Equity Partnership and Retirement Forum

(On Campus Interviews, Summer Associate positions, Firm Reviews, Tips, ...)
Forum rules
Anonymous Posting

Anonymous posting is only appropriate when you are revealing sensitive employment related information about a firm, job, etc. You may anonymously respond on topic to these threads. Unacceptable uses include: harassing another user, joking around, testing the feature, or other things that are more appropriate in the lounge.

Failure to follow these rules will get you outed, warned, or banned.
Anonymous User
Posts: 428123
Joined: Tue Aug 11, 2009 9:32 am

Re: Equity Partnership and Retirement

Post by Anonymous User » Sun Nov 13, 2011 3:16 pm

vanwinkle wrote:
Veyron wrote: Curious. What do these forms say? "At the end of 7 1/2 years we decide whether to keep you as an associate, make you a non-equity partner or make you an equity partner?"
No firm will keep an associate for 7.5 years without planning to make them a partner. If you're not going to make partner they'll start pushing you out the door by year 5. By 7.5 the only question is whether you're going to be equity or non-equity; if you're still there they intend to make you partner, if not immediately, then soon.
My firm has a 9 year partnership track. Sure, they might have made up their mind prior to the 9 year mark as to whether or not you are going to become a partner, but some people are borderline, while others will simply end up on the non-equity track.

Renzo

Gold
Posts: 4249
Joined: Tue Dec 02, 2008 3:23 am

Re: Equity Partnership and Retirement

Post by Renzo » Sun Nov 13, 2011 3:33 pm

Veyron wrote: Ummm, I don't know very much about the NYC partnership track at all. It may be the biggest market, but there far more legal jobs outside of NYC than in it. Its really stupid to assume that NYC sets the standard when it is such a small part of overall hiring.
If you're talking about biglaw-type jobs, this is just wrong and silly.

If you use either the NALP members or the AmLaw 100 firms, the number of jobs in NYC=the number of jobs in Texas, Washington DC, Chicago, and LA combined= the number of jobs in the rest of the country combined (roughly speaking). There are about three times as many jobs in NYC as in DC or Chicago, five times as many as LA, and ten times as many as Philadelphia, Miami, or Atlanta.

Of course the city that contains roughly a third of all the jobs sets the standard.

Renzo

Gold
Posts: 4249
Joined: Tue Dec 02, 2008 3:23 am

Re: Equity Partnership and Retirement

Post by Renzo » Sun Nov 13, 2011 3:37 pm

Anonymous User wrote:
vanwinkle wrote:
Veyron wrote: Curious. What do these forms say? "At the end of 7 1/2 years we decide whether to keep you as an associate, make you a non-equity partner or make you an equity partner?"
No firm will keep an associate for 7.5 years without planning to make them a partner. If you're not going to make partner they'll start pushing you out the door by year 5. By 7.5 the only question is whether you're going to be equity or non-equity; if you're still there they intend to make you partner, if not immediately, then soon.
My firm has a 9 year partnership track. Sure, they might have made up their mind prior to the 9 year mark as to whether or not you are going to become a partner, but some people are borderline, while others will simply end up on the non-equity track.
I would add to this that some firms also use "special counsel" as a way to keep permanent associates, so you might have four career paths: 1) pushed out 2) special counsel 3) non-equity partner 4) equity.

User avatar
Veyron

Gold
Posts: 3595
Joined: Fri Jan 08, 2010 3:50 am

Re: Equity Partnership and Retirement

Post by Veyron » Sun Nov 13, 2011 3:46 pm

Renzo wrote:
Veyron wrote: Ummm, I don't know very much about the NYC partnership track at all. It may be the biggest market, but there far more legal jobs outside of NYC than in it. Its really stupid to assume that NYC sets the standard when it is such a small part of overall hiring.
If you're talking about biglaw-type jobs, this is just wrong and silly.

If you use either the NALP members or the AmLaw 100 firms, the number of jobs in NYC=the number of jobs in Texas, Washington DC, Chicago, and LA combined= the number of jobs in the rest of the country combined (roughly speaking). There are about three times as many jobs in NYC as in DC or Chicago, five times as many as LA, and ten times as many as Philadelphia, Miami, or Atlanta.

