Why is it important to go to a growing firm? Forum

[glitterlily]

Obviously one should go to a profitable firm, but if a firm is profitable otherwise why does it matter if it is growing?

[nixy]

Who has said you should go to a growing firm?

[glitterlily]

So for context I have been looking at the Texas market and I’ve seen a lot of posters on TLS focus on growth as a key metric

[Fireworks2016]

Obviously one should go to a profitable firm, but if a firm is profitable otherwise why does it matter if it is growing?

Seems fairly obvious to me that a growing firm would, at least in the abstract, present more opportunities to take on substantive work and also be less likely to fire associate attorneys because they need them to do the work.

Not saying whether that's true in practice or not, but those seem like good traits.

[Anonymous User]

I don't think firm growth is that important in biglaw because associate retention is so poor there is almost always significant demand for hiring new and experienced attorneys to fill the holes of others leaving.

I'd almost be weary they are tricking you into going to a firm that has lower billable rates and higher billable hours, which is basically a worse case scenario for the average associate.

[ConfusedNYer]

So first off - reach out to some alumni in the Texas market, they'll be able to give you more first hand up to date information than the TLS posts, though there are a lot of threads on this topic.

In my opinion, and as other have said, growth ordinarily wouldn't be a factor worth considering for most juniors, especially in large legal markets where there are a number of high caliber firms that aren't actively growing (although I'm sure you could poll some partners at Kirkland or a similar firm who would disagree with this). But the perception (whether accurate or not), is that the larger national firms are expanding into Texas at the expense of the more established shops (V&E, BB, etc.) and eating into their market share, pouching partners, etc. This may make the expanding national shops more of a stable base for a junior than one of the Texas based firms. Again I think actually discussing with people in the market, ideally a few people at both the national and Texas firms will really be more helpful in figuring out if that's a line of advice you want to follow.