AssociateSpeak

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Do associates leave law firms in part because they don’t feel that partners invest in their personal growth and development, or do partners fail to mentor because they are disheartened by the high level of associate attrition?

Partners who don’t put much weight into training or mentoring will offer various arguments for why the status quo exists: Partners are too busy. Firm hierarchy is set up so that senior associates, not partners, should be training junior associates. Associate turnover is so high that the extra time and personal effort spent training an associate is simply wasted when that associate leaves the firm (sometimes within the year).  I’ll address each of these arguments in turn.

“Partners are too busy.” Really? Everyone is busy. Being “too busy” is simple code for “not a priority.” In the law firm environment, where the priority is to maximize profits, being too busy simply means not being willing to take on one fewer case and use that time for associate training.

“Senior associates should mentor.” True, they should and they do. Some of the best mentoring occurs from another associate who is more senior and has more experience. That happens all the time, and it’s a great thing. However, it doesn’t replace partner mentoring. Partners, after all, are privy to the high-level decisions and legal strategy sessions that even the senior associate may not be aware of. They also have tons of real-world experience. It really helps to have both partner and associate mentoring.

“Associates rarely stick around long enough to make it worthwhile.” This is the biggie. A number of firms keep internal statistics tracking their turnover rates. What they find is that the vast majority of attrition occurs in the first couple years. In other words, entry-level associates are the most likely to leave. Because of that, partners find themselves more unwilling to mentor someone fresh out of law school as opposed to someone who has stuck around for a few years and proven to be a staple of the firm. The irony, of course, is that the associates who end up receiving the least mentoring from partners are the entry-level associates who need it the most, and the associates who receive the most mentoring (senior associates working directly with the partners) are the ones who need it the least.

Back to the chicken and the egg. Put yourself in the partner’s shoes for one second. You are a partner excited about mentoring an associate. You spend a lot of non-billable time grooming this associate for stardom. You do all the things you can within your power to ensure that she gets good work experience. She repays you, after two years of training, by telling you that she’s leaving the firm to go work at the DOJ. Your plans to have her work as your trusted associate for many years, and then perhaps as a junior partner when you are a senior partner, have just vanished. You vow never to make that mistake again.

The partner’s viewpoint is certainly understandable, but it’s too narrow in focus. Let’s zoom out for a second and see what’s really going on. First year associates start work in the fall. They are bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and eager to please. For some of them, it’s their first job ever. They want to make a good impression, and will do whatever they can to please the partners. They have high hopes for the profession and for their future. In short, the vast majority of these first year associates come into the profession wanting to succeed, wanting to stay long-term, perhaps wanting to make partner. There are always a few exceptions: the outliers who decide to work at large law firms to pay off their student loans, figuring they can game the system by lying low under the radar and doing as little work as possible and just “getting by.” But those are the exceptions. Most want to succeed at the firm, and they do not go in having plans to leave.

So why do they leave? That’s a complex question, and I’ll be exploring all aspects of this in the months to come. But I submit to you that it has to do in part with the lack of investment by partners in associates, particularly first years. If the assumption that most first years do not enter a job with their exit strategy already secured is accurate, then it must follow that something is causing them to change their minds within the workplace environment itself. So it seems to me that associates leave because they aren’t getting the feeling that partners are investing in them, which in turn then causes partners to invest even less time in associates. It’s a vicious cycle, but unlike the chicken and the egg, we know where the head is.