Hey -

I've become a partner in a t2 / t3 a couple of years ago. What seemed like the goal for the longest time now seems to be the cause of all stress.

There's constant pressure to get clients, admin burden and constant fear of the team you train leaving (even if treated well since t1s pay a lot more). This despite the fact that I'm getting in decent work for someone at my level.

Just was wondering that is this only me or others are also in the same boat but want to act all cool and unperturbed? I feel this all the time and it's effecting my mental health. Is it a requirement of partnership to not act vulnerable even if you are - even to your own team?

A GC of a US$ .75 to 1.25 company, this side.
The pressure is similar at our side, too, my friend.

Our teams are tighter and constant checks from leaders on costs / salaries- while team members also would want to leave for better salaries/ career aspirations. So, it is NOT just you. Any team leader of professionals would be under similar stress.

The only thing we can do - build flexible teams, fight for fair pay packages for the team members and keep on training people for any eventuality.

Oh wow! This is me. In a Tier 1 firm as well! Just minus the burden of getting in work for now at least. But the rest of it is exactly the same!

I feel a lot of the frustration ends up being taken out on juniors - I've been told I'm not the best boss and I'm trying to make amends! But this is so absolutely true state of being for me

Same to same, partner at a t2, pressure to get clients, manage, train people, and most of all manage personal life on the side.

Mental health is slowly fading away. I have been recommended a therapist by my doctor. I didn't think I'd need one until a year in, but I'm there in a few months. Hang in there, y'all.

How did these current senior partners manage all this back in the day when there were a freshly minted partner?

Its question of scale. Earlier, there were few good firms and the firm sizes were small. So five good clients could sustain entire firm. Then say a senior partner wanted a larger share of pie, then he walked out with one of big clients. Now he would have still sustained with that one client, but after a point, the people who joined him can't grow because how much can you milk the major client? So from the same pie, you need to feed more, with consequent stress on mid level folks, who now need to take this whole stress for their own future (since the senior partner is still sitting pretty with his major client plus whatever he gets by virtue of being in the profession for a while). Thats the problem of T3 and T4. Replace the one senior partner in example with say, 3/4, and it's T2 issue. And for T1, same issue, that firm becomes large but obviously without adding proportionate clients so all new partners, who wouldn't have their books for obvious reasons, would struggle. That's the issue in nutshell. Then once you start getting execution pressure, you poach trained people from smaller firms by throwing money at them, and after few years, you'll be senior partner and they'll be fresh partners looking for sustaining themselves. And circle goes on.

Yep.

All this is known. Precisely why not training people early to earn their own clients is doing a great disservice to them for their future.

Hiring people solely for executing matters and deliberately keeping them away from client engagements should be a red flag.

That is how this law firm world functions. Never trust a word uttered by senior management. Many are run like Ponzi schemes.

You are not alone my friend so cheer up. This is pretty much the hamster wheel you are going to be riding for a few decades as partner. Partnership is NOT for everybody.

Apart from book building, admin headaches, attrition, please also add other problems like firm politics, friction among partners within the same firm (different from firm politics), investment contributions (liked a new office space), personal and family expectations, business risks and threats, long term viability of the practice, new competition, redundancy of some of your learnings, the list goes on.

Acting cool and unperturbed is important. Because as nice as it is to say "I can be vulnerable", the number of people who would willingly throw you to the wolves at the first whiff of your vulnerability is truly stunning (believe me I have felt it!). So showing your brave face and carrying on is something for which there is no choice.

I made Partner in a firm a few years back. When you walk into your own cabin for the first time, while there are some decent perks that come with the job, but there is a list of things that you must renounce to the world as a part of this new designation, which includes the following:

1. Inaction

2. Peace of mind

3. Being shielded from evolving (read, largely idiotic) expectations from clients and team members

4. Being able to hide in a corner and wait for the sun to shine

Don't lose heart though. If you are bold enough to admit being overwhelmed by what you are facing, you definitely have the maturity to ride this storm out.

Mental toughness is a crucial part of this job. Or grit and tenacity (if you like those words better).

Lastly, find some hobbies, that keep you far and away from the toxicity of work. All of which should NOT involve the law or lawyers. It's something I have seen older partners (who have dodged madness) do extensively.

Not a partner, but left a group run by a very famous senior partner a couple of months ago- one junior partner had their entire team changed in a year, one had four exits (half of the team), another had four too, one more had five and another had three. The attrition is crazy (and mind you, the culture was largely good, within the confines of the industry). If this is happening at a T1 with seemingly high pay, it happening in T2/T3 is not a big deal. You ain’t alone!