Giving Annual Reviews - Be honest or just nice? Forum

[Anonymous User]

How many bad partners could have used a tough but fair review on their way up? A lot. Witness the huge thread featuring anonymous attacks on the worst biglaw partners.

Reviews provide associates with a way to protect their firm from caustic personalities. Don't miss your opportunity to shape your environment and protect those coming up the ranks from the next "worst partner ever."

[nealric]

How many bad partners could have used a tough but fair review on their way up? A lot. Witness the huge thread featuring anonymous attacks on the worst biglaw partners.

Reviews provide associates with a way to protect their firm from caustic personalities. Don't miss your opportunity to shape your environment and protect those coming up the ranks from the next "worst partner ever."

If someone is truly a monster in the making that needs to be stopped, sure. But don't do a "tough but fair" review unless you really want to harm their career. In practice, I suspect most of those toxic partners were savvy enough on the way up not to display their tendencies to anybody who might have power over them at review time. It's not uncommon for partners who are toxic to associates to be perfectly lovely to any partner with more power than them.

[Anonymous User]

Obviously this is not the conventional view, but I generally give honest feedback. I think it helps the person and the firm, and it's what I would want people to do for me, and what the firm suggests it actually wants.

So, for upward reviews, that means I list the specific things they could do to be more effective, with examples. For reviews of people that work for me, I say things they did well, and times when they did not and how it could be better in the future. This should not be "x is a jerk and terrible at her job" but "x missed several deadlines on y project and should work on planning ahead better or managing her workload."

It's true that people often don't do that, but I view that as an agency cost. Feedback is just valuable information that the firm and the person can use. I think the idea that it will get someone fired is ludicrous. But I also don't really see it as my role to prevent the firm from firing someone who they believe they should fire if given accurate information.

I also really don't like it when I get puff reviews. I want to improve on things, and can't unless people tell me how to get better.

Here's what you're missing: the convention has become not to put negative feedback, so if you do you are causing disproportionate harm. You might disagree with this "rating inflation" but when you as an individual rate someone poorly because you think they can improve but are overall a decent employee, the message the firm gets is "this person should be fired immediately". If that's your intention and you really think this associate is that bad, fine. But if you really just want to let the associate know that they should improve on xyz then just...tell them.

Here’s a dumb analogy. I used to work in academia where you had to get letters of recommendation for jobs (and jobs are INCREDIBLY hard to get). Profs who had trained in the UK were trained on the convention that if you said only good things, the letter would look unrealistic and you should put in one (slight) negative to show you were being objective about the candidate. But in American academia, that convention didn’t exist. So someone with a British recommender might lose out at a job because their competition all had glowing letters without any reference to a flaw ever, and the British letter made them look bad.

So I guess it boils down to what purpose you think the annual review serves.If you think it’s genuinely a time for professional development and nothing more, sure, write honestly. If you think it’s more a tool for a firm to decide who to get rid of, don’t give an honest critique unless you really think the person should be let go. (And the potential for it being a tool for getting rid of people seems way too high to dismiss.)

If you think that, you are probably being a bit naïve.

Anon you’re quoting. To be clear, I’m not endorsing that perspective (see last point about about the potential for this to be a tool to get rid of someone), just acknowledging that someone might genuinely feel that way.

Also the post 2 above this one (assuming it’s remotely serious. Could be sarcasm/troll) seems likewise naive. In theory evaluations would work that way, but in practice I’m highly doubtful. (Even if such an evaluation is entirely accurate, I doubt it’s going to carry any weight because the reality is that not enough juniors will feel comfortable giving that honest eval and/or the firm won’t really care because the bad partner is probably a lot more valuable/difficult to replace).

[nealric]

Obviously this is not the conventional view, but I generally give honest feedback. I think it helps the person and the firm, and it's what I would want people to do for me, and what the firm suggests it actually wants.

So, for upward reviews, that means I list the specific things they could do to be more effective, with examples. For reviews of people that work for me, I say things they did well, and times when they did not and how it could be better in the future. This should not be "x is a jerk and terrible at her job" but "x missed several deadlines on y project and should work on planning ahead better or managing her workload."

It's true that people often don't do that, but I view that as an agency cost. Feedback is just valuable information that the firm and the person can use. I think the idea that it will get someone fired is ludicrous. But I also don't really see it as my role to prevent the firm from firing someone who they believe they should fire if given accurate information.

I also really don't like it when I get puff reviews. I want to improve on things, and can't unless people tell me how to get better.

Here's what you're missing: the convention has become not to put negative feedback, so if you do you are causing disproportionate harm. You might disagree with this "rating inflation" but when you as an individual rate someone poorly because you think they can improve but are overall a decent employee, the message the firm gets is "this person should be fired immediately". If that's your intention and you really think this associate is that bad, fine. But if you really just want to let the associate know that they should improve on xyz then just...tell them.

Here’s a dumb analogy. I used to work in academia where you had to get letters of recommendation for jobs (and jobs are INCREDIBLY hard to get). Profs who had trained in the UK were trained on the convention that if you said only good things, the letter would look unrealistic and you should put in one (slight) negative to show you were being objective about the candidate. But in American academia, that convention didn’t exist. So someone with a British recommender might lose out at a job because their competition all had glowing letters without any reference to a flaw ever, and the British letter made them look bad.

So I guess it boils down to what purpose you think the annual review serves.If you think it’s genuinely a time for professional development and nothing more, sure, write honestly. If you think it’s more a tool for a firm to decide who to get rid of, don’t give an honest critique unless you really think the person should be let go. (And the potential for it being a tool for getting rid of people seems way too high to dismiss.)

If you think that, you are probably being a bit naïve.

Anon you’re quoting. To be clear, I’m not endorsing that perspective (see last point about about the potential for this to be a tool to get rid of someone), just acknowledging that someone might genuinely feel that way.

Also the post 2 above this one (assuming it’s remotely serious. Could be sarcasm/troll) seems likewise naive. In theory evaluations would work that way, but in practice I’m highly doubtful. (Even if such an evaluation is entirely accurate, I doubt it’s going to carry any weight because the reality is that not enough juniors will feel comfortable giving that honest eval and/or the firm won’t really care because the bad partner is probably a lot more valuable/difficult to replace).

Juniors don't need to write bad reviews of partners for them to know they are bad to work for. People will vote with their feet. It tends to be an open secret when associates avoid a particular partner or quit/lateral after being extensively assigned to them. But few firms are going to do anything about a toxic partner if they are otherwise profitable.

[Anonymous User]

We're mixing topics of downward and upward reviews. Downward reviews are ubiquitous in the industry. Upward reviews are very rare IME and seem to merit their own thread if people are interested since it seems OP's question is directed squarely toward the common downward review process and not the upward.

[run26.2]

To echo and build on what's been said:

Biglaw attorneys suck at giving good feedback and being good managers. Be better. You absolutely should strive to give meaningful feedback, mentor and work to improve your juniors, be honest but good-natured regarding their mistakes, etc.

Reviews aren't the place to do any of this. If you're "giving feedback" in a review then something's already gone wrong in either your process or management approach. Whatever you might have to tell someone more junior than you, tell them outside of this piece of paper / electronic form that will only ever be used against them.

This sounds cynical, but I've come to believe that formal reviews in biglaw really only exist as a means of giving cover for terminating personnel and to justify passing people up for promotions (like to equity). They have only a negative function. So the best you can do is to give positive, mild feedback in a careful way. "Johnny is a great team player. He is willing to do what it takes. He is responsive and thoughtful. Research is well done. Good writer."

This is spot on. The entire post.