Firms With a Young Partnership
Posted: Wed Sep 12, 2012 1:16 pm
What exactly does having a young partnership entail? Does this mean the firm has a Logan's Run type system to get rid of the olds? Does it mean anything at all?
It means that the firm has a bunch of partners who still care about generating business. When your firm has a bunch of partners who are very old, and semi-retired, they're not pulling their weight.drmguy wrote:What exactly does having a young partnership entail? Does this mean the firm has a Logan's Run type system to get rid of the olds? Does it mean anything at all?
As to how firms achieve a young partnership, some do it through incentives via their pension plan. Essentially, your pension will be defined based on your 10 highest grossing years (or sometimes it's shorter or longer number of years). This creates an incentive for older partners to not just sit around, work half the time, and pull in a full salary because they are in positions of power (e.g. management committee, etc.).
Others are much more cutthroat (esp. if they do not have a defined pension plan). They essentially ask you to start pulling your weight, or leave.
Sold old partners are still very viable, and generate tons of business. W&C and Cravath come to mind. A firm with a young partnership would be Quinn, BSF, etc.