Featured Job Survey Results: Partnership Prospects
So far this month, over 1,500 of you have voted on who should receive two significant accolades.
Our Second Favorite Blog Of The Year After ATL survey, sponsored by ATL and Lateral Link, is still dominated by the Wall Street Journal. But the Volokh Conspiracy, Patently-O, and SCOTUSblog are putting up a fight, write-in candidate taxgirl is creeping up on write-in candidate TaxProf Blog, and added-because-we-love-him candidate ProfessorBainbridge.com is just crushing Likelihood of Confusion (whom we also love).
Meanwhile, nominations for ATL Lawyer of the Year have been dominated by Loyola 2L, Aaron Charney, and Barack Obama (which is probably the only time you'll see those folks on the same list). Hillary Clinton -- who's already Legal Diva of the Year, as far as we're concerned -- is close on Barack's heels, and there are a smattering of nods for others.
While both of those surveys remain open, today we reveal results from last month's ATL / Lateral Link survey about your potential prize: Will you make partner?
More than 1,600 of you responded to last month's survey, and, generally speaking, you're a pessimistic bunch. Only about 14% of you thought that you would definitely make partner at your current firm, with another 13.6% holding tentatively positive expectations. About 7% of respondents thought that they would make partner somewhere, but not at their current firms. The remaining two thirds of you either don't think you'll make partner, just don't know, or simply don't care. The most junior associates were the least likely to believe they'll make partner.
The good news is, those of you who don't make partner might still have jobs at the end of the day. Roughly 43% of you responded that your firms are not "up or out." Thirty percent, however, believe the axe will fall if they don't make partner. The rest of you simply don't know.
(21) Comments
Lat,
I have an idea for one of your poll questions:
When did ATL become a waste of time:
- when Lat became a shameless ho for Lat-eral Link
- when Lat stopped posting anything interesting and starting posting random dull, mostly gay-oriented thoughts
- when Frat Stud stopped posting about guys in his high school
- when SLJ stopped posting about snakes on various things
- when WGWAG stopped posting about white guys with asian girls
- other _____________.
... btw, FIRST! Eat it.
Not in this sucky economy
Why is making partner an economic decision? At most places, it's actually cheaper for the firm to compensate a partner than a senior associate (for whom they pay health, etc.). When firms say they only take a limited number of partners for "economic" reasons, isn't that really a pretext for some other reason?
$800k > $450k + shitty benefits
I work at a firm where there is a two tier system. Really, how much more does an income partner make over a senior associate? I'm guessing "not much."
This is true. Brand-new non-equity partners can make less, but making everyone non-equity sort of defeats the purpose. You want that position to have some promise of future riches, or it doesn't serve its purpose, i.e., to defer making good people partner a few more years to get a bit more money out of them while giving them something that keeps them from leaving your firm. If making non-equity partner becomes a non-event, then you aren't able to keep people merely by giving them "partner" status.
I don't know, 6:35. Kirkland sure likes passing out the title of "partner" like it's free.
Of course that only works if other firms don't follow suit, so K&E's 6th years feel extra prestigious. Otherwise we may as well call non-equity partners 8th years (or whatever) since they're on the same treadmill.
Loyola 2L should be the one to get the nomination. he needs the job a lot more than Clinton, Hussein, McCain, or Romeny
It's White GIRLS With Asian GUYS, people. It always was. It always will be.
Get it right.
At my firm only 10% of associates ever make partner. And, it's up or out. But for those 8-9 years it still pays better than any alternative law job I can think of.
So Lat, why not do a thread on what lawyers can do if they don't make partner, besides go in-house or become a professor. 90% of us could use some suggestions. . . .
Good idea 4:37. Particularly litigators -- I don't know of too many who got passed up that ended up doing anything impressive.
I'd also love to know what, if anything, up or out firms say to associates about partnership - are they all just secretive, non-committal a-holes who tell everyone "we can talk about that down the road" just to string you along until you're unemployable anywhere else?
Guys at my high school made partner all the time. It was no big deal.
How about identifying which firms either are or are not up or out?
6:51 -- Except non-equity partners at Kirkland get much bigger bonuses than 7th or 8th year associates at other top firms.
Why is everyone so worried about "up or out." If you are "out" at a decent firm such as Skadden, for example, and fail to make partnership after your 9th year, I'm sure you can find a good job somewhere else. You have a good shot at being hired as an equity partner at a firm outside the Vault 40.
I always thought it was pretty hard to make partner somewhere else once your firm passes you up unless you have a portable book of business or some valuable niche skill (in which case your own firm probably would have kept you). I'm not saying if you're out you'll be homeless, but from what I've seen lately it can be tough out there.
Also - I'd think making partner anywhere in the next couple of years will be especially difficult if firms are suffering from a slowdown -- no one's going to want to share the pot.
At Jones Day, it isn't easy to make partner, but once you do, you are not rewarded in terms of income. It is kind of embarassing compared to what your law school buddies are making. It is basically like the common scale plus 20k (...keep in mind though, that the "common scale" is normally and 8 year scale, and Jones Day p'ship is a 10 year minimum, so the common 160k associate payment school is compressed into a 10 year period)...but that said, its the common $160k scale, plus about 20k. And you get to share in the profits of the firm, which for junior (in senority) will work out to be about 5% of your pay.
In any event, those are the facts for Jones Day. It is up to you whether it is worth working as an associate at a firm with the (small) chance at making partner, when you could work elsewhere and take home a bonus and larger pay before seeing if you make it. Jones Day = chumps.
7:48 - they probably don't want to share the money either.
12:40 AM -- Your post is a marvel of incoherence.
2:29 - that's because he/she works at JD.
Law firm LIFE is up-or-out, regardless of firm policy. Staying at a firm as a 9+ year associate is like going over to her house on a Friday night after you break up. It ain't happening, so what's the point? Move on with your life.