Vault’s Verdict

Cornerstone Research employees are quick to praise the “familial” culture of the firm. The highly collaborative and collegial environment plays an invaluable role in the generally strong quality of life, and an abundance of peer and supervisory support empower entry-level analysts to seize control of their career paths and pursue numerous professional development opportunities.

This consultancy firmly operates within the niche of economic consulting. While some express concern that this may limit potential exit opportunities, most argue that if you ARE interested in this sector, there is no better firm to build your career than Cornerstone Research.

Employee Reviews

Firm Culture

• “Challenging job with amazing firm culture and competitive compensation.”
• “Focus on quality and complexity of analyses. Work is very different from most consulting firms for the makeup of the workforce, many of whom are PhDs or Masters who specialize in economics, finance, or accounting topics. As a result, the analyses we do are often complex and interesting.”
• “I’ve worked for Cornerstone for more than 20 years and have heard consistently that analysts felt so lucky to have launched their professional lives here. Even if you don’t plan to stay in the long term, our former employees go on to be very successful and we are very proud of them.”
• “The firm values and rewards good work, but it is a high-pressure job in general with high working hour requirements.”
• “You’ll find that econ consulting firms are to some extent very similar: we do similar work since we’re competing for the same pitches, we hire from the same pools, we compete for some of the same expert witnesses, etc. But on the margin, I think Cornerstone is a little better compensated, has a little better of a firm culture, and has a more interesting roster of experts to work with. I think it’s really the best place to be starting a career in the field.”

Quality of Life

• “Average hours are manageable; however, there can be large variance around the average hours for a given week.”
• “Certain employees tend to work a lot more than others. Once you are viewed as a worker capable of handling a high workload it can be hard to get back to a more normal schedule. The firm tries to compensate workers in this situation, but it doesn’t always make up for it. That said, overall work/life balance is better than most firms in the industry.”
• “Hours are obviously variable, but the bad weeks, while few and far between, are bad. Most weeks are good though, definitely better than other consulting friends I have.”<
• “The firm tries its best to encourage the employees to maintain a good work-life balance, yet the demanding case cycles may induce volatile hours. Weekends are generally protected unless the case reaches its closing two weeks.”
• “We do work over 40 hours many weeks out of the year and sometimes weekends, but everyone really respects out of office time and we are not required to travel.”

Career Development

• “Analyst progression is very clear cut and well structured. Analysts are well compensated to stay for around four years. High achieving analysts can be sponsored for grad school and return as associates or in some cases be directly promoted. Downside is that promotions at the analyst level are based on tenure, but you get a significant pay bump each year for these promotions.”
• “Extensive formal and informal training and a flat team structure allows for rapid advancement in responsibilities for high performing individuals.”
• “Firm is dedicated to your professional development and will proactively present opportunities for you to develop your skills.”
• “Strong and transparent promotion processes and extensive informal training on the job are the greatest aspects related to career development.”
• “There are great paths to promotion within the firm. Would be much harder if you wanted to come into the firm from outside, even with relevant experience, unless you had a Ph.D. or other advanced degree. It could be discouraging for a new MSc grad to be starting as an analyst with a bunch of recent college grads.”

Compensation

• “A year ago, the firm restructured compensation to more heavily on base salary and less on performance bonuses, while overall increasing total comp. This seems to have been very popular with employees.”
• “Everyone at each level is paid equally due to our one-firm policy and that makes pay not tied to any diversity factors which prevents inequality. I like our on-site gym and free food. It would be nice to get paid more for overtime.”
• “Obviously I would always be happy to have greater pay, but I am satisfied and feel that my compensation is at least fair. This year there was no firm-wide inflation adjustment, which was a bummer, but I believe they do that every three years, and last year they broke that cycle when they saw how high inflation was, so they are at least mindful of recent high rates (though we may disagree on the real inflation rate this past year).”
• “Salary progression includes a bump in pay every year. You get the largest pay bump at the start of your third year, yearly salary pay bumps are anywhere from 10%–30%. You can get reimbursed for $83 a month on health-related expenses. Lots of transportation discounts, they subsidize 60% of transport for public transport or parking.”
• “The best part is that my firm provides the best compensation within the industry. However, it could improve on the competitiveness relative to academia given the rising starting salary from research schools.”

Diversity

• “Cornerstone has always been a diverse firm (two of three founders were women). Promotions and compensations are blind to gender, ethnicity, LGBTQ+ criteria. We have very active DE&I committees and the firm is always open to more.”
• “Emphasizes schools from applicants too greatly. Ivies and other very-top schools are highlighted separately which leads to less diversity due to systemic issues in those schools and before that. Has outreach efforts for recruiting, but should really step up by not being so focused on target applicants in order to better evaluate outreach applicants as well.”
• “From my (limited) perspective, I believe all individuals from historically underprivileged populations have access to equal opportunities regarding work and promotion.”
• “The firm is investing more resources into DE&I efforts, which are still a work-in-progress. DE&I efforts should be formally factored into compensation decisions.”
• “Very few Black and Latino consultants at the firm and in higher level positions – it’s rare to see myself represented as a Latina in the company. Most Latinos are white at this company which makes it hard to relate and most are at higher level position than me.”

Business Outlook

• “Because a large portion of the firm’s client revenue come from financial institutions, our business can take sudden turns (upward and downward) based on market events (great recession, SVB failure, crypto activity).”
• “Cornerstone is a market leader for pay and business, especially with regard to securities litigation. The work is definitely cutting edge, and analysts put a lot of effort into product quality.”
• “Cornerstone Research is the top firm in this sector, and it continues to bring in the most interesting cases for me to work on.”
• “The competition is always going to be there, but firm is doing great with the business.”
• “Very strong brand and good strategic planning. The firm seems to have bet on the right business opportunities and achieved very strong growth as a result.”

Hiring Process

• “A couple of initial screens and then a full day of in-person interviews with multiple consultants. Seeking extremely qualified candidates with a demonstrated track record of academic success in fields related to our economic consulting work.”
• “First round: 2 case interviews, 30 minutes each. Second round: 3 case interviews, one qualitative interview. Heard back after first round in a week and heard back again four days after the Superday.”
• “Keen interest in problem-solving and specifics of our company noted in a cover letter --many applicants seem to think we are management consulting and not economic consultants mainly working on cases for litigation.”
• “The interview process was intense, but fair. I believe the firm is seeking motivated candidates, with solid analytical backgrounds.”
• “We try to be very responsive to candidates and make decisions quickly.”

Interview Process

• “All of our interviews take the form of a modified case that we have worked on in the past. So we ask candidates, with some guidance/help, to sketch out how we would go about answering the kind of questions we would expect to impact a report that we submit to court. We completely eschew the ‘brainteaser’ style questions associated with management consulting, and place less emphasis on behavioral aspects than other firms.
• “Case interviews are more of a conversation for us, walking through a previously completed case that has been anonymized.”
• “Legal case related, e.g., how would you think about price fixing allegations in a market with slightly differentiated products?”
• “There are several types of interviews. Case questions include a description of case background and critical issues and then a discussion of what are the right questions and analyses to pursue with data available. The goal is to assess the candidate’s ability to process information quickly, apply the relevant technical skills, and hone in on the most important issues.”
• “Why Cornerstone Research? Why economic consulting? Biggest challenge you confronted? And mock cases relate to our cases.”