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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]At this level OP needs to be starting her own book of business, whether bringing in new clients or bringing in new matters for existing clients. You don’t magically make partner in Biglaw because you get stellar reviews year after year. That stellar performance needs to equate to earning a reputation within the firm that you are irreplaceable on someone’s team so that partner goes to bat for you in front of leadership (and honestly you need more than 1 partner leveraging for you) AND you need to have a proven track record of managing a team, delegating work, [b]and bringing in new matters[/b] (as in you are basically acting like a partner). Being excellent service partner material will NOT cut it in 2024.

It sounds like to me that OP was just service material: she provided excellent service to her managing partner(s) well but was not showing any capability or effort to pounding the pavement and making the firm new money. She’s become to expensive, given all her years of experience, to keep around as a sr associate. A client is going to look at the bill and complain that they’re paying too much for her work when someone lower and cheaper can do the same work (and they’re right).

It may not seem fair and something similar happened to me but that’s the way it works. I’m sorry. [/quote]

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.  [/quote]

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