Pros
These are the things NERA has going for it: 1) Brand Name: While Economic Consulting is very much a niche field, NERA still has a very respectable name in the industry. 2) Compensation and Work Life Balance: NERA pays a competitive base salary for a starting job out of college when compared to other consulting firms. I have heard from friends who work at other consulting firms that C.R. and A.G. pay better than NERA but constantly require longer hours at work. I will say that the work-life balance at NERA (apart from certain groups within the company who always work long hours) is excellent considering it is a consulting job. 3) For the most part you work with smart, interesting people and are doing interesting work.
Cons
Here are some of the issues with NERA in my opinion: 1) Group Structure: NERA operates in a fixed group model where researchers/analysts are assigned to a particular group (typically headed by a Senior Vice President or Vice President with one or more mid level managers and a few researchers). An employee has very limited say in which group they get placed in and the NERA experience varies drastically from group to group. You can easily get stuck working with a poor boss and have no avenue to change that. 2) Cohesion: The groups of NERA operate almost too independently and there is very limited interaction between groups. This is more of a problem if you work in a small group. 3) Too Academic: The firm in general has a more academic than business feel about it. This is a byproduct of a upper level management that is littered with PhD's.