Pros
When BAH was privately held, the reputation was valid. We were an ethical company that provided a good return on the clients' investments in us. The firm supported the employees with great benefits (ECAP) and kept people on when a contract ended or a position was de-scoped while they (both the employee and the firm) looked for another contract. I felt valued and well compensated.
Cons
That all changed when the Carlyle Group bought out the private side. After a couple of years, the BAH leadership took the firm public. And everything went downhill from there. It was clear that the shareholders were the most important part of the equation. People were no longer kept on whilst looking for another contract, wages began to freeze, raises (if you were lucky enough to get one) went from 6% (my average) to 1% within a year (and I had the best performance review I'd ever had!). The quality of people hired was far below what it had been due to the lower salary they began offering. Many of the best leaders left the firm or were let go after years of employment. Benefits were cut drastically. The ECAP became a 401K with standard matching. With ECAP, the firm contributed an average of 10% of my salary while I never contributed a dime. With the 401K, I was required to contribute and with the matching, the total was far less than the ECAP. Even though the compensation and benefits decreased, the expectations of the firm remained the same: MUST work on proposals (above your billable hours), the assessment process ("revised" almost annually to "improve" the process) remained time consuming and ridiculous (even though one can only record 8 hours for the effort), and the ethics which had been so valued began to erode. I personally brought an ethics violation to my management, it was investigated, and even though all agreed it was a serious violation (on top of other well documented performance issues), the firm decided to retain the employee because "we need the billable hours he/she brings in".