KE NSP Autonomy? Forum

[Anonymous User]

as an older law school applicant i hear a lot about ageism in biglaw. assuming i got hired at 40, would a place like K&E realistically consider someone for partnership whose, what, 52?

No idea how it compares to the rest of biglaw, but I sense KE de-equitizes/gives a graceful off-ramp to partners at a pretty early age. The equity partners that are making big splashes are largely in their 40s and early 50s. That isn’t a coincidence.

STB also maintains a hard exit; in their case, I believe it's 62. They might let you stick around with a counsel title and let you maintain an office for a bit if you have certain skills/knowledge/contacts that aren't readily replaceable, but they will de-equitize. Of course, you will have a fat pension, so...idk, enjoy life?

Confirming it’s 62 at STB. Some partners have been allowed to stay on as non-equity, but it’s a hard cutoff for equity. These kinds of limits are very, very common. In fact, a handful of firms without mandatory retirement ages, such as Quinn, are known to gather rainmaker partners who hit the retirement age at their old firm but still wanted to work and have big books.

To get back to the original question, I would think a firm with a mandatory retirement age is probably not that likely to make a 52-year-old 8th year associate partner unless they already have a big book of business because the time to build a practice as a partner isn’t there. But I’ve never known a senior associate on partner track older than maybe early/mid 40s, so hard to say for certain.

The reason K&E doesn’t have many old partners (though see Jack Levin) is because most of them have made enough to want to do something else. If you think about a firm with 5m PPP vs 2.5m you literally shorten the timeline you’d need to be in a career by half, and that’s not to mention any financial perks (like I’ve heard rumors of PE co-invest and term life insurance payouts) that doesn’t show up in PPP.

[Anonymous User]

Asking for a friend, if you get made up at the end of the year when and how do you get paid? Is it from February in the same way as other uplifts?