02.23 - The Only Seven Reasons a Law Firm Will Ever Make You a Partner
[00:00:00] If you're on the webinar last week, and I did do a separate video for the questions that I wasn't able to answer. And you should have received those as an email. If you didn't, I just put your email into a private chat. Also, I'll give you an email that you can send at the end of this, and then I'll make sure that you receive those questions.
Today after this webinar, I will be available for questions. As I know I only had a half hour last week, but I can take questions as long as everyone has questions this week. I will get started. And today's webinar is about the only seven reasons a law firm will ever make you partner.
And this is a pretty important presentation. And it's something that people have told me in the past that has been in this particular has been very helpful for them in their career and advancing. And one of the things to really understand about the practice of law and also this presentation is when you're practicing law you're actually in a business. So you're in a profession, but you're also in a business. You have to understand what your business role is. And far too many [00:01:00] people are working in the forest and all they see are trees in front of them.
They don't understand what the larger picture is. And so the point of this presentation really is to show you what that picture is. And then in order to advance both as a partner and after you're a partner we'll talk about the seven reasons that law firms make partners what the obstacles are to become a partner and also the same obstacles really are there to stay partners.
And I guess one of the things I would say first is that for some reason I keep watching documentaries and movies about Navy seals and I don't know why there's so many of them out there, but there's definitely a lot of them.
And they're fun to watch. I don't know why I like watching them, but the idea of is that in any time you're doing something difficult, a lot of people will quit. And it's the same thing that I noticed in all these documenters, when they're training Navy seals, like they make them lie in the water in the middle of the night, in the waves going over their face.
They do all these very difficult things to them. And eventually there's always a way to quit, [00:02:00] which is you put down your helmet or bring a belt, and then you stop the training. It's like that really with a lot of things they say it's too much for him.
He could not cope. They were too hard on him but the seals are only for the strongest it's not easy being a seal and that's why somebody quit. Then the announcer will always kind of talk about how a lot of people try and fail, and it requires a lot of physical and also mental endurance to succeed.
And so in every class of people training to do this, a lot of people quit because it's very difficult. And they intentionally put them under very stressful roles where people are don't sleep. They have to run for long distances, hold their breath for a long time. They exposed them to coal, then he, and really very unreasonable stress that most people would never normally experience.
And so, people don't like that. Some people quit right in the beginning. Others quit when it's very close to the end. There's movies about it. I think officer and the gentleman has something to do with it. And then there's a hell week, which is even harder and [00:03:00] more work and so forth.
And people quit then as well. A lot of what with Navy seals and so forth is very similar to what happens in law firms. A lot of people. Get into demanding law firms and environments, and they allow things to affect them. They get too close, they get close to the finish line and quit even though they could potentially make it, if they stuck with it they quit.
And if you think about what it's like being a Navy seal it gives you an identity and once you have that identity it's something you carry with you for the rest of your life. and I have Navy seals and I married into a family that had a Navy seal on them, but I certainly so my family and the people that had anybody that's ever done that people refer to them as a former Navy seal for their whole, or, if it's a green Baret for the whole lifetime and they say, this person did this.
And it's a big deal and people are proud of it. And it's more about, than just being someone that was in the Navy, which people will forget about it's about having achieved something that's meaningful that very few people can do. [00:04:00] And a lot of people quit people that are able to achieve that feel a lot of confidence and in other areas of their lives because of what they were able to do.
And if you want to be an attorney and you want to do well as an attorney it's much more meaningful to say that you are a partner in this, major, very competitive law firm then or any law firm that's competitive. As opposed to saying you were just an associate or you're a former associate or something.
Our counsel that. It's fine that you were able to reach that role. It's you know but it, being an associate someplace, but there's plenty of attorneys to do that. And I don't know what the ratio is, but it's probably 10 to one. The ones that people that join large law firms and become a rise to the top, there it's very competitive.
It's like being a Navy seal or something probably more competitive. And there's a lot of people that just don't have the staying power to succeed in those types of environments. and because they give up in the main hurdles are [00:05:00] often psychological and even physical.
There's a quote that I really like at I don't have it in front of me. That, it's a quote that I don't former president, I think, it's about, there's very few people, there's lots of people out there that are able to critique things and be critics and sit on the sidelines and talk about things and be negative.
But there's very few people that are actually out there doing stuff whose faces are marred by dust and, working hard and trying to get good results and most people end up giving up and that's just how it is. Then they become complainers and they talk about, You know how such and such is not worth that or that, all those sorts of things or, it wasn't for them.
, people that become very successful. And I would say it's a lot more than 15 years. I've been speaking to the TriNet was at 25, at least the, maybe 30 anyway. But the point is that, over that period of time, I've watched a lot of attorneys become partners, have watched many not become partners and do something else.
I've watched people, drop out of [00:06:00] law firms and go to the car from it going house, which is very common or also quit the practice of law and people that by every stretch of imagination had the skills and ability to do very well at the practice of law, at least academically and so forth. And these people for whatever reason, and that's a lot of them, it's most people probably you if you.
Don't push yourself or stay in the game give up and giving up is easy for everyone. It's always easy to give up. There's plenty you can do to give up. You can put your helmet down, you can ring the bell and suddenly have less responsibility, more free time and less pressure.
You can definitely do that. My job is very stressful. You know what I do now, it's extremely stressful. Anything that's very, you can do very well at there's always a lot of stress. People will be threatened by you and they'll undermine you though. The hours are hard.
