Vault’s Verdict

Brattle consultants applaud the firm’s commitment to career development, especially in the first few years on the job. While advancing past certain levels of the organization can be challenging, every new employee receives a formally assigned mentor and follows a standard promotion path during their first three years at the firm, with bonuses rewarding quality of work in addition to billable hours. 

Insiders also highlight the firm’s collegial, warm culture and the work-life balance it provides. They enjoy a strong hybrid and flexible work policy, respect for their vacation time, and emphasis on long-term stability. While hours can get long—it’s the nature of economic consulting—leadership usually acknowledges exceptional individual efforts and plans downtime for staff to recover. 

Last, Brattle consultants point to recent compensation changes as a sign of its competitiveness as an employer. In addition to a robust benefits package, the firm recently provided raises to its entire staff of analysts to bring them to the market rate, a change that many insiders lauded in their comments.

Firm Culture

“Brattle is a human capital accelerator, as the business model necessitates investment by senior people in junior people. The firm is intergenerational, so development and mentorship are embedded in the culture.”

“Compared to other consulting firms, we put more emphasis on maintaining a good work-life balance and not working out. Brattle doesn’t have a culture of judging people based on their hours worked.”

“I really appreciate how upfront the firm is with the fact that they seek long-term stability, rather than profit maximization. It seems like we are much better off in terms of quality of life than our peers for that reason.”

“The people here are really nice. The competition is within yourself, not against each other.”

Quality of Life

“My colleagues at Brattle, more than other firms I have worked in, respect people's time away from the office and will do everything they can to allow team members to have a true vacation or other time away from the office without needing to work.”

“The firm really emphasizes the importance of pursuing interests outside of work hours. Of course, there are times when the job is demanding and deadlines must be met, but it does not feel like that consistently and there is ample opportunity to enjoy life outside of the office.”

“There are opportunities to travel, but it is rarely mandatory. The firm also has a flexible hybrid work schedule. Working from home virtually always is an option when you need it.”

“While consulting by nature can demand working long hours outside a typical business day, the best part of Brattle is that the firm encourages taking time off and builds in low utilization periods between projects.”

Career Development

“Brattle is very conscientious about developing the next generation of leaders from within. From day one, I have had multiple senior partners invested in my development and actively creating both internal and external opportunities for me.

“Brattle is very good at flexibility and choice of practice area. It is incredibly easy to switch areas and work on projects that align with your interests and long-term goals. At the entry level, everyone is promoted at lockstep for the first three years, which takes pressure off promotions and lends uniformity to the training and mentoring process both as a trainee and trainer.”

“The firm prides itself on being intergenerational, hiring excellent staff and grooming them to become future partners through formal and informal mentoring. Those who find themselves mismatched are encouraged to change mentors (I did so twice).”

“Brattle cares about the professional development of its consultants and corporate service staff alike. The firm takes its formal review cycles seriously and encourages analysts to identify their goals each year and share them with their project managers.”

Compensation

“Principal compensation is a completely transparent formula. Meanwhile, staff at lower levels are paid a combination of base salary and bonus, where the bonus has a utilization component and a bonus component.”

“The firm has recently raised consulting salaries to be closer to the market average, which greatly improved our overall outlook on compensation. Between our base salary and expected bonus each year, the compensation is very good.”

“The best part about Brattle’s compensation are the benefits. We have a very flexible hybrid work schedule that allows us to travel for leisure fairly easily. We also have a very comprehensive health insurance plan, plus decent commuter and wellness benefits.”

“I’m very happy with the overall compensation. Given the hours we work, our hourly wage is probably high for the industry.”

Community Engagement/DEI

“The firm truly cares about DEI, but often runs into walls on the recruiting side with a not-very-diverse applicant pool. However, once diverse talent gets to Brattle, the firm lives up to the ideals of equity and inclusion.”

“I feel respected as a woman in the workplace and have benefitted from Brattle’s women’s networking group. However, while we have good diversity at entry-level positions, most principal-level positions are not diverse.”

“The firm offers many wellness-related resources, including nutrition, mental health counselling, lifestyle counselling, and so on.”

“Brattle provides reimbursement for a substantial amount of health and wellness activities. This includes not just gym memberships, but other activities beyond exercise, like art classes. The firm cares deeply about our wellness.”

Business Outlook

“Brattle has developed and adapted to a strong niche in the economic consulting industry and is investing in future growth opportunities. Also, our new leadership has successfully improved employee morale over the last year after executive-level turnover and layoffs in the previous year.”

“Recent pay raises and profit sharing show the firm is profitable and stable. I think we are solidly footed and am confident in our ability to pick up new and interesting cases.”

“Brattle has a stellar reputation in the energy industry, both for expertise and for being very easy to work with. There is no better place to work on clean energy policy and economics.”

“We are somewhat vulnerable to political shifts in regulatory and economic policy, so we can see gains or losses with changing presidential administrations.”

Hiring Process

“The interview process consists of two rounds. The first is a preliminary scan of your background and skills, and the other is a ‘super day’ that lasts about five hours. It was really nice that the process was not drawn out with a bunch of interviews that needed to be scheduled individually.”

“The ideal PhD candidate is a sharp, detail-oriented, empirically minded researcher. We prize collegiality and respect for colleagues, the ability to admit when you do not know anything, and the ability to take feedback.”

“We are a very numerically oriented firm, seeking people who enjoy rigorous mathematical, statistical and economic analysis, but who are also good communicators about complex subjects. We are also seeking people who are interested in the work as much or more than their salaries.”

“Brattle is great at responding to candidates in a timely manner.”

Interview Questions

“Case study interviews start with a legal question, then ask you to discuss how you would answer the question, describe the data you would need to answer it, and then the model you would need to run. Be prepared to defend the assumptions you make in that process.”

“We try to evaluate candidates on their ability to work constructively with others by asking about other teams they’ve worked on and how they collaborated with their team when something went wrong.”

“The interview questions here are designed to get to know you as a person and problem solver. They are generally exploratory and conceptual, not skills based.”

“Do you prefer to think about, or address, problems in numerical terms or more qualitative terms? Please give examples of where and why this preference has worked for you in the past.”

Uppers

“Complex problem solving in litigation at the highest level, related to the most important issues.”

“The people I work with are incredibly intelligent, kind, and want to support one another to grow.”

“I like to work on a variety of cases, with clients ranging from the government to a mattress company. I get to work on my programming skills while learning something new every day.”

“Our firm has abundant growth and development opportunities, plus an optimal size that allows for both a sense of community and the ability to make meaningful contributions.”

Downers

“While the total expected hours are quite manageable, the workload from week to week is very irregular. Some weeks you barely have work and others you’re on the clock for more than 60 hours.”

“The compensation is lower than some other firms, though it recently improved.”

“Limited advancement past the analyst level.”

“We are at the mercy of clients and the courts with respect to deadlines.”