Of course the city that contains roughly a third of all the jobs sets the standard.
Did anything in my post or the original post lead you to believe that anyone was talking exclusively about biglaw? Biglaw is a small fraction of the legal profession.

Anonymous User
Posts: 428123
Joined: Tue Aug 11, 2009 9:32 am

Re: Equity Partnership and Retirement

Post by Anonymous User » Sun Nov 13, 2011 3:52 pm

Op here:
No, I was not looking for nyc market. I do agree that info might be useful for other tls members though.

I was wondering exactly how hard it is to make partner though because some of the firms that I am looking at joining have the partner/assc numbers posted on nalp. Some firms have partners makeups as 30-40% of the total number of lawyers at a given office. Does this mean they promote more people to partners?

Want to continue reading?

Register now to search topics and post comments!

Absolutely FREE!


User avatar
Veyron

Gold
Posts: 3595
Joined: Fri Jan 08, 2010 3:50 am

Re: Equity Partnership and Retirement

Post by Veyron » Sun Nov 13, 2011 3:59 pm

Anonymous User wrote:Op here:
No, I was not looking for nyc market. I do agree that info might be useful for other tls members though.

I was wondering exactly how hard it is to make partner though because some of the firms that I am looking at joining have the partner/assc numbers posted on nalp. Some firms have partners makeups as 30-40% of the total number of lawyers at a given office. Does this mean they promote more people to partners?
Not necessarily. Lots of firms take lateral partners or switched to a more highly leveraged model over time. However, a low partner/associate ration might be one indicator that you are more likely to make partner.

ruski

Bronze
Posts: 425
Joined: Sat Sep 12, 2009 10:45 am

Re: Equity Partnership and Retirement

Post by ruski » Sun Nov 13, 2011 4:07 pm

http://abovethelaw.com/2010/08/retired- ... -benefits/

at wachtell pension hits upwards of 1 million.

turbotong

Bronze
Posts: 187
Joined: Thu Oct 28, 2010 12:53 am

Re: Equity Partnership and Retirement

Post by turbotong » Sun Nov 13, 2011 4:19 pm

ruski wrote:http://abovethelaw.com/2010/08/retired- ... -benefits/

at wachtell pension hits upwards of 1 million.
Rofl. Just read that article. She had a lockstep pre-nup agreement. Obvioisly she wasn't a good "partner!"

ASAP

New
Posts: 29
Joined: Wed Nov 02, 2011 5:28 pm

Re: Equity Partnership and Retirement

Post by ASAP » Sun Nov 13, 2011 4:20 pm

Thank you for your insight Veyron. It is helpful for those of us that have 0 interest in being miserable in NYC.

Want to continue reading?

Register for access!

Did I mention it was FREE ?


Renzo

Gold
Posts: 4249
Joined: Tue Dec 02, 2008 3:23 am

Re: Equity Partnership and Retirement

Post by Renzo » Sun Nov 13, 2011 7:28 pm

Veyron wrote:
Renzo wrote:
Veyron wrote: Ummm, I don't know very much about the NYC partnership track at all. It may be the biggest market, but there far more legal jobs outside of NYC than in it. Its really stupid to assume that NYC sets the standard when it is such a small part of overall hiring.
If you're talking about biglaw-type jobs, this is just wrong and silly.

If you use either the NALP members or the AmLaw 100 firms, the number of jobs in NYC=the number of jobs in Texas, Washington DC, Chicago, and LA combined= the number of jobs in the rest of the country combined (roughly speaking). There are about three times as many jobs in NYC as in DC or Chicago, five times as many as LA, and ten times as many as Philadelphia, Miami, or Atlanta.

Of course the city that contains roughly a third of all the jobs sets the standard.
Did anything in my post or the original post lead you to believe that anyone was talking exclusively about biglaw? Biglaw is a small fraction of the legal profession.
Then there really are no generalizable rules, and this conversation is stupid.

Register now!

Resources to assist law school applicants, students & graduates.

It's still FREE!


Post Reply Post Anonymous Reply  

Return to “Legal Employment”