I am an Accenture consultant working for a client who has offered me the opportunity to contract for them directly.I know there are advantages and disadvantages to this; however I am creating this post to understand the potential legal implications of my contract, or current Accenture/Client contract?Some people have told me that because of my junior level (C2) I won’t be a target for either contract to be challenged by Accenture.Any experience or feedback people can share on this would be much appreciated!

well, what EXACTLY does your contract say?

I've known people who've done it, ACN aren't going to sue you or your client over it, as long as you don't take Accenture assets (including deliverables, files, methodology, etc) with you.However I also know people who've received such offers, and spoken to ACN HR "I've been offered this, I really prefer working at ACN, but the compensation that they are offering is making it a tough decision to stay," and found themselves getting a raise. How long is the contract that the client is offering you for? Don't ditch your ACN job for a role that pays well but won't last, or one which won't let you grow or develop your career in the future. You need to be careful that by jumping ship you don't end up stagnating and doing the same work for years on end. Also remember that pay rises at ACN for promotion / progression are typically quite good (this year excepted), so whilst the headline rate at your client may be higher... it may not grow very fast thereafter.

I would suspect that unless you are the sole employee on the contact, we would have a stipulation in our contract with the client that no employee of Accenture would be "poached" directly. Furthermore there is absolutely a clause in your own contact which states you are forbidden to work for a client within a certain period of time. If you are a SME and doing well in Accenture, then I would say they would certainly challenge this because it would create an unwanted precedent if they allow you to do it and may damage the client relationship.This is, however, assuming your role is the same. If your role is completely different - i.e. you are not providing the same services we were providing, then they would not challenge this.