It's hard on your body. It's hard psychologically. It's, every job has its pressures. But if you want to succeed, you have to ask yourself if it's something that you really want. That's [00:07:00] really the most important thing to, to think about. Is it something that's worth it to you?
And that identity, I think of having a reach a certain pinnacle of the profession is something that will separate you. It will make other opportunities open up for you. Big companies do not hire associates in law firms to be their general counsel. They don't you don't get in the national headlines.
So as an associate and in, on a case, it's just, it's mainly big clients don't work with associates that the life is much different when you succeed than when you don't. The first reason that law firms that people typically do not make partner in law firms is very simple.
It's it's because law firms don't necessarily want to make partners in think about that. Bought from partners don't want the people that are there to succeed. It's very simple. No matter what a law firm says to you The more people who quit the practice of law or, walk out of the law firm after working a few years there.
The more the partners that are there will feel special. I [00:08:00] remember when I took the bar exam, they everyone was talking about how, that that when you know that when you get older you want the bar passage rates to be lower and stuff.
Cause it makes it better, whatever you did when you pass the bar more, makes you feel more successful. When people don't make partner in a law firm, it makes the partners that are there feel more special. And like it's much harder to do. It makes the position they're in have a lot more value.
The other thing is the most significant course is that every additional person that comes in and makes partner is more money to be distributed or more people to distribute the money to. So the law firms don't have a ton of incentive to take someone, that be, at some firms, you would might be making.
Three or four times what you were making this an associate when you make partner? Not at all, but not even the majority of them, but you'll be making a lot more money for essentially the same work that's money that comes out of the partners profits when they're paying you more.
Most law firms do not want to make you partner and that they make you a real partner, meaning, [00:09:00] that the real partner means that instead of an income partner they're suddenly going to have to share those profits and that's going to decrease their income and will come out of their paycheck.
And they're smart enough to realize that. And so they don't necessarily like that. That's not a good thing. They're sharing money that you're, that they're bringing in and review and they have to share work with you in order to, regardless of what you're bringing in the door, especially if they make you an equity partner, it's very difficult for them to get you out of that job.
So every law firm would prefer that you stay in employee. So there's just something to think about. You have to. Offering a tremendous amount of value for a law firm, or they have two very good reasons for making your partner they'll that many law firms will keep you an associate for 20 years that they can as long as it passes the straight paced tests and they can justify and they think you'll stay they'll make you counsel though.
They'll make you a non-equity partner which is basically another way of keeping you as an employee. But making you feel like you're a partner and to give other attorneys that perception that there's some possibility of upward [00:10:00] mobility and to potentially give you a title will allow you to bring in clients.
I. Talk to attorneys all day. That's what I do. And I talked to people at branch offices and stuff with big firms and, and they'll say things like, oh, this firm hasn't made a partner in this office in 15 years, or in many cases, they've never made a partner in this office.
And 25 years, the fact that being a partner is such an incredible accomplishment. It means that in the eyes of most attorneys, there's nothing wrong with giving up or quitting or going in house or going to work in a boutique law firm or doing something else entirely if you're if you're at a large law firm doing that.
I know one attorney that decided to open an ice cream store after becoming an expert in corporate securities and billing 2,800 hours a year for 12 years. So people just, they give up and law firms really do not want to make you partner.
That's what you have to understand. So you have to, just with that basic idea you have to understand which is what I'm going to talk about next. You have to give them reasons for wanting to make your [00:11:00] partner. If you make someone a partner that means. That you have to share your income with them.
That means that you have to believe that they're going to offer you a lot more than you're giving them. And there has to be and you have to believe that they're loyal and they're going to stick around and you have to have all these beliefs that that may or may not be rational.
What reason does a law firm have to trust you? What did they what have you shown? So these are some of the things you start needing to think about. So here's why law firms make you partner. But firms are only going to make you partner. They have to. So this is the first and most important rule that you need to understand.
They have no other reason to make you a partner. And unless they absolutely believe that they have to they're not gonna make you partner because they like you. They're not going to make you partner because it's fair. They're not going to do so for any other reason that no one is looking out for you.
You have to understand that you're walking into this. You are completely alone. You have to provide a lot of. In [00:12:00] order to get someone to give you something that's the most basic rule of business you'd have to provide a lot more benefit than any other person that you're competing with and much more.
The law firm is going to have to be in a position where there's no other logical choice, but to make you partner it's as simple as that, you have to actually provide a lot more value. So there was. I was I may have talked about this before, but during the, when, when I, anyway, I remember very well because I grew up in Detroit.
There was this kind of big crisis because all these Japanese cars were coming in. And people were buying these Japanese cars, I of these American cars. The reason people would buy the Japanese cars is because in many cases you're, while you're in German cars your Volkswagens, your Hondas, and so forth were half the price of an American car.
Not only were they half the price, but they were multiple times better. And so everyone bought the Japanese and German cars instead. This is, decades ago, but it's what happened. And so that's why [00:13:00] those companies grew people have no incentive to buy cars from another country. But when they're half the price and they're much better cars.
They save people money. They don't break down, they hold their value there. So that's why companies succeed. And that's why people succeed to provide more value. And they're better. They're just better. They don't break down. They they don't give excuses for networking. They're always working hard.
They're they're bringing in a lot of money, if you buy a car for four, $7,500 versus 20,000 for the same car, that's an American car and it works all the time and doesn't break down and gets better gas mileage and all that stuff. It's a normal. Someone is instantly saving you $10,000 and a lot of hassle, and it's going to have a higher resale value.
