How Long Does It Take to Make Partner in a Law Firm


How do employees find mentors? While women and minorities can look for those with similar backgrounds, Broyles of Thelen Reid says this shouldn`t be the only requirement. “Sometimes members of a minority feel that they would prefer to have a minority partner as a mentor because that relationship might be more enjoyable or familiar to them. In fact, these relationships are extremely valuable, but it`s just as important to realize that you can also get mentorship outside of this group – and it`s important that you do,” she advises. Mentors can be found in many different packages. However, if your goal is to become a partner in a law firm and your current law firm does not offer this opportunity, you should try to change firms. Whether you can easily switch companies depends on a number of factors, including your location, area of practice, and portable business book. In our experience, a portable business book is the most important topic for many companies that want to hire a higher-level partner. Whether you can easily switch from one business to another without a portable business really depends on a host of other factors. When young practitioners ask her if she wants to become a partner, Blacklow advises not to rush the process. “I tell them, `You have to walk into the door with a good attitude and work as hard as you can. Establish your skills and reputation for excellence, and then four or five years later we`ll talk about the rest of how the package needs to be put together,” she says. “But without that as a basis, it doesn`t work to make partners.” According to Chappell, in the middle of an employee`s career, partners look at that lawyer`s billable hours, productivity, the number of clients the practitioner works with, and the profitability of the issues they work on.

“In our business, it`s important not only to charge high-quality hours and be productive and profitable, but also to generate dollars by generating new business from existing or new customers,” chappell says. To learn the ropes up, they have to ask themselves questions, says Julie Lierly, a partner at Kilpatrick Stockton since January 2004. “I advise young employees not only to ask, `How am I?` but also to ask if you have any doubts about why a decision was made in a particular case. This way, you can understand not only the results, but also the strategy and motivation behind them,” she says. Evaluates. What do you do if you don`t partner? Let me answer your question in two ways. First of all, a lawyer who is not associated at the age of 7 should immediately know his firm`s criteria for partnership decisions. The question “What can I do to prove to you that I am worthy of this position?” should be the first line of dialogue.

A company may want to see more business development. There may be concerns about the lawyer`s work. In any case, it is not enough to sit back and wait to see if you become a partner. While you would ideally have started these problems years ago, there may still be time to define the hurdles you need to overcome to get to where the company wants you to be. “We are a truly progressive and open company. We share information, including numbers, with employees so they know what they`re getting into,” he says. We actually have 10 criteria that we use to evaluate the candidacy of each lawyer, and we share those criteria with them. In fact, Eaddy says, the path to partnership has changed “quite significantly” over the past 10 years. Before that, most companies in key markets promoted partners who did exceptional work and turned into assets for customers. Today, it`s simply the basis for considering a partnership, he says.

“Their ability to do very high quality legal work is a no-brainer. This involves not only getting it right, but also being able to give customers the right answers in a way that inspires confidence that you can help them solve their problems,” says Eaddy. Another “obvious” is the profitable relationship with customers, he adds. That`s what happened to Gonzalez de Duane Morris, who last year co-chaired the CLE committee of the National Hispanic Convention of the Bar in New York. .