What Else Can I Do to Make Partner Forum

[Anonymous User]

A mid-level at a V10. I’m been doing everything I can to make partner: being available 24/7/365, always go up and beyond whenever I can (for a few deals I was basically the junior partner and was on top of everything to move forward the process), make most of the partners in the group like me by being sociable and funny and hard working, networking hard with existing and potential clients so I can be the person they first call for questions.

Sometimes I feel like I will make it for sure but sometimes I just don’t know if all the hard work will pay off. What else should I do / should I have done to make this happen?

(Sorry for the rambling; this is me after 5 drinks at a BD dinner)

[Definitely Not North]

Stay at the same firm. Partner(s) should start to have conversations with you in a couple/few years about what the path looks like for you. If you need to initiate, you’re either jumping the gun or it’s not (currently) in the cards.

[Chubbyleaous]

Never ever talk about 5 drinks like you did above.
Don't discuss politics, weed or affirmative action. Never ever badmouth anyone.
Be very very guarded. Treat your name like a brand, like Gucci. Protect it.
And keep working very hard.

[Anonymous User]

What have you done for business development?

[Sackboy]

What have you done for business development?

BD is flame and not necessary at a V10.

[victoremsemper]

What have you done for business development?

BD is flame and not necessary at a V10.

Not a partner/associate but I worked in law firm BD at a V5 for years before law school and this is absolutely not true.

[Anonymous User]

What have you done for business development?

BD is flame and not necessary at a V10.

Oh, interesting.

[Sackboy]

What have you done for business development?

BD is flame and not necessary at a V10.

Not a partner/associate but I worked in law firm BD at a V5 for years before law school and this is absolutely not true.

OP said they are a corporate attorney. It absolutely is true for corporate. OP is going to make equity between years 8-10 with zero clients. Nobody is pulling in a multi billion dollar merger (or any really meaningful work) at 33-35 (assuming K-JD) at a V5. You're servicing existing client relationships extraordinarily well and showing that you are an exceptional lawyer to clients. Other than giving the occasional presentation or going to an industry event, you're not doing any real BD.

Since you worked in the space, would love to hear examples to the contrary.

[Chubbyleaous]

I have nothing useful to say about business development.
Please don't get on interweb and start posting after 5 drinks. That terrifies me.

I would also explore software that gives you 30 minutes to retract outgoing emails and prevent their transmission.

All of my other advice above is very sound. It's the condensed version that you should read every morning as you have your coffee.

[johndhi]

the answers in this thread strike me as bizarre and not written by law firm partners or even people who came close to that? I could be wrong.

I'm also not a law firm partner, but from what I've seen (to be fair my experience is litigation):
-develop trusting relationships with important partners. essentially, think about how one MAKES partner -- learn the literal process of it. In my firm, the equity partners got together and voted, and the junior partners tended to go with whatever the senior partners liked. so find those important partners and make them want to go to bat for you in voting conversations

-also develop relationships with a lot of partners in different groups. rather than only working with one narrow group, see if you could lend expertise to tangential groups so they at least see/know your level, even if you won't be working extensively with them over the course of years

-even if you're not originating work, build good relationships with existing clients so that if the partners ask them about you they'll gush. ideally you could even get some clients who like you so much they affirmatively ask the partners to make you partner (hinting that the client's work depends on it). as in-house counsel I've done this for an associate, and he made partner.

[legalpotato]

OP, you are doing well. But one item was conspicuously absent from your post. So I have to ask, have you invested in a good pair of knee pads?

[Chubbyleaous]

Partnership is like a pie eating contest. But if you win, the prize is more pie.

[Chubbyleaous]

That's right. I stole that from Peter Thiel.

[Anonymous User]

OP, you are doing well. But one item was conspicuously absent from your post. So I have to ask, have you invested in a good pair of knee pads?

Jokes aside, this is sadly too often true.

[Anonymous User]

OP, you are doing well. But one item was conspicuously absent from your post. So I have to ask, have you invested in a good pair of knee pads?

Jokes aside, this is sadly too often true.

So since you said "jokes aside," are we meant to interpret this to mean it is literally too often true that partnership chances depend on your willingness to perform oral sex on another attorneys? Please clarify.

[Chubbyleaous]

I thought he was implying that due to lower bonuses he needed a weekend job installing tile or carpet, and needed the knee pads for that.

[objctnyrhnr]

I thought he was implying that due to lower bonuses he needed a weekend job installing tile or carpet, and needed the knee pads for that.

This reminds me of one of my favorite moments in the 1998 Matt Stone/Trey Parker movie, Baseketball, where the rich elderly team owner tells Jenny McCarthy that they’ll go back to his house and “lay some carpet if you know what I mean” and then the next scene is her struggling to literally lay carpet in his house. I’ve seen the movie a dozen times, but that specific cut still gets me every time.

[nealric]

What have you done for business development?

BD is flame and not necessary at a V10.

Not a partner/associate but I worked in law firm BD at a V5 for years before law school and this is absolutely not true.

OP said they are a corporate attorney. It absolutely is true for corporate. OP is going to make equity between years 8-10 with zero clients. Nobody is pulling in a multi billion dollar merger (or any really meaningful work) at 33-35 (assuming K-JD) at a V5. You're servicing existing client relationships extraordinarily well and showing that you are an exceptional lawyer to clients. Other than giving the occasional presentation or going to an industry event, you're not doing any real BD.

Since you worked in the space, would love to hear examples to the contrary.

Just because you aren't bringing in any clients doesn't mean you don't need to do any BD activities. It does help to assist the right partners in their BD (helping to prepare client pitches, going to dinners, etc.). It's more about showing partners that you have the potential to bring in business after marking partner than actually bringing in your own business.

