Description
What Does it Take to Make Partner in Leading Law Firms
[00:00:00] How does partnership work at firms like Skadden, STB, Lathan, Gibson?
I've heard talk of "originating partner" and also "eat what you kill". I assume this has to do with what partner gets credit for the work or revenue that's coming in, and that at least part what determines their distributive share of partnership profits for the year? Are there other factors?
More of a general question. There seems to be a divide in opinion between making equity partner: you must be a rainmaker and bring in business, no firm will make you equity partner unless there's a business need and, if you do good work and are well liked, you can eventually make partner if you stick around long enough and build enough hours,
I don't know who to believe. I also hear that how the market is doing at the time of your up for partnership matters, or just the specific situation within your firm practice group at the time. I'd like to hear more thoughts and reasoning behind this as possible.
Okay, these are great questions. There's quite a bit to what you're asking. But firms like Skadden, Simpson Thatcher, Latham and Gibson, none of those firms really need to make partners. They have enough partners most of the time. [00:01:00] They don't really need to make partners. But, they do of course. They all do. And, how do you make partner in a firm like that is often, like you said, is to question that there's a bunch of different things going on. So, if you want to be a partner in a major firm, the first thing is, you need to work hard and you need to show potential, all those sorts of things. And those are obviously important. If you want to do it at the partner at the firm you're with, the second thing is to become an equity partner. In most of these firms you do need to have business and it typically needs to be fairly significant business.
It doesn't always have to be. If it's not business, then you need to be the preferred contact for a very important client or a very important partner. You can certainly make partner. The other thing you brought up was geography and economy,
Where you're at? Economy? In a branch office or not? That sort of thing. And those sorts of questions. So the big thing here is that if you [00:02:00] want to make partner in most law firms, you're going to need to work hard, you need to show potential, they're gonna think you're loyal. You're going to need to really be a standout. You're going to need to be integral to the business that the firm's doing.
And in most cases, to be an equity partner, the bigger the firm, they have very significant institutional clients. They need to have a lot of confidence that you can handle anything with those clients, that they can rely on you. You're gonna work hard and so forth. So there's a lot that goes into it. But, the big thing to remember is, most of these firms that you're talking about do not need to make partners. So, the only way they're going to make you a partner is if you're just really outstanding and you have a lot to offer.
And there's a significant business case for doing so. And, most successful partners in large law firms, they put themselves in a position where there's definitely a business case for the firm keeping them around. And so, you need to understand that and the signals and so forth that whatever office you're in and so forth is given off.
You have to work extremely hard. You have to do very [00:03:00] good work, you have to do all these things. And, in most cases, you need to really be pretty, pretty outstanding to, to become a partner in a firm like that. And, it's one reason, very few people are able to do that.
One other thing just so important to understand is that the idea of sticking around. Sticking around is important, but at some point, a law firm is going to need to see certain stuff from you to understand, if you have what it takes.
And, the market does matter. But really, it's about being in a position where you're just extremely outstanding and I don't really know how much more to say. The more you throw yourself into something and the better off you're going to be.
It depends on the office that you're in, but to partner, most of those firms, this is extremely difficult and you need to be pretty outstanding. I've written a lot of articles about this, but the big thing that I just would recommend is that you want to make sure that if you're someone that's made a partner in a major law firm, [00:04:00] typically, you're in a position when you almost feel like you have a lot more to offer than the firm can possibly give you.
It means being a preferred contact, it means working harder than others. It means being someone that, other people in the firm want to work with. There are some firms where you may never be able to make partner like those firms where even being a counsel will be a big deal.