So these are all reasons that people succeed as attorneys too, because they provide more value. There's no other logical choice. That's as simple as that. It's not because people are not going to make you partner or keep your partner. And you're not, nothing is going to work in the long run [00:14:00] that's inefficient.
So if someone's making you partner because they need to have someone I don't know for whatever reason in that seat as a partner. So they can say that, they're only going to keep your partner, make you mark partner when you're providing a ton more value than then you're then you're taking.
You need to really understand that you may be able to go into an organization and say, Hey you don't have anybody from this country as a partner, and I should be a partner because I'm from, I don't know, Finland. I'm just making this up as an example.
Maybe the firm was going to want to finish partner at some point, and maybe that's a great thing, but at the same time, that's not going to work in the long run. So the first thing is you have to look like you have a ton of business that the law firm is going to be able to exploit or look like you will have a ton of business.
Meaning when I say exploit, I also mean, I do mean exploit. You have to look or look like you will have a ton of business that the law firm can exploit. And what does that mean? They have to believe. That that [00:15:00] you're going to have a lot of business at some point or have a lot of business.
And why don't you use the word exploit because it is exploitation. You're getting exploited when you're an associate and you're going to explain it when your partner, that's just how the world works. It's no one is, Ana skin, everybody in every job, is getting exploited to some extent.
So I'm not saying law firms are doing anything wrong, but a law firm if you have $2 million in business the law firm might pay you 300,000 or 400 or 500, 700,000. And that 1.3 million is going somewhere else. It's going to their infrastructure. It's going to associates that are working for you and other people.
It's going to profits for the firm who knows. It's spent, when you bring in, you're creating a lot of access it's being spent on things you have no control over. And those include the law firms overhead the law firms, office space which are salaries and that you have no control over some, you're paying in some cases for bureaucrats to sit around and do nothing.
And some bureaucrats to be very good. Are you paying for associates to [00:16:00] sit around doing nothing you're paying for the law from getting sued and settlements and who knows? You're paying for more powerful partners that may not be working hard. It doesn't mean. You may be paying for opening up branch offices.
I, I had a thing happened once. It was very, it was actually funny, but it was sad. There was a partner there called me and he was like, I need a job in one week or something. And I was like, why, what happened? And he said that he had been working for this law firm for a long time.
And he bought in this huge case and got this giant settlement, where the firm got, tens of millions of dollars in fees. And without spending a lot of money, he did the trial and himself and everything, and they didn't really finance anything. And they gave him like, I dunno, $200,000 bonus or something, which he was very upset about.
And so he was like, how could I make someone $20 million? And they only give me $200,000. So that, that, or maybe it was more than that. I don't remember what the number was, but it was tens of millions of dollars. And so he was very upset and wanted a job within a week. And he was at a big, huge [00:17:00] national firm.
That's exploitation. And then the funny thing was, is I'm not going to get too far into it, but then I was in another, cause I was firms a client of mine. So they're just, again, they're just doing. Firms do, and it's not anything against the firm in particular, but then I was in another part of the country and they were opening up this beautiful office with this guy's money.
Building, doing this incredible build out. And I said, wow, this is just amazing. You don't even have anybody here. And they're like, oh, we're going to grow to these people. We got this huge one of our partners in another office or brought in this giant, trial verdict.
And it's giving us all this money to redo the firm. And that's just how it works. So you know, that and this kind of stuff happens all the time. The point is, if you have a lot of business, you're going to be paid a fraction of it. The rest is going to be used to support the firm and to make business decisions that you have no control over.
It will basically be distributed in many cases to people that are more powerful than you, nothing wrong with that. That's how it works. It's not, it's different than being an associate, but the law [00:18:00] firm needs to believe. That you have a lot of potential and you can make them a lot of money, much more than as an associate.
They want you to bring in money and they don't want to have to worry about you anymore. So their proposition is essentially, Hey, I can give you $2 million a year. Can I have an office, a secretary, a $500,000 in comics off a partner. You're also getting an, a brand other things and then you can do whatever you want and keep the extra 1.5 million.
I'm giving you a year. That, it sounds harsh. I'm not, again, I have nothing against the law firm business model. It should work that way. It's just, there's not a better alternative and it's just fine. And then the law firm will say, things are very competitive here.
We're not just anybody to partnership and so forth. Let me just fix this here. Okay. This is a statement about, if you approach a law firm and you say I have multi millions of dollars in business would you be interested in, and having me work here?
And then the basically saying, but lemme just give us a ball for the next few seconds. We'll get back to you after a vote of the partnership and then, two seconds later, congratulations, we all [00:19:00] voted now. I want to be very clear. There's some firms that are just Really good law firms your top New York law firms, your top west coast law firms.
They're not going to make anyone partner. Even if they have a lot of business I'm most of them, the ones that will do this are when you start getting further down, top 200 firms and stuff. This is not how Gibson Dunn or Blake thumb or something like that would ever in a million years think about operating.
They're just not, that's not how, or, Skadden or any of these credible places. They're not, this is not how those firms operate, but but a lot the majority of firms, I know people that have books of business of, 2 million, 3 million, 5 million, and literally move every one or two years and I've been doing so for decades.
The business you have we'll get you into a lot of firms most firms, and it's a no brainer because you're basically giving people a lot of money to hire you and to keep you on as a partner when you have that. So a good amount of business means different things to at different firms.
But again these [00:20:00] top us law firms are not going to be easy to get into with business, but because they do have a very high standards for the people that work there. And I have an incredible amount of respect for them. So I'm not going to say anything negative about them, but when you start getting further down. This is what firms rely on to stay alive.
