Although this is really by way of an update to the immediately preceding post, I think it’s worthy of standing on its own because, while it raises essentially the same issue, it approaches it from a sufficiently different perspective that it deserves its own gravity.
A reader who requests anonymity (a request,
by the way, that I will universally honor
assuming I post the material at all) writes
(emphasis supplied):
"Speaking as a junior associate
at a mid-sized firm (but with many friends
at much larger firms), I think there’s another
dimension to the issue of associate work-life
balance and long-term (or even medium-term)
retention that needs to be addressed in order
to gain a more complete understanding of
how young associate view these issues. Of
course many of us are put off by the hours
firms expect from us and the difficulty of
making partner, but there’s
also a strong sense, at least among young
associates I know, that, all else aside,
making partner simply isn’t worth it. It’s not that my generation
is opposed to careers in private practice,
it’s that we are very much aware of the fact
that partners these days tend to work even
longer hours than the already hard-working
associates."Fighting for partnership might be worth
it to us if high hours expectations were
merely a hazing process through which associates
must pass to become a partner (i.e., something akin a medical
residency). It also might be worth sticking around to compete in a
partnership tournament with long odds if we viewed the brass ring as a
prize worth fighting hard for. The problem is that most of us simply
don’t view BigLaw partnership as worth the price. Sure,
it would be nice to make $1 million a year (or more), but if that means
getting divorced, never seeing our children, and having no life outside
of work, BigLaw won’t find many lawyers from my generation interested in
fighting for such a “prize.” If all we cared about was making as much
money as possible, we would have gone into investment banking."That said, will firms still be able to find some people willing to
pursue partnership under the current model of working as hard as
possible to make profits as high as possible? Of course. But they
should stop and think about whether those who choose to compete in the
tournament (and, therefore, those who ultimately make partner) are
really the best of the best, or if they’re simply competent masochists
willing to put aside their personal lives. Maybe this is exactly what
BigLaw wants, because these are precisely the people who will bill the
most hours and raise profits ever higher and higher. The clients,
however, will eventually catch on and realize that these are not the
lawyers they want as partners. Sophisticated corporate clients will
figure out not only that the partners of 15 years from now are not
necessarily the most talented lawyers capable of producing the highest
quality legal work, but also that they are the types of partners most
eager to perform unnecessary work for the sake of billing the extra
hundred or thousand hours."So what can firms do? Create a place for lawyers who want long-term
careers in private practice with reasonable hours – and don’t relegate
them to second-class “of counsel” or “service partner” status within
the firm, unless they do not work long enough or flexible enough hours
to be responsive to clients when necessary. This will require a
reduction in profits per partner, but that’s a misleading measure of
firms’ real profitability that is largely responsible for getting
firms into the mess they’re in now. Partners who work insane hours
should be paid more if their contribution to the bottom line warrants
higher pay. That’s fine – most people my age who
I know would much prefer to make $500,000 and have a life than to make
$1.2 million and live at the office. Find a way to make this a real option, and not
only will firms retain more associates and clients see a higher
quality of legal work, but BigLaw will also go a long way towards
addressing the gender gap among partners."
Our correspondent clearly has a point that
the "tournament" for partnership resembles,
as some have said, "a pie-eating contest
where the prize is more pie," and that
partners have never worked as hard as they
do today—by
most measures, every bit as hard as stand-out
associates.
I also know, from my own experience as an
associate at two BigLaw New York firms, that
not all partners served as, shall we say,
estimable role models one desperately aspired
to emulate. I presume law is scarcely
alone in this suffering from this reality.
But the even more serious question our friend
poses for the profession is the one about
the quality of lawyers who self-select to
remain in, and ultimately win, the partnership
tournament. Are they, as he colorfully
puts it, "simply competent masochists?" How
would an Elihu Root, a John J. McCloy, or
a Lloyd Cutler fare in today’s tournament
environment?
Are we, in other words, knee-capping our
future statesmen (and -women) of the bar
in their youth? Or is the passion that
the Roots, McCloys, and Cutlers of the world
bring to the profession oblivious to the
clock, and is our friend’s lament about "insane
hours" utterly beside the point to the pillars
of the profession?
