Is Cold Offering a Partnership A Thing? Forum

[Anonymous User]

Never heard of it before but weird fact pattern is developing at my V5 so thought I’d ask. Senior associate lateraled to us from another V5 a few years ago and was kind of vocal about the fact that he came over because he was promised partnership. He was a pretty bad supervisor (and kind of lazy IMO) and I suspect several associates complained about him in the annual supervisor review. I certainly did without the expectation that it would have any impact. My firm announced in the fall that he would indeed be promoted to partner effective January 1.

And now he just quit, apparently on December 31, before the promotion became effective. He went quietly and at least all mid levels I talked to are surprised that he just disappeared into thin air. Google doesn’t have an announcement from any other firm that he joined a partnership elsewhere.

One theory I’ve heard is that something went wrong (say excessive complaints from associates but could be sth else) and the firm offered to announce the promotion to save face on the condition that he resign before it’s effective. Is cold offering a partner promotion a thing? Thoughts?

[Anonymous User]

This is probably not technically a "cold offer" but my firm has this system where if you aren't going to make partner, and they don't really want you to stick around when your associate time is up, they'll promote you to counsel with the understanding that you need to leave within a year or so. It seems like external people haven't figured out the system, because these people end up lateralling to counsel/partner positions at other biglaw firms, and GC or equivalent in-house roles, presumably on the basis that they're in good standing on the path to partnership and everything. What's especially confusing is that we also force most partner-track associates to spend a year or so at counsel anyway, so from an external perspective it just looks like some partner-in-waiting people leave of their own free will and others stick around and make partner the next year, when partnership (or forced exit) was made clear before the counsel designation in the first place. V50ish FWIW.

[Anonymous User]

Why would they leave before the partnership went effective? Wouldn’t that negate the point of the resume bump? Or are they officially still there just gave notice and disappeared?

[Anonymous User]

Why would they leave before the partnership went effective? Wouldn’t that negate the point of the resume bump? Or are they officially still there just gave notice and disappeared?

Sounds like the same question OP is asking...

[Anonymous User]

Why would they leave before the partnership went effective? Wouldn’t that negate the point of the resume bump? Or are they officially still there just gave notice and disappeared?

Sounds like the same question OP is asking...

How does it fit the cold offer hypothesis? Unless they were able to lateral based on the announcement only?

[nixy]

They haven’t lateraled, or at least the OP hasn’t found evidence that they have. So yes, the question is whether the firm made the announcement already having agreed to some kind to face-saving thing to allow this person to land elsewhere (the announcement being like letting an associate stay on the website), or whether something went completely off the rails between the announcement and Dec 31.

I don’t see cold-offering partnership being a thing (why would a firm need to do that? Unless he has good dirt) and think something going off the rails is more likely. But that’s based on entirely nothing.

[Anonymous User]

OP here. Agreed that cold offering SAs is not the best analogy.

Based on how confident he was that he would make partner, I always assumed that he had negotiated a pretty good deal when he lateraled to us with pretty solid promises of partnership if he hits X hours or whatever. So maybe it’s a deal where the firm announces the promotion so he looks good and doesn’t bring a breach of contract claim while also getting his resignation without disclosing what the misconduct/ issue was. In that scenario it would make sense to get him to resign the day before the promotion is effective since partners are harder to fire than associates.

[Anonymous User]

OP here. Agreed that cold offering SAs is not the best analogy.

Based on how confident he was that he would make partner, I always assumed that he had negotiated a pretty good deal when he lateraled to us with pretty solid promises of partnership if he hits X hours or whatever. So maybe it’s a deal where the firm announces the promotion so he looks good and doesn’t bring a breach of contract claim while also getting his resignation without disclosing what the misconduct/ issue was. In that scenario it would make sense to get him to resign the day before the promotion is effective since partners are harder to fire than associates.

Is he listed on the website as associate or partner? At my firm all the promotions went live on the bios today.

[Anonymous User]

He has been removed from the website. [Edit to add that he was listed as an associate in December which correctly reflected his title back then.]

Also to respond to another poster - my firm has a similar counsel model and they promoted others in the same practice group to counsel on Jan 1 (which was announced in the fall in the same email announcing his promotion to partner). Hence my speculation that his contract must have been pretty specific that he would make partner.

[Anonymous User]

He has been removed from the website. [Edit to add that he was listed as an associate in December which correctly reflected his title back then.]

Also to respond to another poster - my firm has a similar counsel model and they promoted others in the same practice group to counsel on Jan 1 (which was announced in the fall in the same email announcing his promotion to partner). Hence my speculation that his contract must have been pretty specific that he would make partner.

Seems pretty odd. I know of people who’ve claimed that they’re about to be promoted/just been promoted to equity at K&E and then moved as counsel to other firms, but that didn’t have any backup from K&E itself.