It's just how how it works. And so there's, there are people when you start talking about like the top New York firms, the top firms around the country in Chicago and different parts, there's people there's people that have multi-million dollar books of business that are slow associates because it's that difficult to be, become a partner in those firms and they just don't care.
They have giant institutional clients. They don't need to water down a brand with people that they that are going to leave or are problematical, but and it may take even more business for them to take you seriously. So that's just something to think about, but if you have a good amount of business you can pretty much there's countless firms that will hire you.
Would that business when I say countless, if I have someone in LA [00:21:00] or New York with a couple million dollars in business, Reasonably be expected to get a 50 interviews, a hundred interviews with lots of firms, probably more than that. Because that's just how it works and the firms will take a percentage.
But it all depends on the firm. I've worked with people before and I a couple of years ago this woman contacted me. And I'm not going to say what part of the country she was in, but she was, she had a consumer facing practice where she was basically doing M what was it, what she was doing immigration petitions for people of a certain ethnic group.
And I'm not, it doesn't matter that it's for an ethnic group, but she, it was a practice that was basically conducted in a foreign language. She had a couple paralegals helping her and incredibly was bringing in three or $4 million a year in business which is very good. I got major not, not your top firms, but, Amazon.
100 down, farther down am law, 200 law firms to interview this person. She had never worked [00:22:00] in a law firm and everything was self-taught and literally it was bringing someone in and a practice career where the person didn't even the people working with her, these parallel goes to hardly, they spoke a little bit English, but this is how much business matter.
So it's just very important to understand it. And these are, this was someone that wasn't even you're talking about. Think about people sitting in the lobby of these firms that are representing top us companies to have their immigration matters, taken care of, with kids bouncing on their lap and stuff.
It's, it's just, it's not the picture that you get, but this is what this kind of business opens up. The firms, have a need for people with business. It's just how they survive. And it doesn't matter. If you don't have a ton of business and your continually over a period of years bringing in business and the amount of businesses constantly increasing the law firms also going to interest in that.
So it's interesting also to read about things like private equity and kind of how that works. If you're an associate and, as a first year, you bring in a hundred thous by the time you're an eighth year, you're [00:23:00] bringing in, 2 million or something.
The law firms can all logically conclude that, wow, this person is doing something right. It's going to continue going up that smart. And what, the way a private equity company works as a private equity company will look at a business and say, wow, this year they did 2 million the next year they did the next year.
They did three and a half, and they did. This is a great company you invest in, it's a no brainer for us. And that's how law firms think too. So if a law firm sees a lot of potential for what you can do in the future and it looks like they're going to be able to make the money, then they will make you partner.
They would be insane not to just think about it from their standpoint. If you're really want that honor, and you want to be part of what they're doing, they're going to make you partner. Again, there's other, a lot of people that have a knack for connecting to people and getting in business.
If a law firm sees that they're going to make you a partner the more money you bring to the table or look like you're going to bring more law firms to make you partner. It's how everything works. It's it's not, there's nothing wrong with that. It's just money, the driving equation.
And if you're doing work but [00:24:00] demanding more money and so forth, then you're a liability. If the work goes away, it's just simple as that. You need to bring in money. And it's an army and they need they need money is what feeds the army. Then you're the most valuable commodity.
And the picture it's the partners with business that make things work. It's just how it works. It doesn't matter again the idea of the largest firm in various cities interviewing, people that are in practice areas, they don't even do, but they're bringing to people is it shows how far this goes.
I, again, I know people that have, that well, anyway, the business matters. I, I don't want to get too far into it, but you could be falling down drunk with, I noticed people like this, but, with a lot of business it's you're, you can move firms very easily.
And then when people speak to you about your issues and so forth, they're just go to another firm and they'll take you and good firms. Law firms need people with business business is what makes things go if you want to be a part of. You need to find [00:25:00] ways to bring in business keep that business coming in because in the long run, that's all that matters.
And that's why law firms make people partner. It's why they keep them partner. And it's why they let them go as partner. So you can become a partner somewhere. And if you don't have business they will not keep you around. And you will not stick around. That's just the truth. You may last for a certain period of time while they have China's to dine institutional client, but eventually you won't, so that's the first thing.
So if you have a lot of business the law firm will make you partner. If you look like you are. Now the second reason that a law firm will make you partner. And this is actually a very valid one as well. Is if you're connected to a powerful partner group of partners with a ton of business that the law firm is explaining, and for everyone you may be at a very big firm right now and say, I don't have time to make partner or bring in business and so forth.
And that's fine. This is what you do. This is how you become a partner. In, in most law firms if you don't have a big book of business, you can easily if you play your political game you can become a [00:26:00] partner doing this. And what this means is you're connected to a group of people that, that have a lot of business that the law firm is exploiting.
And again, I used the word exploiting. It's very common in large law firms for attorneys to make partner to be closely connected to a powerful partner group of partners, but a ton of business with the law firm is exploiting. So if you see. And the firm you're working with, I'm sure there are partners with giant books of business and most farms, there's people with $50 million, there's people with 10 million 20 million.
Sometimes even more than that, and those partners will always have service partners that they're giving a lot of their work to that are close to them and they're right next to them. They follow them around and they interact with the clients. And so those partners can go out and do other things.
And so those there's always people like that. And so as an associate if there's one piece of advice that you really need to understand, and that's very important is you need to get close to partners that have a lot of business that, that's going to work for service [00:27:00] partners.
You should do good work for them. And do your best, but if you get close to a partner with a lot of business, those are the people that can make you partner because those people are bringing in business and someone with $10 million in business, that's getting paid 2 million or two and a half or 3 million again is throwing off $7 million in profits and things that the law firms using for other things.
