Reply to BigLaw folks: how long is normal to stay an associate if you aren't going to make partner?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]You know the firm better than I do but I worked at a firm (Arnold & Porter) that had a ton of very long term senior associates. The firm was always rattling about doing something about it but in the end needed them to do the work and most of them are still there.

Of course he might make counsel again at the new place. It sounds like that’s his ideal niche?

But if he does have to leave, there’s a lot more out there for former biglaw than the old TLS boards led us to believe. [/quote]

I know several very, very good lawyers at AP who were kept as senior associates for quite a while. Years. One should have made partner and was offered counsel so he said to hell with that and became a partner at another firm. He is now making way more than AP would have paid him. He is getting to keep a larger share of want he is bringing in. AP was hoping to keep taking all the money he was bringing it in and not give him a fair share of the profits by keeping him as counsel and it backfired. AP lost the clients he took with him.  Another friend should have been made counsel but they made her stay an associate and she is now in house. I got the impression both could have stayed on as senior associates (and he as counsel) rather indefinitely, but they realized that was kind of a sucky deal, especially since they both worked very long hours.

AP’s newish management - at least when I was around it, from about 2009 to 2017 - really screws associates over by keeping them as associates rather than making them partner or at least counsel. And they’ve lost some good people - and a lot of profits when those people took their work with them - as a result. Maybe they have new management now. Don’t know.

Op, nothing is stable now in law. You should always be saving money in anticipation of being fired or losing a client. Start saving now. And why are you being paid so little? Try to change that. I get not wanting to get a full time job now in the midst of a pandemic with a small child if it means your family can stay safer by not having daycare, etc. But I think you should focus on getting your career in better shape in the next year or two, rather than focusing entirely on your husband’s. Also, make sure your husband has good life insurance and good disability insurance, since you are placing your family’s economic security almost entirely in his basket. [/quote]

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