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I am not sure if this post is going to get much visibility or if it should ideally be a separate thread but since this thread was responded to by partners, I thought it would be good to get in thoughts, if possible, on targets. As a partner, we are expected to make some x multiple of our earnings and that of the team. I speak as a non-equity partner. I assume this is the case across many firms? I understand this is to drive us to get in more work but somehow, even after a couple of years as a NEP, I am not entirely sure if this is how it should be. Not all partners would be rainmakers but you do want your firm to be known for its work quality - or am I being too naive even after all these years in the industry? How does this work??
The truth is that there is no correct answer as what is a good book, whether that book is portable or not and whether that book is based on your capability or the name of the door.
The fact of the matter is that there are multiple circumstances that have resulted in this crisis for a whole generation of lawyers:
(I) While we may scoff at it but there is merit in making only equity partners and not designating associates as "salaried partners". The reason is that till you don't have a buy in, till you don't assume both the profit and the loss, you will always be shielded from the truth that the business of law is a cruel and tough marketplace. There is a reason why the Big-4 have an all equity base and that reason results in them having a more robust and profitable partnership.
(ii) There is actually no proper training imparted by law firms to their associates to enable them to become a true partner. Yes some firms have some classes here and there but no actionable items. How many associates are taken on business development trips, how many associates are asked to handle client relationships. What usually happens is that you become partner and you then you are asked to do BD and make relationships and that results is you being out of your depth. There is a saying that the relationships you build today are what will give you results in 5 years. Which means that an A-3 needs to start investing in relationships so that when he is a partner 5 years down the line, these relationships pay. There are exceptions but that doesn't happen in ordinary course.
(iii) Truth is that our legal market especially law firms is very nascent and hence a true blood equity partnership is a very rare animal and even in an equity partnership the relationship rests with the top dog. That's just how it is.
(iv) As someone who left his partnership and started his own platform, I can tell you that if you truelly care about building a personal brand, then running your firm is the only option. Everyone looks at the Raghuvirs and Ashwaths and think that Tier-1 would give them that level of recognition but that is a super exception.
(v) Rest invest in your self. Learn something new. Network in a manner that suits you. Some do conferences, some do cold calling, some use LinkedIn and some do dinners. Find what works for you and just refine it.
1. Shout out to all the good souls who have left a positive word or recognised that this is an issue that many salaried partners/non equity partners go through everyday. Often a vicious cycle of unutilised potential in job X, while interview for job Y will look for evidence of not just potential but success. A person may feel to vulnerable to speak out about this for a number of reasons. Maybe its that the law school and young lawyers are extremely vocal about their wants and desires (which they are entitled to). Maybe it is that any clue unto identity has the ability to compromise you with your team, peers and seniors. Maybe it is that top flight firms have a culture of alpha personality projection and anything but is a weakness to cannibalise upon. Despite that, for those who are identifying or sending out a positive word, my hat tip.
2. For those who originally thought that this was just another thread for wise cracks, I hope that they recognise it is something more serious.
3. Career stagnation at a senior level in a law firm is a genuine and endemic problem. The model works on the premise that unless you are a favoured SP/NEP, there is no pipeline or career path that will be created for you to grow and succeed. In other words, you are groomed and grown for the big derby but after an early peak (1st year partnership) you may be put out to pasture (slowly or quickly).
4. Each year that you perform or even survive, you become a bigger competitor to your peers and your senior Partners, where notional financial incentives to collaborate are easily overridden by insecurity and a desire to prevent you from becoming a self sustaining partner/team. On the flip side, the pressure to deliver higher numbers keeps growing.
5. I am pretty good with my BD and as good with my execution; but for myself and a couple like me, I sense that there is a quiet (or sometimes even overt) disapproval by Senior Partners of a partner like me with a few years under his/her belt from becoming his/her own entity. Maybe the dependency makes the bigger bosses more secure. But following that path is a path of dependency to redundancy.
6. I am sure there are many such partners across firms, who are at cross roads. the volume of in-house openings at the seniority and pay is miniscule compared to the number of such capable but uncertain-future partners in prominent law firms. By this time, most of such partners would have families and significant financial responsibilities. There is neither an easy choice nor someone who can help you device a strategy for future growth (either financial or industry-stature). The sense of diminished self-respect while languishing professionally can be quite damaging; sometimes even to your family/personal life.