[Anonymous User]

OP, you are doing well. But one item was conspicuously absent from your post. So I have to ask, have you invested in a good pair of knee pads?

OP here - thanks for the advice but I've already got a few pairs. Too bad you're not getting some.

[Anonymous User]

OP - are the partners giving you signals? It’s really a two way street if you are really doing EVERYTHING you can do to make it.

If you have no sense of that, you need to start making more personal connections with partners as others have flagged. It may be too late FWIW depending on your competition. You need two to three equity partners to be in your corner pushing your brand.

Your post makes you sound like you are killing it! Congrats and keep it up!

[Anonymous User]

Let me ask, which practice group are you in? I'm in a specialist transactional group, so my advice may not be helpful if you're a litigation attorney or M&A attorney.

I'm actually going through the partnership process now and, by all accounts, I should make equity partner next month. As a midlevel, everything you're doing right now is what you should be doing. You should be working as much as you can, on a variety of different projects and really focus on building up your relationships internally and externally.

My group currently has three partners and I've forged really strong bonds with them over my career here. That is your first battle, to get those partners to not only like you but support you and stick their neck out for you. You need them to be willing to go to bat for you and submit you for consideration but also have conversations with the decisionmakers within the firm behind the scenes when you are submitted to ensure that you have a good shot of making it. Assuming your group is profitable, their word is going to carry a lot of weight because if they are vouching for you, it becomes really difficult to question their advice.

The next step is to work with as many different partners as you can outside of your group. For me, that meant working with as many M&A, CapM, bankruptcy, etc. partners as I can, in particular the rainmakers. Besides my own group, those individuals are really my primary clients because I need them to trust me with their clients and send me work. I have roughly 25 different partners outside my group that I solicited for evaluations in connection with my partnership candidacy. I'm told that a specialist like me should generally have at least 12-15 different partners outside your group that will support you. Obviously I went beyond that but it's because I really focused on getting exposure to everyone that could be a difference-maker as far as my chances go.

Hours are going to be very important. With certain exceptions, I think they expect all candidates to average around 2250-2300 hours over the last two and four years. I'm around that for the four year average and closer to 2500 for the two year average as I really wanted to ramp up and make a statement with my hours and profitability. On top of that, you want to demonstrate that you have broad technical skill in your practice and can handle any situation that might come your way. That just means being able to show that you've worked on every type of project that would normally come your way as an attorney in your group. I think if you have a special expertise in certain areas, that definitely helps as well.

Business development can help but doesn't seem to hurt if you haven't generated your own business, particularly as a specialist. For me, the key is to help retain a lot of existing client business as we have plenty of institutional clients and at least in my practice group, it's very difficult to generate your own business at biglaw rates. Nevertheless, I have focused on giving a lot of presentations, Firm-sponsored or otherwise, and writing client alerts. Even when you haven't generated your own business, it helps show the firm that you are driven and care about that stuff and it's great to talk about in your partnership memo.

I think external recognition such as Chambers rankings and so on can really help. A lot of that depends on your client relationships and your business development team.

Of course, with all of that said, a good portion of it can sometimes be out of your control. Maybe your group isn't as profitable when it's your time to go up so they can't justify a partner or maybe someone influential politicks you and sinks your chances or maybe you're just too close in age to the last partner they promoted (or a star up-and-coming younger attorney). I encountered some of those issues a few years ago when I felt like I originally should have been promoted. Nevertheless, I kept my head down and the partners in the group showed a commitment to me. Now that I'm actually going up, most have told me that it was a good look in terms of how I handled the situation. I think partnership tracks are getting longer and longer, so even if you don't make it at eight or ten years, it can still happen depending on your firm and your circumstances. But if you encounter that, you really need those strong bonds with the partners in your group so you can be certain they aren't just stringing you along.

Tl;dr: (1) relationships within your group, (2) relationships at the firm outside your group, (3) work/hours, (4) business development or BD qualities, (5) external recognition and (6) luck/outside factors.

[Monochromatic Oeuvre]

What have you done for business development?

BD is flame and not necessary at a V10.

Not a partner/associate but I worked in law firm BD at a V5 for years before law school and this is absolutely not true.

OP said they are a corporate attorney. It absolutely is true for corporate. OP is going to make equity between years 8-10 with zero clients. Nobody is pulling in a multi billion dollar merger (or any really meaningful work) at 33-35 (assuming K-JD) at a V5. You're servicing existing client relationships extraordinarily well and showing that you are an exceptional lawyer to clients. Other than giving the occasional presentation or going to an industry event, you're not doing any real BD.

Since you worked in the space, would love to hear examples to the contrary.

Just because you aren't bringing in any clients doesn't mean you don't need to do any BD activities. It does help to assist the right partners in their BD (helping to prepare client pitches, going to dinners, etc.). It's more about showing partners that you have the potential to bring in business after marking partner than actually bringing in your own business.

Will also add that servicing institutional clients still uses BD skills; it's just about maintaining and growing the share of the pie that you're responsible for. Every megacorp uses dozens or hundreds of firms for all sorts of things, and even on specific types of transactions there are always multiple options. And even if you can keep the business and scale it up, your client won't be doing the exact same thing in 5 or 10 years they do today (various sectors will rise and fall; their business will transform, etc). Most longtime partners haven't done the same thing for 30 years; it's common that they've retooled three or four times. Sorry to say that in any client-facing relationship it's not enough to just not fuck up the paperwork. Sure, it has a higher hit rate than cold-calling random GCs, but very, very few successful partners just inherited a big client and put their feet up, churned docs and raked in millions for decades.