Siggity Second!
Booyah

I need a job!

I want to see a biglaw firm try to retain associates by forcing partners to be at least civil to associates (in addition to pay raises). I'm tired of being yelled at and generally treated like crap by partners who aren't even rainmakers.

Saggity Second!

I can confirm the rumors about A&B in DC. I was "talked to" yesterday about this point. The actual "loyalty bonus" is still TBD.

I hate associates who demand respect as if they are the goddamn queen of England. If you want civility so damn bad, get your own clients and start your own firm. In the meantime--while you are feasting on my clients--shut up and get to work. Oh, wait, you don't have clients and you don't know what you are doing. Nevermind.

When will this message sink in? Are you people that stupid?

If you think that the firm would fold without you, please leave. Associates are very, very easy to replace.

You guys really need to get imaginative when it comes to dealing with partners. Find out what they're allergic to and figure out a fun way to make them ingest it, wear it, breathe it, whatever. Or make their personal lives hell by setting them up to make their wife think they are cheating (drop things in their pockets, like earrings, spill perfume on them, etc.). You also need to make sure they have a suspicion it's you too. You guys could really make this fun, if you wanted too. Had an annoying boss who was very allergic to poison ivy, took a vine (not the leaves) and put a few drops in his workout shirt. He knew it was me but couldn't prove it. Anyway, have fun with it.

You guys really need to get imaginative when it comes to dealing with partners. Find out what they're allergic to and figure out a fun way to make them ingest it, wear it, breathe it, whatever. Or make their personal lives hell by setting them up to make their wife think they are cheating (drop things in their pockets, like earrings, spill perfume on them, etc.). You also need to make sure they have a suspicion it's you too. You guys could really make this fun, if you wanted too. Had an annoying boss who was very allergic to poison ivy, took a vine (not the leaves) and put a few drops in his workout shirt. He knew it was me but couldn't prove it. Anyway, have fun with it.

Yes I agree- As an example, I filed a fake mortgage in the amount of 2 million against a partners house- wait until he goes to refinance that monstrosity (HAAAA)

I saw Ben Stein the other day in DC. Therefore, I'm awesome.

Allergic to poison ivy, eh? Boy, I never would have thought of that.

1:25....L2L...you and I both!

1:38

Yep. You're a douche. Try earning big paychecks without us easily-replaceable associates. Hmmm, looks like you need to bottom feed too, you sickfck

While it is yet to be determined what the loyalty bonus as A&B will be, I think it could work if the partners really loosen the purse strings. If they make it large enough, people will stay.

Imagine you are a third year associate, you have now become valuable (finally) and you now have options to move to other shops (finally). If the firm approached you and offered a $150k bonus if you would commit to three more years, I bet most would stay if they weren't just completely miserable. It would be worth it to the firm as well. Firms are always bitching about how turnover costs them a fortune and so on.

Now if they offer $25k, then people should join the exodus because the firm is cheap and doomed.

Speaking as an associate at a firm that has had every single mangagement consultant come in and survey my ass twice a day for the last four years, let me say this will be a total waste of time and money. They'd be better off taking the money they are spending and distributing it to the seniors.

Re: "which they must pay back if they leave before 1/2009." How is this enforced exacty if the associate's last paycheck is less than the bonus? Would a law firm really sue an associate that "forgot" to pay it back on their way out?

1:38 is hilarious. Yes, honey, I'm sure you are the LONE brilliant partner who doesn't need associates and can replace them with other quality lawyers so easily that you're not having to scramble and compete with other top firms that pay better than you and at least pretend not to hate their associates. I mean, what associate wouldn't want to work with a doll like you??

Good for you, figuring out the dynamics of the legal world better than firms raking in hundreds of millions in profits every year.

1:38

Hey, how do you think that money comes in? Sure, the partner might have brought in the work, but if the work doesn't get done correctly, on time and at the right price, it's your ass. So, feed off my labor, but realize that you actually do need me. Because if I walked out right now, I could find another job, but you'd have some serious explaining to do to your clients.

When you have delegated essentially all responsibility and are aware of only about 30% of what is going on with your clients to your associates, and one of them walks, you'll bet that you'd been a little more civil. Because the client will still hold you responsible for getting their work done, even though your firm couldn't scramble quickly enough to stop the sh!tstorm.

Of course, if most of your deals are one-off's, and associates don't have to know anything about the client, fine, be an a-hole. But the best senior associates generally find a way to avoid working with a-holes, so you're stuck training junior attorneys over and over.

But whatever, I smell a service partner.

My firm in Atlanta just announced a retention program. They said they would let us all keep our jobs if we took a $15K pay cut and billed 250 more hours. Sweet.

2:09--So what do you think of Michael Bolton? Isn't he great? Which is your favorite album (I mean, if you just had to choose, which I know is hard)?

I hate associates who demand respect as if they are the goddamn queen of England. If you want civility so damn bad, get your own clients and start your own firm.

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Yeah, because (a) giving basic respect is so hard in the first place, and (b) if you "have clients" you are absolved of any responsibility to act with basic human decency.

Of course, I can just as easily disregard social norms and beat the ever loving shit out of you just before I leave the firm. You'd still have your clients. You'd just need new teeth.

The idea that a firm -- here, A&B D.C. -- has to front pay associates with a binding term contract to keep them to stay put is both hillarious and sad. Hey A&B D.C., here's an idea -- provide your associates with interesting work, top-notch compensation now, and real opportunity for advancement and maybe they will stay put without your bribe.

