Big Law - HR meeting out of the blue
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Anonymous
This just isn't true. Yes to managing a team and delegating work. And obviously yes to being good at legal work. But firms that promote on a standard time frame (7 or 8 years) do not expect associates to have their own work prior to promotion. They expect the associates to have contributed to growing existing clients, and they will expect associates to have the cultural skills that would be expected to be good at getting clients (type a go-getting, good client interactions, good team player, presents well etc). But you're not expected to generate work until you make partner. It may be different at tier 2 firms where the clients are scrappier. But as I said previously, tier 1 biglaw doesn't want an associate wasting non-billable time hustling for a bunch of $10k clients. That time is way better invested in growing existing $5m/year clients. |
Anonymous
Yes to all of this. |
Anonymous
Ditto. You are a star until you are not. |
Anonymous
This. I had great reviews prior to and after maternity leave. When the firm hit a rough patch and billables in several practice groups, including mine, went down, they started defenestrating more senior associates as well as some in my cohort. I knew that I was next and was lucky that a job opened at an organization where I had interned during law school. When I told the practice group head I would be leaving, he literally breathed a sigh of relief. The managing partner urged me to let other associates know that I had initiated the move -- presumably because he was freaking out about the "L" word. Nothing about this is at all atypical. My husband was a Big Law partner and saw this kind of crap happen all the time. |
Anonymous
Disagree with this. You can be a well liked associate until you're not. But the 'stars' don't get laid off, even when hours drop. Again, I've said that being a star isn't just simply a better attorney - it's just that circumstances that the partners have decided to vest their efforts into you more than other associates. The partners know that there are identified star associates that they are investing in, and those ones will not get fired. When you are an associate that is well liked, but you're not getting that extra level of attention from partners where they are clearly grooming you for partnership, that's when you are always possibly on the chopping block. |
Anonymous
Agreed. I know someone whose entire performance review was basically: "well, what is there to say? With some associates we're just waiting for them to come of age." And when he made partner several people were surprised because they assumed he already was a partner, based on the level of responsibility he had been given and the way senior leadership interacted with him. Of course things might not have worked out for him if the economy tanked, but otherwise there is no way he was going to be counseled out. Unlike me. 
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Anonymous
Definitely depends on the Biglaw firm. I was at DLA and it was expected that you show signs of being able to bring in new matters (either from new clients or from existing client).Best possible scenario is that you make early partner under someone who has a big institutional client and that client lives you to, so that older partner can start handing off work to you, you can start being the billing partner but the golden ticket is becoming the originating partner once they retire and hand it over to you. It also depends by practice group. But being a good document drafter and being super smart aren’t enough. |
Anonymous
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OP, a friend and co-worker when through a similar situation a couple of years ago. Not the maternity leave part but getting decent reviews until the day she was let go. She was a well-liked associate but wasn't a "rock start" as others have put it. It was very very difficult for her.
She handled it with tremendous class and inner strength. She found another position in-house and she is much better off (for her) than she would have been if she had stayed in BigLaw. |
Anonymous
| Sympathies OP. I was you 20 years or so ago. (Never actually asked to leave but turned down for partnership and given ridiculous set of what I would need to do for partnership to be realistic). I was able to make a move from my BigLaw firm to a small firm in my practice area and have had a great career here. Don't focus on how you were wronged (sure you were, but it won't help you to dwell on it). Network like crazy. I got my next job by reaching out to co-counsel who were in my practice area and got an offer from multiple firms. Make it seem like you are looking to leave, not that you have to. Good luck! (Also, my firm now also does the long runway approach to getting rid of associates who should leave for performance or workload reasons. If you have trouble getting traction in your job search I would ask for another 30 days). |
Anonymous
Thank you for writing this. I only lasted in biglaw for 6 years (at two firms), and I left each one because I knew I wasn't a rockstar. It was painfully obvious that I just wasn't getting access to the same opportunities as the rockstars. It was also interesting how the rockstars even occasionally screwed things up, and partners would bend over backwards to make excuses for them, whereas I doubt they ever would have done the same for me. I moved on, but even a decade later in interviews, I got asked why I left the firms. The rockstar/non-rockstar explanation isn't commonly understood, so I've always explained it in terms of just wanting better opportunities, which is mostly true though not really the whole story. I just knew there was no future for me at the firms if I wasn't a rockstar. Now, in government, but in a practice area where I spend my days going up against biglaw, it's easy to spot the rockstars in most cases. Sometimes the non-rockstars seem to be more talented, but you can tell who's getting the better opportunities and is being treated more favorably by the partners. |
Anonymous
| In my experience "rockstar" doesn't quite mean that. It's not the top performer, smartest, top performer, or most personable. It's who the partner decided to invest in. Often due to connections, etc. I didn't appreciate this when I started out. It sounds like it's still the same. |
Anonymous
This is the absolute truth. Rockstars are chosen based on who the partners like the most or need the most because the associate has connections, or any other "soft" factor that gives them an edge past the merely super smart and hardworking regular associates. If you're not one of the chosen few, you're going to hit the "up or out" ceiling and they will counsel you out just like they've done with hundreds of associates before you. |
Anonymous
+1 Connections matter far more than talent. It's always who you know. |
Anonymous
Yes, agree mostly. But it’s not some kind of nefarious thing that some associates have a huge leg up because of all the people they know. Most associates don’t know anyone of value. Mostly, partners end up favoring a particular associate because they connect well, they have developed a good rapport over a few big projects, the associate has started learning that particular partners preferred work style, and they’ve fallen into a good back and forth that the associate is making the partner’s life easier and they get along. So the partner is just going to naturally keep sending work to that associate, so the relationship and apparent “rockstar” status grows ever stronger. Certain qualities may make this kind of relationship more likely to befall on some associates more than others, but lots of stellar associates never develop these relationships. A lot of it is just luck and timing. The right project comes in at the right time when an associate just wrapped something else up. An associate gets their office sited by the right partner at the right time. That kind of stuff. |
Anonymous
Or shares the same beloved hobby, or went to the same law school, or the associate's parent is accomplished, etc. |