Bruce Stachenfeld
After about 50 years of associates trying to “make partner” in big law firms, this is still a mystery. I will do my best to unlock it.
I do note that my law firm, Duval & Stachenfeld, is a bad example for this article, because my firm makes partners based on whether associates are qualified without looking at profits-per-partner metrics (see articles I wrote a year or so ago).
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However, I spent many years trying – and failing – to make partner at major law firms, which gave me a good perspective I think. Full disclosure: I was never able to make partner at the major law firms I worked at, so I started my own law firm.
Let me do my best anyway and start with some background thoughts:
First – most law firms don’t have a central brain on this issue. It is not one person sitting there making a decision. It is a group of partners getting in a room and arguing about stuff until a decision is reached. Although you may have a suspicion as to how the internal politics work, you are not in the room, and all the information you get is secondhand, as people tell you what they think you might want to hear or what might be useful for you to hear. Therefore, there is an element of randomness here.
Second – economics are critical at most law firms. Instead of thinking whether you “should” be a partner, they are thinking whether they “need” another partner, i.e., often with reference to that annoying profits-per-partner number. Hence, another variable you cannot control.
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Third – a partnership is much more likely to make you a partner if the partners think you will help them succeed in the future, as opposed to whether you benefited them in the past. In other words, perhaps sadly, perception of future upside will almost always trump gratitude for past work.
Fourth – the converse of this, but just as important – is the fear factor. Partners will almost always elect another partner if they fear that by not electing you a partner you will leave and take something of value away from them.
Here is what I advocate doing:
First – assess your chances realistically based on firm history in making partner and firm economics – both current and future expectations. If your chances of partnership are small, then just leave. Don’t wait around to get passed over. Leave when you are highly marketable. Don’t be afraid to take a modest pay cut for a future opportunity. Your shelf life and career bargaining power start to shrink dramatically as you become a passed-over partner – trust me, I know this from experience.
Second – position yourself so that you have value to clients and the firm. This does not mean just toiling away in the trenches on the work given to you. It means seeing what is important to clients – what is important to the firm – where the firm is making high profits – and trying everything possible to get that work. That is what clients are paying for – that is where the money is. And that is where you should be able to prove that you are likely to create wealth for the partnership in the future.
Third, along these lines, I urge you to create value in yourself as follows:
- Survey the industry you are in (hopefully the one in which you are working under the preceding paragraph “Second”).
- Pick a niche within that industry that is a much smaller subset.
- Read everything you can and learn everything you can about that niche.
- Make it your business to know everything possible about that niche.
- Make it your business to meet everyone possible in that niche.
- Make it clear to your colleagues – and to everyone who will listen – that you are making this niche (in this high-value area) the fulcrum of your practice.
If you do this properly, you will create a virtuous cycle. Partners at the firm will start thinking of you as the primary associate to be picked when there is an assignment in this niche area. You will get more of this specific work, and if you have picked the right work, you will become more and more valuable with each deal you do in that area. As the dust starts to clear, it will become evident to everyone that you are the star associate in this niche and you have something really valuable, and hopefully that the firm is not going to want to lose. Partners will think maybe: “what if a competitor got our star associate in our core – and most profitable – business area. If we don’t make her a partner, what will happen?”
Fourth – you need some pull. Pull is always better than push. This isn’t anything you likely don’t know, but you need someone in the partnership with power to “make it happen” in terms of internal politics, or it likely won’t in fact happen. And this is the biggest pitfall area, where the combination of wishful thinking and flat-out lying creates a witches’ brew of career failure. It goes as follows:
The power partner who is going to “make it happen” has a lot at stake in keeping you around as long as possible even if your partnership chances are weak. You are servicing her work. She needs you to not quit in the worst way. So she is incentivized to be as positive as possible about your chances of partnership. She won’t probably want to outright lie, but she will likely say something like “it is looking really good.” If you couple that with your wishful thinking that it will in fact happen, well, you can see the result.
As far as this goes, you have to assess the power of the partner who is pulling for you – how far your partner is willing to go to pull you upward – the economics – and everything else – as dispassionately as possible.
To conclude and sum up – my advice is, don’t be a schmuck. Do the math on the above metrics as honestly as possible. Get rid of the wishful thinking – assess your chances dispassionately. If things look good, then go for it, and hopefully the above will be of use to you. And if things don’t look good, then look for a new job early, before your bargaining power ebbs. Who knows, maybe when you really have that new job in hand, the firm you work for will actually make you a partner or give you a binding promise to do so in a defined period of time.
Good luck!
Bruce Stachenfeld is the managing partner of Duval & Stachenfeld LLP, which is an approximately 70-lawyer law firm based in midtown Manhattan. The firm is known as “The Pure Play in Real Estate Law” because all of its practice areas are focused around real estate. With more than 50 full-time real estate lawyers, the firm is one of the largest real estate law practices in New York City. You can contact Bruce by email at [email protected].