And that law firm wants to make that person very happy because that person will leave and take their business with them if they don't. The people that are bringing in a lot of business that support the firm are very important for the firm. Those partners have a lot of power and they will make people partner.
I I was talking to someone not too long ago that had left a very big firm as a 10th year and was considered a very high performer there. But basically said to me, I was pretty close to having, someone vouch for me and go to the committee.
But I D I just couldn't get there with the right person or something. So they left after 10 years. [00:28:00] So the point is that there's people that are powerful, that can make you partner in every firm. And if you do good work for them and they like you, and they want you, they will go to bat.
Because they have business, they will be able to throw that around and make you a partner. One way to think about it is You go and see, 10 people are meeting to discuss you. One of them is carrying a nuclear bomb that if that goes off, everyone in the meeting dies and that person says, I want to make this person partner.
Obviously the person with the nuclear bomb or, if that person, if that partner leaves is to drastically hurt the firm and the profits, people are going to be like, okay, yeah, that's fine. We'll make this person partner. So that's just the way you need to think about things. So you need to get on the side of the people that have a lot of power.
And if you do that with two people or three people, you better off. So just think logically here. If you want to spend your time working with people that don't have that power you certainly should learn from them especially when you're young and make mistakes and get insight from them, but the people that are going to help you or the people with a lot of [00:29:00] business.
And every every firm and every market, there's people with $5 million in business in every decent size firm there's a lot of people like that. There's people with more than 10 those people are find a lot of money in the pot and they're supporting lots of people.
Because they're giving other partners work to do, and they're keeping things moving and they're paying for people's, private schools and cars and vacations. There's no way people want to upset those people because when those partners want something the other partners w we'll give it to them and asking for something like making someone a partner is very important.
Just imagine your partner has some business, but not a ton, which is what happens in most firms you have an opportunity to be a brown-noser. And, and impress someone who gives you 500 hours of work per year, which is a lot for you.
That helps you make your hours. It makes you look profitable to the management committee, and they're important because you need, you're expecting to get 2000 hours billed per year. And this makes you appear productive and so forth in the eyes partners. And if you didn't have each hours, your income would be different.
Imagine. Your [00:30:00] benefactor comes to you, the person that's giving you those hours and want something saying so-and-so is doing a good job, and I would appreciate your support and voting for them to be a partner with you, whatever. Do you think you would choose not to vote for Nancy and make them partner?
So the idea is of course you would and because the person's your benefactor and partners who leave firms a lot of times we'll often even do so when they propose certain associates to be partner and the firm just tells them to go pound sand, so that can happen. And, sometimes even groups of partners in the firm who are not supporting the more powerful partners, because they're not getting work from the power partners or even jealous of them.
That can happen. It's always important that you understand the politics of what's going on behind the scenes and partnerships because it's, it can, it can affect you. And it's also one of the reason firms get in trouble.
And it's a big part of the drama. I have a lot of firms what you get by the way, when you go to a very good firm. And when I say very good firms I'm talking about, your Simpson Thatchers or [00:31:00] your places like that. There's, you're very good firms.
What you get is you get firms that are able to manage all this political stuff very well. They have very good systems in place. They they distribute, they're able to make sure that money flows to the top in an efficient way. They're able to do lots of stuff very well. And, even, Morrison Forrester a lot of firms or X, these, a lot of these places like are very good and they have very well developed systems of of how they manage the, all this political stuff.
Andthey're just very good at it. Because half the game of running a successful law firm is managing think about how much there is to manage here and how they need to have democratic processes. And they need to have, they need to have diversity and they need to have the idea that people can rise to the top and so forth.
So this is very difficult and the best firms do a great job with it. The ones that go out of business or have problems or have the brand suffer and stuff are the ones that don't. But again, I can't say enough good things about some of the really good firms out there that do this [00:32:00] stuff.
They're there, there's very good firms out there it's very difficult from the standpoint of how this stuff is managed. So from a political standpoint once you get close to, if you get close to a partner who has a lot of work and you work extremely hard for that person, then your odds of making partner become very good.
What happens a lot of times is that more powerful partners will end up leaving their current firms and taking loyal associate with with them and make demanded. They may partner with the new firms as a conditioner joining because the partners also, what they want is they want the ability to have to have people loyal to them and to advance them so they can grow their book of business and concentrate on other things.
If you think about it,
From your standpoint. Really the smartest thing you can do is to get close to partners that have a lot of business, and then you do everything you possibly can to impress a partner and get their loyalty and support a powerful people goes a long way. You need everyone in your corner, but being supported by the most powerful people is extremely important.
Now you can get it [00:33:00] by working incredibly hard. You can get an by making them look good. You can get it by making, giving them credit for your work. You can get by carving up their mistakes. You can get it by taking clues from the partner. So some partners may actually give you an idea that they want you to undergo certain clients, meaning to keep them happy, just two extra things in the side or something that may, I'm not saying to under bill, by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm just saying be very careful with your hours and efficient with them.
If you can, with certain partners if they'd say to you, this is a smaller client, please be careful with your hours. Do not under any circumstances to do work as efficiently as you can. Saying nice things to the partner, to clients, to get back to them being a confidant for the partner, always keeping secrets, if you destroy secrets and the person can trust you, that will and that gets back to them that will destroy your relationship.
There's nothing. If you say something to someone about that person it's probably going to get back to them, assume that anybody you tell or you talk about something [00:34:00] negative with a partner is going to get back to them. And this is another thing too, by the way, that I would just, I would caution you Burke any firm that you work on.