2:17 is dead-on. Retention bonus = bribe to work at a shitty firm with deep-seated problems managment refuses to address

K&S Atlanta:

First year pay as % of salary in DC, NY, west coast = 90.6%.

8th year pay as % of salary in DC, NY, west coast = 66%.

Senior associate bonuses? Oh hell no.

Does McD's need its burger-flippers? Yes. Does it cut them in on the profits? No.

P.S. Your rage makes me happy. NOW GET BACK TO FLIPPING MY BURGERS!

2:25:

But isn't K&S Atlanta's bonus program really, really generous?

I mean, they don't fire you if you come in over 2200, right?

Has K&S announced its new salary structure in Atlanta yet? Is it as lame as the structure that A&B announced -- which did not even give senior associates as much of a raise as 1st year associates.

No announcement.

They will inevitably do what A&B did and they will look stupid for taking 5 months to say "us too".

We'll see. Sutherland did not simply follow A&B, so not entirely clear that is what K&S will do.

Hey 2:29, get back to tossing my salad.

I'll say it again, just for redundancy...A&B mid/senior associates in Atlanta are still fuming mad over the "revised" compensation scale. Ite raises were seen at complete SH*T.

lol@2:59

sutherland has the "best" plan in atlanta assuming dicking around on law blogs counts towards nonbillables...

3:25 -- is that 2400 nonbillable requirement really enforced?

i don't think anybody knew about although apparently it's always been there. we'll see how "real" it is come next year. would 2300 get you most of the deferred?

Has K&S announced its new salary structure in Atlanta yet?

=======================

Nope. The DC and Houston raises were a priority. Atlanta is more like a "we'll get to this eventually" sort of thing.

A&B's raises were seen as complete shit because they are complete shit. An insult to every senior associate they have, and a knife in the back to every Atlanta associate. I hope their fucking building collapses, and only the associates escape alive.

Wow, 3:42, tell us what you really think.

Amen 3:42.

Biglaw and loving it: I love it when you talk dirty to me baby. I can has documents to review for you?

I would think A&B associates would be happy to have jobs. There really are not 't many better firms in the ATL. Where would they go, Powell Goldstein?

Let me repeat for those of you too slow to get it----you are "the help." You will get paid only the bare minimum. If you don't like it, leave. Acting up like a 3 year old doesn't make the situation any better.

Yeah, Atlanta sucks. Oh wait, but the weather is still warm and sunny there. And everyone can buy big houses. And nice cars. Why exactly am I not working there?

4:23

Keep it coming, you big mean guy you!

You are not working in Atlanta because you'd make over $500K less than someone in, oh,,,, say Houston, Texas over a 7-year stint; the only "big house" you could afford would be in the suburbs which, with traffic, is about an hour away from your office (although that gives you more ample opportunity to enjoy your "nice car" as you sit in traffic each day); you'd bill more hours than your Texas comrades and as a 5th-year associate in Atlanta you weould get paid less than a Houston 1st-year for doing so.

A+B loyalty bonuses are a further sign that A+B cares more about its field offices than the mothership. They are paid less than Charlotte associates, have to put up with more admin responsibilities/committees and political crapola, and shouldn't expect "loyalty" bonuses if a practice group moves to another firm. This old firm ain't what it used to be...

10:58, I worked in A&B's DC office and if the firm cares more about its satellite offices than the mothership, it must be truly miserable where you are! I can't speak for the other offices, but the DC office had plenty of "political crapola" (for example, the type of prima donna as its managing partner who storms off to another firm in a huff when he doesn't get his way) and was not a fun place to work for many associates. Although, I certainly don't dispute your claims that the firm sucks or that it's not fun to work at A&B Atlanta.

Having worked in A&B's highly disfunctional NY office, and witnessed the steady stream of departures, voluntary and otherwise, I find the assertion laughable that A&B favors its satellite offices. Raleigh is a shell of its former self, NY is a recruiter's cash cow (constantly churning with laterals to replace the fleeing associates who realize they have no future there), Washington's big wigs are deserting . . . Maybe A&B can pin its hopes on its new Dallas office acquisition. But if it botches that acquisition as badly as it did NY, perhaps it should just resign itself to remaining the undistinguished, regional firm that it really is.

A+B's Charlotte's problem is that the partner's only talk a good game. I found very little support for associates who do good work and who clients like, but aren't the partners' "pets".

10:13 is right -- A&B will only succeed in breaking into the Dallas market if it throws its old tactics out the window. It will be just as hard to try to compete with firms like V&E and Baker Botts in the "Texas network" as it was to to turn Walter Conston into a competitor with big NY firms. There are lots of other "carpetbagger" firms in Dallas that have a more established national presence. Plus, A&B doesn't seem to understand that it can't acquire an existing practice and shove its firm culture (lovely as it is) and its "this is the way we've always done it" attitude down everyone's throat. The firm needs to learn to adjust to individual markets, rather than being so hung up on its status as an Atlanta superpower. The average non-Atlantan doesn't know or care about A&B (no offense A&B'ers), yet that seems to be a major news flash to the power players in Atlanta.

Is it me, or does 1:38 sound like the kind of partner whose parents were "the help" and hence the big chip on her shoulder? In my experience, these types of partners are also treated like "the help" by other partners...

Too bad, I she can enjoy her success despite the lack of breeding...

Is it me, or does 1:38 sound like the kind of partner whose parents were "the help" and hence the big chip on her shoulder? In my experience, these types of partners are also treated like "the help" by other partners...

Too bad, I hope she can enjoy her success despite the lack of breeding...

It's you