In addition to the possibilities that this was negotiated, is it also possible that he just burned out and bailed at the last minute? Laziness and sloppy instructions are signs of exhaustion/depression (among others); is there any possibility that he just decided he didn’t want it? Consistent with everything else we’ve been hearing about the great resignation - associates and partners have been leaving in droves, so doesn’t totally beggar belief that someone on the cusp might do so, too.

[Anonymous User]

Sorry to derail but your firm has supervisor reviews? Is this typical? Unheard of at my firm

[Anonymous User]

Sorry to derail but your firm has supervisor reviews? Is this typical? Unheard of at my firm

Yep, mandatory firm wide. Reviews of anyone junior to you are read to your juniors verbatim and happen i think 2x per year for juniors, once a year for mid levels and seniors. Reviews of anyone senior to you are anonymous and happen once a year. Not sure how common this is among big firms though.

[Anonymous User]

He has been removed from the website. [Edit to add that he was listed as an associate in December which correctly reflected his title back then.]

Also to respond to another poster - my firm has a similar counsel model and they promoted others in the same practice group to counsel on Jan 1 (which was announced in the fall in the same email announcing his promotion to partner). Hence my speculation that his contract must have been pretty specific that he would make partner.

Seems pretty odd. I know of people who’ve claimed that they’re about to be promoted/just been promoted to equity at K&E and then moved as counsel to other firms, but that didn’t have any backup from K&E itself.

In addition to the possibilities that this was negotiated, is it also possible that he just burned out and bailed at the last minute? Laziness and sloppy instructions are signs of exhaustion/depression (among others); is there any possibility that he just decided he didn’t want it? Consistent with everything else we’ve been hearing about the great resignation - associates and partners have been leaving in droves, so doesn’t totally beggar belief that someone on the cusp might do so, too.

OP here - good point, hadn’t considered that. I assumed he would have gone on leave before throwing away partnership. Several people (I want to say 5-6 in my group of ~50) from mid levels to partners have gone on leave for burnout in the last year so it really wouldn’t have been unusual. Although maybe he’s so over it he doesn’t even want to try to make it work (which I totally get as well).

[Anonymous User]

Think he may have gone to Milbank.

[2013]

Is partnership here equity or nonequity? If the latter, I highly doubt a firm would do this. I know from speaking with partners that the partnership vetting process is a long process. Firms wouldn’t waste time to “save face.”

[Anonymous User]

All partners start as non-equity partners.

[Anonymous User]

All partners start as non-equity partners.

Categorically false. At Cravath (for example), all Partners are equity partners.

[The Lsat Airbender]

All partners start as non-equity partners.

Categorically false. At Cravath (for example), all Partners are equity partners.

the person you're replying to is clearly talking about their own firm

[Anonymous User]

All partners start as non-equity partners.

Categorically false. At Cravath (for example), all Partners are equity partners.

the person you're replying to is clearly talking about their own firm

Yeah, I'm an idiot sorry.

[Anonymous User]

Think he may have gone to Milbank.

Looks right. Probably was offered equity and/or higher starting comp. Latham may have dodged a bullet, so seems like a positive all around. (Or maybe it was indeed a "cold offer" though that seems very unusual...)

[Anonymous User]

Haha wild that with this limited information it's pretty easy to find this person on LinkedIn. Based on how it's framed there ("elected to partnership Oct 21") it sounds like they leveraged the partnership into a partnership elsewhere. No reason to assume cold offer, but who knows.

[Anonymous User]

Cold offer for partner definitely not that unusual. Not necessarily that you need to quit before officially being a partner, but soon after.

[2013]

Hot take, but I highly doubt any firm would be cold offering BIPOC partners in the current climate. He probably left on his own because he was poached. I’ve seen so many junior partners of color poached in the past 2 years.

[Anonymous User]

Think he may have gone to Milbank.

Looks right. Probably was offered equity and/or higher starting comp. Latham may have dodged a bullet, so seems like a positive all around. (Or maybe it was indeed a "cold offer" though that seems very unusual...)

How much do first year partners at Milbank make? First years at Latham (even non equity) I think make A LOT.

[Anonymous User]

Think he may have gone to Milbank.

Looks right. Probably was offered equity and/or higher starting comp. Latham may have dodged a bullet, so seems like a positive all around. (Or maybe it was indeed a "cold offer" though that seems very unusual...)

How much do first year partners at Milbank make? First years at Latham (even non equity) I think make A LOT.

May also be that equity at Milbank is a genuine possibility soon, while Latham hasn’t made any similar assurances. (Plus credit is a pretty difficult group from which to assert that you have a book, if that’s what Latham needs. Most lev fin coverage bankers I’ve spoken to just talk about lawyers from the same firm as a monolithic group, unless someone’s pissed them off.)