I, and I hate to say this being human everyone is human. So you will make mistakes. You will do dumb things. You will you'll make romantic mistakes at work, maybe you'll make you'll make you'll say the wrong thing. You'll do all sorts of things.
And then outside the office, you'll also make mistakes. You may get arrested for driving 120 miles an hour on the freeway. I don't know. But the point is anything that you say when you're in a firm and this is important to understand, and you tell someone that you think is your friend will always, everyone will know, so you have no secrets.
So you need to be very careful. If you say something negative about a coworker that will probably get back to the coworker you just, because if you upset the person you told, or that person is threatened by you, that will get back to them. So all these political rules, I think people need to learn at some point, but they [00:35:00] can destroy you.
They I've seen so many people destroyed by this sort of stuff. So just remember that if you say negative things about any partner, it's going to get back to them. If you talk behind them, It's going to get back to them. Anything that you do that's negative. We'll get back to them and I, you are entitled to stick up for yourself.
So I know the one firm I worked at there was this partner that actually ended up going to jail later, not when he was working at the firm, but after he left for for trying to, he was doing some fraud with selling medical records or something, I don't know what was going on, but but the, I think he's in jail to this day.
I mean that, but the point is that some, I know an associate that was working with him and basically, and it was a young associate and said, I can't work with this guy because everything I give him he comes back and it doesn't make sense. He went and told. The head of the firm, I think at the time.
And they said, no, you don't have to work with them. And he was fine, but that was not a powerful partner. But just never talk behind people's back. Your job is to [00:36:00] make people's life easier and not more difficult, if you can answer questions without interrupting people. That's also very helpful.
So you shouldn't ask a lot of questions you should make someone's life easier. You should when you can if you're working directly for someone different firms have different systems but if you know that partner likes to pop in your office, if you're there early and you should try to be there before the part gets there and you should leave after they go home.
That's something people like, I don't if you're working in an office if you're online, you should always be available that sort of availability and when someone's paying you a lot of money that's not an excuse to take half the day off. It's not an excuse to, your advancement is dependent on being there for people.
And it's just very important to understand that's what it works, especially with partners and major firms. Other thing too, is correcting people's work when necessary. I once worked for a partner I don't know how I think he had very big clients, which is how he became a partner.
He was very good at. Just a really good [00:37:00] guy, like in terms of his personality always smiling and making jokes and very dedicated to his job. And he had a whole like file cabinets of, six file cabinets of all these form files and things would be used. But the guy who like, literally couldn't write, he he could write, but he would always make mistakes and he would leave out words, that were needed.
And so I always caught the stuff for him fixed it. And I never told him my dad but I remember I, and I was putting in an office right next to him. And so I never told them I was fixing the stuff, but, I'm sure he knew I was. And if I had gone to him every time and told them what I fixed, it would have probably been annoying.
So y'all sent me a personal assistant and happily do things when Wouldn't necessarily without necessarily being asked to do and even if you think it's beneath you I would always do things like I remember working for a judge, I would I would always get to work, the first person to work.
I would get there at seven, he got there at eight 30 or something, and I would always go upstairs and, get crab his mail and paper and put it on his [00:38:00] desk. I'd make coffee. Some people might say, oh you're an attorney. That's not your job, but no, it is your job. It's your job to to, to basically the person that's teaching you and you're learning from maybe a clerkship is different than working in a law firm, but if people are asking to do things, you do it.
If someone says swing by my house and pick up these papers, you do it and you do it happily. Then you maybe even do something like, Hey, I, I also stopped and got a coffee on the way here's a coffee I got on the way back. These are things that you should be doing.
If you're working, trying to be very close to someone that it doesn't a different person you want to turn in work, that's exceptional and as good as it can be. And this is how it's done. And it's offensive. If if it is offensive for you to do these kinds of things, Are going to have to make partner in a different way, and you certainly not need to have a brown nose or a kiss ass to do that.
I'm not saying that by any stretch of the national imagination, but I, what I am saying is that if you want to be if someone has a giant book of business you want to be on their side and do a frickin, whatever they, what they asked for and be [00:39:00] there, if they want to talk about to talk about the basketball game every Monday, or, a football game probably should be familiar with what happened in the football game or, and you just, you need to be on that person's side.
And I, I really don't know how to emphasize it. I it's very important. I know, if you get close to a partner with a huge amount of business, that partner may retire and give you the business you just, you have to look out for yourself and looking out for yourself means, and in this business, looking out for other people and the people that are above you, it's very important.
And people will reciprocate nice behaviors. When you say thank you for a rate or a bonus, if you get the bonus is somewhat discretionary and you go to them and you say, thank you and write a note. They're going to be that's going to make them feel good that you appreciate, and you don't have a a sense of entitlement.
All of these things are huge. And people that don't become partners many times let their egos get in the way. They may think they shouldn't have to work so hard. They think that they didn't become officiate things. Like I didn't become a lawyer to have to kiss ass. They say [00:40:00] things like, I, I didn't go to law school to have to make copies.
There'd be so much personal assistant. They say things like that if someone else made a mistake on their work, it's not their problem. They say they're their own people. That's a free, there's free speech. They can talk about and say negative things about people if they want.
And what they like. And they wouldn't be saying these things, if it weren't true. They think they can undermine their law firm and do things that are hurting the group or the people in power. And they think that they, don't all a higher degree to loyalty, to anyone in particular, even their own firm.