7. I wonder about the maths of law firms' partner recruitments and book size expectations. Conservatively, if a partner is carrying a ready/portable book of say Rs. 5 crore and he has a current package of Rs. 1 crore, he would be better off setting up shop where he would probably bill Rs. 3 crore instead of 5 (where after costs, he could still stand to make Rs. 1.5 crore maybe). Law firm promoters know this but the fact that the expectation exists must stem from an understanding that some of us just wouldnt take that higher risk-higher reward plunge.
8. I also noticed that the original question was seeking names of firms where there might be more support to grow for partners who have potential but may not have had opportunity. No names have come in this otherwise thoughtful thread. Does that mean that there is no single prominent law firm that would recruit a partner laterally with the knowledge that he is saleable and invest some marketing time behind such partner? Is it really the case that the only support any law firm is willing to give is a salary/retainer package and a visiting card; and then generating revenue many times its multiple would be sole responsibility of the newly recruited partner? If this is indeed the eco-system, then it is more toxic than is acknowledged openly.
9. As some have stated earlier, Partners may not have books for multiple reasons - personality suited for executing and not hunting OR being good but being deprived of opportunities OR bad at work. The first and the second categories deserve fulfilling careers rather than looking over their shoulders in all directions all the time. harnessing their capabilities makes eminent business sense for a law firm (though maybe not for some senior partners).
10. While I don't have a solution, for all like me who are in a mid-life crisis and looking for answers because they still want to work hard and do better for themselves, I would urge you to recognise that the market is a better place when we lift each other, rather than wait for opportunities that a so-called competitor's failure or resignation can bring for us.
11. Speak to each other, speak within your family, do a little financial planning maybe. Find avenues to share and support, rather than suffer alone.
I sincerely hope there will be positive changes in the industry that allow capable senior professionals to perform to potential and be rewarded for it.
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/9939591-there-were-times-when-the-pressure-to-achieve-happiness-felt
~ R
So, I'm a 15+ PQE corporate lawyer. Partner for several years now. My problem is that over the years, I've neither trained under/aligned with/sucked-up to one senior partner and, therefore, in a unique situation of being completely on my own. Equity is elusive but not because I don't deserve - other issues beyond my control - and, honestly, I don't care much for it as long as the money is decent. I have a decent book but it's not massive. I'm a generalist (and I like it that way!).
Now, I'm in that stage of my career where money is fine but there's no clear roadmap to future growth! I don't think my book size is going to grow exponentially for the team to grow (have a junior partner in my team etc etc) and have the feeling that I'll be stuck here!
Maybe it's mid life crisis or its true that my career will soon plateau / has already plateaued...
I don't know why I'm putting this out here - not even expecting any responses!
Glorified MA: I think I fall in that category too. My definition of glorified MA is someone who coordinates the deliverables (including doing some of them), makes sure that the invoices are raised and paid, briefs senior on each deliverable and before calls, and generally act as a sounding board/punching bag (depending on the equation) for the senior.
Book size: This is important if you want to grow. You can kick the can down the road by joining a Firm with bandwidth issues in the short run, but eventually your growth there also will stall if you don’t build a book.
Where I want to be of some help (hopefully) is to aid you in understanding the reason you find yourself in a position where you are a glorified MA with no book.
I’ve collected the experience of my batch mates, juniors and seniors who found themselves in this position and were kind enough to share:
One can find themselves in the position of glorified MA for three reasons - either you’re not good enough (rare but not unheard of), your team has limited work (making it impossible for you to shine independently - not so rare but also not very common) or and more likely, you’ve reached a level where you can run stuff on your own but if you do then the dinosaur sitting above you is redundant and in order to justify their existence they dont give you the freedom to run things alone (this often kills your confidence, robs you of your due client face time and to an extent discounts your authority with the juniors so that they don’t align with you should you get ideas to split). There are subtle and not so subtle ways of doing this - you’ll find your boss participating in every client call howsoever unimportant (seen this with folks from niche practice areas), you will not get face time with clients and will end up as briefing counsel to your boss while they send deliverables you prepared or lead calls spouting out the points you thought of and researched (common where the boss is on management line of fire for financial performance and try to make up by completely taking over execution), you will find your boss “coaching” you about what to say and not to say to clients (common with bosses who are control freaks with limited books themselves) and the master piece where you will be second guessed on everything over many years so that you end up subconsciously needing a sign off for the smallest of things. To sustain this kind of behaviour, your boss will need you to be in a position where management either doesn’t have any idea of your abilities (you didn’t work with them or your boss acts as the sole channel of communication) or have a poor view of you making your boss safe in the knowledge that any complaints from you will not be taken seriously.
