiz covers 16 BigLaw practice areas: M&A / Corporate, Litigation, Capital Markets, Tax, Real Estate, Restructuring, IP, Employment, White Collar, Antitrust, Banking & Finance, Private Equity, ERISA & ExecComp, Healthcare, Environmental, and Pro Bono / Public Interest. Full per-question weights live in src/lib/practice-area-quiz.ts in our public repo.
Weights were seeded from BigLaw practice descriptions (Vault practice-area profiles + Chambers Associate Insider Reports + the firm-side recruiting collateral our partner firms publish), plus post-hoc legal-pedagogy literature on attorney work-style typologies. They're meant as a starting point for self-reflection, not a hiring recommendation.
What this quiz is NOT: predictive of where you'll actually be hired, comprehensive of every sub-specialty, or a substitute for talking to attorneys in the practice areas it surfaces.
BigLaw Bear surfaces three different ranking signals because they measure different things:
When you sort the firms directory by "Chambers Band 1" or filter by practice, we use the most recent published Chambers data for the practice + market combination. When the firm has multiple offices ranked differently for the same practice, we surface the highest band.
Sources
Long-form explainer with examples + edge cases.
Pre-screening (firm-side AI scoring of candidate applications) is regulated under the NYC Local Law 144 (AEDT) and Illinois AI Video Interview Act. We publish the bias-audit math, model card, and adverse-impact metrics on a separate page:
That page is our public AI transparency and bias-audit summary. It includes four-fifths-rule math, the prescreen rubric weights, and the human-review controls we maintain for firm-side AI outputs.
Every formula on this page is implemented in our public repository at github.com/tjtags/Common-counsel-v2. If you spot an error, file an issue or send a PR. Specific files worth reading:
src/lib/cost-of-living.ts - COL indices, tax rates, helpers.src/lib/practice-area-quiz.ts - quiz questions, per-PA weights, scoring.src/lib/aedt-audit-math.ts - four-fifths-rule + adverse impact math for the AEDT page.src/lib/nalp.ts - NALP offer-deadline computation (Aug 1 + 28 days, with weekend rolling).This page reflects the BigLaw Bear platform as of July 2026. Reviewed city cost indices are Q4 2025, state fallback price levels are BEA 2024 Regional Price Parities released in February 2026, tax rates are 2026 tax year, salary scales are 2026 first-year, and Chambers bands are 2026 cycle. We rebuild the underlying lookup tables once a year and after a material salary-scale announcement.
If you're reading this in a future year and the numbers feel stale, check the file timestamps in the public repo or open an issue - we ship updates as data lands, but the docs sometimes lag a release or two.