And this is how things work. People Sue their own law firms while they're working there. They expect that these things are going to help them and they don't. Any of these patterns can be fatal they go against how people have gotten ahead in the world. For as long as human history has been recorded.
Everyone needs to kiss ass to people. The president of United States has to go out and kiss ass and give speeches to two groups of people that he may not even, or she may not even they have to do so with other foreign leaders, they have to the CEOs of the [00:41:00] largest companies are accountable to boards that, may have to kiss their ass.
The owners of Elon Musk has to kiss the SCCs ass, that owners of huge from billionaires, rockstars, famous actors, everyone needs to kiss someone's ass in order to get ahead, whether it's the public or the other leaders or whatever, that's just how it works. You're not beyond that. If you think as an associate.
Or as a junior partner or something that you're beyond having to kiss ass to people you have to hear the SIM with clients. Have you ever watched a partner with a lot of business and the way they talk to clients and how they make them feel and how they remember birthdays and children's birthdays.
And this is how it works in the world. It's just what it is. And the sooner you get beyond yourself and start thinking, that you can be successful without doing this stuff. It you're going to be much better off. So here's the way that a lot of young people think, and even people that are older in law firms, I'm astonished because I've hired people before that are [00:42:00] attorneys that went to, the top law schools that, we're in the top of their class at these Ivy league law schools.
Then 30 years. And they tell me how they got a 47 on their L sat or they, how their law school is ranked this, or, how they worked at this big firm because you did well on the L set. And because you did well in college and because you went to a great law school and maybe did really well there.
And because you worked in a big firm does not give you the right to be successful. None of that is what makes people successful. What makes people successful is their relationship with clients and their relationship with the people that are helping them and their job.
That's it. If you want to rely on those things then where you went to school and so forth that's really going to hurt you. I I meet people all the time and I hate to say this, but it's just, to me, it's just lunacy. I meet people and, and not all the time, when I go to things, that don't involve attorneys.
So say I meet someone, they say, oh, when I was in college out east, and of course. [00:43:00] That means they went to Yale or Harvard, or when I was in college and Northern California, which means they went to Stanford. Like you, you don't ride in the cocktails of things that you may have done. And typically, Stanford people never do that by the way, very rarely.
When people are doing stuff like that it's a sign of insecurity and it's relying on things that have happened in the past. You have to really be very cognizant about providing value here now, which means, regardless, if you're more humble har harder working and you go and you do the right thing and kiss the ass of the right people and are do a good job, you'll get ahead.
If you rely on your past success and so forth and expect that someone's going to advance you because of that. Then that just not a good thing. So like another example is and I don't want to keep getting into this stuff, like the, the more successful you are when you're younger or the more early successes, Gayle law school is another big one.
Like people that go there, like that becomes something that many times holds them back because of believe that [00:44:00] they're, they're too good to have to go get business, or they're too good to do this. And you just have to remember that you're every firm you're going to be advanced by people and you need to have a relationship.
So the next one. And there's a, and I apologize that I'm spending a lot of time on these. I just believe that they're very important for your success because I'm really sharing with you decades of experience in this field and watching what makes people successful or not. And being in watching it every day.
And it's just, for me, it's upsetting the people, don't succeed that are capable of, and they're smarter than others. And, they're just making the same mistakes over and over again. So the next one is if you're connected to a powerful client, a group of clients who give the firm a ton of business and that the law firms exploiting that can help you too.
It's not as common being made partner due to connection with a powerful partner, but numerous attorneys and large law firms become partners every year due to connection with powerful clients that they're able to explain to their benefit. That's just the way it works. If you're an associate and tasks, we're working directly for a large.
Your objective really needs to [00:45:00] be, to do whatever you can to impress that large institutional client. You want the general counsel. You want whoever you're working for to say very nice things about you and say, we want this person on our team. You want to find loopholes and things for that partner, for that client that will save them lots of money.
You want to help them in any possible way that you can get the best possible service from that law firm. That means you'll do the best work possible for the client. You'll do what you can if that's what the client wants to keep bills down. And you're going to basically be the best attorney of the client's ever seen.
Now, that doesn't mean that you're going to use your abilities. Show up the people around you, but if you're working hard and doing a good job the client will see it. The more you understand about the client, their business the more you're going to help the client and be the client's point person and be able to take their point of view.
So you need to understand what the client does, what their businesses have insight into problems and things that could help them and not go about this, which many [00:46:00] attorneys do like in a, like a lobotomized automaton just responding to legal problems in a way that doesn't take into account the person's situation and understand who they are.
So you need to understand your clients very well. And then doing good work being available, responding to their emails all the time. And frankly being even more impressive to the client, to the client in the long run, then the partner who brought the climb to begin with now you as a working for the client, you are the you're the representative of the partner.
So that doesn't mean you're up. You're trying to look better than the partner or you're gonna, you're gonna get respect from the client. The better, the more you defer to the partner and the more you explain why the partner, what, the more you are a good follower. So people do not become generals that are not followers first.
So you need to be very good at that and make sure that the client understands that, you respect the partner and he's great and she's great, whatever, but and that, and you're not overseeing them, but you need to do very good work. You want the client to [00:47:00] call you for answers to questions.
You want the client to be calling you with new matters if they can't reach the partner and you wanna feel you want the client to feel very good about you. And that does not mean that you're going to threaten the part because we threatened the partner. You're going to be out of there.
You want the client to feel like the partners, the one that's told you to do whatever it takes to make the person happy. And you're just following instructions and so forth. So you do not want to undermine the partner. That's not what I'm saying. You want the partner, the client to feel very good.