On the book building piece, your limited success can be because of: you’re naturally shy - are good with execution but don’t enjoy putting yourself out there (not uncommon); you’ve been working with someone all your life and the concept of mutual growth stops working for them once you become partner - all clients are their clients irrespective of whether they start coming to you directly (not uncommon); you’re working with someone who doesn’t have a book themselves and will lose their job if you get a book making them redundant (uncommon); you work in a firm where building a book is actively discouraged as it would mean that the MP is no longer the demigod they believe themselves to be and the eqyity holders will have to part with more and more equity if people start getting business; or you have a boss who completely kills any direct channel with the firm management which results in the firm management having no clue of your abilities or existence so they don’t take you for BD events or refer work directly to you (some folks from Flame Sea Associates and Ashoka estate claim to have experienced this).
If your answer (an honest one arrived at after self reflection and discounting natural dislike for your firm, team, boss etc) is that you’re the reason (not good enough or shy) then, my friend, do yourself a favour and stop running this race or let your self awareness find you a spot you’re comfortable with. This will help with angst, anxiety and mental peace (think of it as: har kisi ko nahin milta yahan pyaar zindagi main, due credit for this analogy to my maggi buddy at Rajnigandha - if you know you know :).
If you’re stuck with a boss who has no book themselves, is a micromanager, general a-hole, or someone you’ve been with for far too long - leave and chart a new path, embrace the journey, it will be scary, it will be difficult, but risk hai to ishq hai (due credit for this analogy to the Marlboro man from Delhi - again if you know you know :)). A word of advice - don’t confront this category of boss because they will double down and gas light you (they can starve you of work so that management throws you out, they can increase the nitpicking to an unbearable level). Not so sure whether approaching management will help too - they typically don’t care so long as the team is making money or even if they care, it will be your word against that of the boss as there is no incontrovertible proof for such issues). But don’t lose heart - market identifies these people over time. Red flags could be senior partners who haven’t made anyone partner in their team for many years, who tend to have people leave their team beyond SA or MA level, who don’t have lateral takers.
Be honest and identify the cause. Make a plan where if you want to take a risk and move out then you’re not left financially stranded - if you have a family, then speak to your spouse and get their buy-in so that you guys are mentally, emotionally and financially prepared for a (hopefully) short period of anxiety and uncertainty (this really helped me).
Best of luck, chin up and like someone here said - don’t sell yourself short if you feel that you have it in you. Thank you for having the courage to raise this issue in a public forum - so many of us have these doubts and questions, but don’t talk about them to avoid embarrassment or be seen as anything less than stellar.
There is no reason why a new firm that you move to will treat you in any better manner, and this is the harsh reality, unless you have book of your own, you are nothing more than an executing resource for the firm, albeit an extremely experienced one and let's assume an extremely competent one.
My recommendation would be stop selling yourself short and take a risk or two by spending more of your time doing BD and building your name and reach in the market. Try to forge relationships with existing clients where they refer their friends and business associates to you because you do good work.
Unless you have a book of your own, no firm will treat you any better because the treatment is generally linked to how much money you make for the firm, and no amount of work you execute for other partners (who own those relationships) will ever keep you secure enough or feeling like any other than a 'glorified managing associate'.
Either you (A) take a call and say there is no room for you to do BD within your current set-up and take the plunge with another firm, but go with the mind set of setting yourself BD targets and providing the new firm with the confidence that you can and will do BD and get more work in for the firm apart from executing the work the firm already has; or (B) you make space for yourself within your current set-up and do BD, get the hang of it and get clients who will move with you when you finally decide to move, how much ever time that takes.
There are no easy options here. If being something other than a partner just by designation is an aim for you, you cannot hide away from the fact that you need to have clients in your own name under your own 'book'. The size of the book will determine your value and how you are treated and perceived when you do decide to move.
Foreign firms may want 5X with an additional X for support staff, awards, financing costs and BD (often 5-6 partners have a dedicated BD resource). Foreign firm partners will typically not have huge teams.
If you're going to a firm, where the execution is a challenge with sufficient rainmakers to ensure work flow, or if you're in a niche area, or are good in your work and known, the issue of book size etc will be less. If you're starting a new area or are in a area where the firm is weak, you'll get leeway. In other cases, the book or the revenue plan will definitely be a point of discussion (though you might get relaxed or no target for year or two with comp guaranteed, depending on overall negotiations and comparative position of firm and you). Because they'll somehow need to be sure that the investment which the firm will do in you, will bear fruits.
@OP - You've been a partner for 2+ years yourself and I'm sure you would have seen everything very closely now. What will be your own neutral take on the situation and separately, your take, if you're the owner of the firm in this case?