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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][b]What they are actually saying is that you are a fine associate, hence the good reviews on the work you were doing, but not partner material, which is the next step[/b]. Now you are too expensive to use on the matters you are qualified to cover. Your good reviews will help you find a new position, but keep in mind they will know you were considered not partner material, so don't try to bluff that.[/quote]

NP.  If somebody is a good associate who does good work, what makes them not partner material?  Does that mean they do a good job with work that is handed to them, but they don't seek out more work and/or try to bring in their own clients?[/quote]

It means a combination of things: They don't have the personality for law firm partnership (which requires a certain type of confidence, do-er, hardiness), they aren't able to transition into the more senior roles of overseeing and delegating work and multitasking on more things, they aren't taking ownership  in a higher level of work (ie are still waiting for partners to tell them what to do instead of getting out in front of things to anticipate problems and client questions), they aren't strong in client interactions, or otherwise just generally don't have that extra oomph that are typically bare minimum for being a rain maker partner.

Having deficits in some of those skills does not make you an inferior lawyer. But being partner is a lot of money, and the firm only wants to be paying you that lot of money if there's a pretty good chance that by investing in your for 5 more years, you're likely to start making them ALOT of money through client growth. Being a technically good lawyer becomes far less important as a skill at the partner level, and all the other stuff becomes increasingly important.  So if you lack a certain energy on client calls that clients have expressed lack of confidence with your ability to run a deal, or you're working on a deal with a partner and you are following all their instructions to a tee but you haven't taken a step back to really understand the deal so you can run with it... you can be very good at doing the technical work but may not be ready to take that next step.  If there are 4 associates on your team and two of them a couple years junior to you are extremely driven and hit all the above soft skills, and there's not enough work for everyone, then partners will naturally gravitate towards the other two and you'll end up being a little below their hours. So it kind of happens naturally that there are some associates who just don't click with the partnership promotion path.

With all that said, it is often a law firm fit issue, or time and place issue, where you go to another firm, and the pieces just fall together better and you instantly connect with a few partners, you get jazzed about the work and better integrated on matters - so you start to take more ownership and understand it better, and now you're a superstar. Definitely happens all the time, where another firm just ends up working better.  It's usually time and place, because we're talking about associates who have a good technical skill set.  [/quote]

Thanks for responding.  Seems like there are a lot of different personality types that can be good/successful at actual lawyering, but it's a very specific type of personality that's cut out for partnership.[/quote]

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