Because if they think you're getting too close to the client, by trying to steal the client, you're undermining the partner so far then you'll be out on the street very quickly that the firm is not, or they'll transfer you and have you worked for someone else? But that's, so that's not good.
You basically, I'm doing all this for you because of the partner said to take incredible care of you, they really care about you and so forth. So getting close to the client, it needs to be subtle and just take place over a period of time. You need to basically be taking work off the partners a way that let the [00:48:00] partner get out there and do their thing.
You'd need to make it less stressful for the partner. And the idea is by the time the law firm sees you become indispensable with the client. Hopefully it's too late to penalize you, especially if it's a major client, because the firm puts you on matters, not involving the client or fire.
Then the firm will face a huge danger of losing the client. So the client needs to basically want to work with you and be relying upon you. Not in a way where you're sealing the client from the partner. And I want to be very clear about that. Are those even the hint of that, the idea is that what you're doing is you're getting close to the client because that's what you're doing.
Because that's what the partner wants. You're being careful to avoid any appearance of impropriety, meaning spending time with the client that the partner may not want. And so for giving opinions that the client may not want that the partner may not want to give a lot to clients so forth, you just need to be very careful, but you need to have a very strong connection with the client because a client can basically say to a partner or to someone in the firm, that's in charge of the relationship.
We want this [00:49:00] person, on our, all of our matters. We'd like them, if they were in a position to being a partner. That's enough, many times, especially if it's a giant client, that's giving, tens of millions of dollars a year in business, and that's what you want. You want to be trusted and do whatever you can to be a very good advocate for that person.
And really in many cases take it that client, like it's the most important person in the world. I. I had a very interesting experience when I was in law school, I decided to write a book about personal injury liars, and I traveled around the country interviewing them. Cause, cause I was very interested in the work one of the guys I interviewed with he's no longer alive, but his name was Phil and he was in Chicago.
Before he would go to trial, in any case, he would have his staff and this, you know what he told me, he said that he would, they would come in and they would dump. All the papers and the case in a giant jacuzzi bathtub, I guess he kept, he lived in an apartment in the water tower in Chicago big, probably a nice apartment, but and dump every [00:50:00] paper in there and just mix them all up then.
So then he would go and he would have to sort through every paper and then organize them and that he would learn every single thing he possibly could about the case before going to trial. And that's one of the reasons I think he was considered one of the most effective trial lawyers out there is because he would really know the details of everything very well.
And it's, this is another guy too, by the way, that apparently, Greg barely graduated from law school and so forth, but he became very good and understood his clients. You need to understand your clients. And if you're really close to the client, at some point, the client's going to say to you, have you voted, they voted, you be a partner yet.
And if it's not said, it's going to come up, especially if you're friendly with a client and if the client is large enough the client may volunteer to go to work and volunteer for you and so forth. If you get a client like that to go to bat for you, the law firm subtly feels that if they may lose a client, they don't advance you.
The client will go to they do this all the time. They'll go to an associate or or income partner on say. We love your work, but we're [00:51:00] unhappy with a law firm for whatever reason. Go to another firm lettuce now, which is basically will be your client. So people get those sorts of things all the time from clients when they're leaving firms, they also get it to make the partner so getting, if it's very difficult for you to get close to a powerful partner a good option is to get close to the clients and not in a way again, that threatens anyone.
If you threatened people you will. Fired it's as simple as that or not advanced, so don't threaten people but you need to be seen as an honest, brilliant person, fair biller, hardworking out to save the money. And you can do that in a lot of ways. You can, your fair billing with your, I'm not going to get into a lot of stuff, but, having very good descriptions of the work you do for the partner and all that sort of stuff can help protect the company, find things that the company may not be aware of that would help them and just have their back a hundred percent again, being a mindless lobotomized, drone legal matters is not helpful.
It imagine if you were a client and you saw all of these associates, you got your bills and you saw these [00:52:00] associates saying, reviewed interrogatories, 1.4 hours, but then you saw another description from another one that was, reviewed and derogatories, researched law on this for the interrogatories con and it was just a long response.
You would start saying, who is this person that's putting in all this detail and things, and then you would, be enthusiastic. And then when that person was put on your stuff, you would like it. So that's just another way to think about all of this that, getting close to the client means.
Anything that they see that you do that your name is on it's very detailed. It's done very well. And the person is asking for you in the future. And that's about that. The next reason a law firm will make you partner is if you work so incredibly hard, that's not make you partner with de-motivate other hardworking associates in the law firm that they're also exploiting.
And if they don't make you partner, it's going to make it difficult for the law firm to sustain this exploitation of other associates in the long run. So in every law firm, there are people that that work very hard and there are ones that don't. Ours, [00:53:00] if you're an associate in a law firm the only currency you have, if you don't have a relationship, good relationships with partners, if you don't have a good relationship with clients if you don't have any business then hours are what you have.
So all these are values that you have, and this is the fourth value and hours matter a lot. And because without a lot of hours the law firm doesn't make money. I had an experienced, I quit a law firm once. And when I quit I've quit more than one law firm, but when I quit they, they sent another printer by an incident.
Why are you quitting? And I said this attorney, I think there's really good. And they weren't very partner that's disappointing cause I worked for them. And then, it was just very mature at the time. Stupid thing to say, and. And the other part, and the partner said to me that was talking to music.
This attorney only billed 2,800 hours. And I wanted that made partner built 3,200 hours, which I mean, these kinds of hours are just ridiculous. But the point is, the point was, is that, they were using as a measurin
