Partnership submissions often read like performance reviews: billable hours, matters handled, revenue generated, and committees served. While those metrics matter, they tell only part of the story.
The most compelling submissions go beyond numbers to show leadership, impact, and alignment with the firm’s culture and strategic goals. Ultimately, they demonstrate an owner’s mindset.
Acceptance into the partnership ranks is, in significant part, an investment decision by firm leadership and the broader partnership base. The firm evaluates whether individual lawyers have the judgment, cultural fit, and strategic value to help grow the business over time. Lawyers who view partnership as the professional reward for “doing good work” and “working hard” misapprehend what partnership entails and why. It typically is much more than a promotion or title change.
Owner’s Mindset
An owner’s mindset is about responsibility. Partners are responsible for the firm’s success and for the many employees who depend on the partners for their livelihood and own professional success. The weight of this responsibility can be substantial, and a major misstep as a partner can mean the loss of a valuable client—which can eliminate work.
Law firms—even in Big Law—are more akin to small businesses than corporations where important business functions are spread across various specialized departments and executives. Like small business owners, partners are required to market and sell the firm’s services, provide those services themselves, manage and train the other lawyers and professional staff who also provide those services, recruit new lawyers and staff, strategize and plan the firm’s future, manage client relationships, review and collect on invoices, and help with day-to-day operations, ranging from opening new offices to selecting the artwork on the walls. The practice of law is just one responsibility.
When a lawyer is up for partnership consideration, they already should exhibit an owner’s mindset which includes:
- Anticipating client needs instead of waiting for assignments
- Identifying business development opportunities, including outside their own practice area
- Building meaningful professional relationships, internally and externally
- Demonstrating sound business judgment in managing clients, budgets, and risk
- Being a good firm citizen through mentoring, committee work, volunteering, and pro bono efforts
- Putting the firm ahead of their own self-interests
The partnership submission should demonstrate how a lawyer’s previous work and future potential will directly advance the firm’s strategic goals. Lawyers writing or contributing to their submission should present their achievements as business outcomes.
Examples can include highlighting their ability to generate new client relationships or cross-selling opportunities that expand the firm’s reach. Or they can describe the integral role the lawyer plays with supporting existing clients that regularly turn to that lawyer for help. They can detail the ingenuity they brought to creative fee arrangements that strengthened client relationships and enhanced profitability for the firm. They can describe excellent results that they played a pivotal role in obtaining and fostering client confidence that leads to future work.
Going Beyond Numbers
Being considered for partnership is itself a recognition of a lawyer’s talent, hard work, and contributions to the firm. But a key question for admission to partnership is: Will this lawyer continue to stay busy as a partner? And for equity partnership in particular, the question often is: Will this lawyer help keep others busy?
The answers lie beyond a lawyer’s own billable hours, even for those billing at the highest levels. Client demand for partners can be very different from demand for associates and counsel who cost significantly less and are expected to fill a different role. Even the most successful associates and counsel can find it difficult to get staffed on matters once they are partners if they don’t understand this shifting dynamic and position themselves for success.
Leading By Example
Historic revenue generation is certainly valuable, but it’s not essential at many firms—and it almost certainly isn’t dispositive. Partners must be capable of leading others effectively, especially in a manner that doesn’t drive talent out of the firm.
Leadership can be shown through helping to manage a significant client relationship, building and strengthening case teams, mentoring more junior lawyers, heading up a firm committee or affinity group, filling significant roles with industry organizations such as a bar association, and managing business development efforts such as pitch opportunities and responses to requests for proposals from clients.
Lawyers who advance firm culture, invest in others, and enhance the firm’s reputation—not just their own—tend to demonstrate partner-like leadership. It’s that kind of leadership that can drive client demand and generate revenue.
Showing Tangible Impact
Even qualitative contributions can produce tangible—and measurable—outcomes. Activities such as mentoring junior associates, preparing client alerts, publishing articles, speaking at industry events, and leading pro bono efforts can produce results that benefit the firm.
Devoted mentors improve retention, efficiency, work product, and professional relationships. Public thought leadership and pro bono work on important causes can enhance a firm’s recognition and brand. And key relationships can be especially impactful. Lawyers who build meaningful connections through thoughtful client engagement can grow beyond a “hardworking associate” to a “strategic revenue contributor.”
Finding a Sponsor
Junior lawyers must take charge of their presence within the firm. Future partners actively participate in firm events, lead initiatives where applicable, and engage with others across the firm. Building relationships over time with partners, practice leaders, and decision-makers provides personal insight and connections that no written submission can.
Finding a sponsor among senior partners is especially valuable. They can serve as an influential voice for the lawyer in the partnership process and help ensure the lawyer is successfully positioned for consideration. The most effective sponsors are those who have seen the lawyer’s work and character firsthand and can credibly vouch for their impact, judgment, and readiness to join the partnership.
Visibility must be intentional. Waiting until a partnership vote to be noticed by the partnership committee is too late.
Lawyers pursuing partnership need to understand that it’s not the finish line. It’s a new beginning—one that brings exciting opportunities and significant responsibility. Those who start to exhibit a partner-like mindset well before partner eligibility will be best prepared to capitalize on those opportunities and bear that responsibility—and to present a compelling business case for promotion.
This article does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg Industry Group, Inc., the publisher of Bloomberg Law, Bloomberg Tax, and Bloomberg Government, or its owners.
Author Information
Megan Senese is co-founder and principal at stage, a women-owned business development and legal marketing firm.
David Cross is a leading, first-chair trial lawyer and a partner in Goodwin’s antitrust and competition practice.
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