Biglaw

Could The Worst Part About Biglaw Life Actually Change?

The next evolution of Biglaw could make it more humane.

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Working in Biglaw is not for the faint of heart. The hours are a beast, the work can be both challenging and tedious, and the management? Well, that’s laughable. I’m on record as saying the lack of actual management skills or training is the very worst part of Biglaw. Putting a lawyer — yes, even a very smart lawyer — in charge of large groups of people with no blueprint on how to manage them or real incentive to cultivate employee satisfaction is a recipe for disaster (or at least unhappiness).

The good news is that this might be changing. In a detailed analysis for Law360, Peter Zeughauser argues that a new model of Biglaw partner compensation — spurred, in part, by the 2008 recession — that prioritizes collaborative teams is poised to take over the industry. While the details of Biglaw partner compensation can be fuzzy, the two main components of it are general origination — a partner’s book of business — and the hours they work. But that model is increasingly outdated. Clients are wisening up to the, ahem, inefficiencies of the billable hour. Don’t get too excited, it isn’t happening tomorrow, but with more and more clients demanding alternative fee arrangements, something’s got to give.

Zeughauser sees a future Biglaw model where partners must work together to create high-functioning teams that must work together on a diverse set of client issues efficiently and effectively. No longer dependent on the plug-and-play faceless cogs in Biglaw to churn hours for the firm who are easily replaceable, the legal teams of the future are more curated and therefore associate satisfaction may actually become a priority:

Partners who can assemble, lead and work together on teams to land these matters are, of course, important. More so, partners who can lead and work together on a diverse team to produce an outcome that highly satisfies clients and meets or exceeds the client’s expectations for results and service at a cost that the client perceives to be aligned with value enough so to come back for another matter is a still more rare bird. And, the rarest bird of all is a partner who can do this at a level of profitability that enables the firm to attract, train and retain more partners who can repeatedly perform the same trick. In an era of flat demand, aligning partner metrics for success so that compensation is tied to successful teamwork and collaboration will likely differentiate winners from languishers and losers.

Movement toward a compensation model that rewards collaboration and leadership of highly successful collaborative teams and away from the book-of-business model has evidenced itself in the increased level of discussion and focus in firms and the industry about matter profitability.

Woo-hoo! The new metric for partner compensation Zeughauser identifies seems designed to appeal to millennials — and well, any employee who isn’t a robot — and attorney satisfaction actually makes the list:

  • Client satisfaction, including with results, cost, service, and ease of use
  • Client profitability, retention, and growth across the firm’s platform
  • Partner profitability
  • Matter profitability
  • Associate profitability
  • Attorney satisfaction
  • Attorney skills (soft and technical)

Partners’ paychecks tied to (even in some small way) the notion that the associates who work for them have to be treated like real life people. That’s so revolutionary it might just work.

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headshotKathryn Rubino is an editor at Above the Law. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email her with any tips, questions, or comments and follow her on Twitter (@Kathryn1).

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