Arbitration & Mediation

Attrition? We Don't Care About No Stinkin' Attrition!

By Victoria Pynchon

I've got a series of guest posts about using conflict resolution skills to set partnership compensation over at the Connecticut Employment Law Blog while employment lawyer and blogger Daniel Schwartz is in trial.  So I've been thinking about law firm employment issues a lot lately. 

Two of the most important men in my life -- my step-son Adam Goldberg who is about to begin a law firm career -- and my husband, insurance recovery and complex commercial litigator Stephen Goldberg who just joined Dickstein Shapiro after nearly 35 years with Heller Ehrman -- keep me interested in the happiness quotient of BigLaw associates and partners.

So I'm always happy to read that lawyers somewhere are happier than they are in other places, like at Blackwell Sanders where the ABA online Journal tells us that the  Attrition Rate for Associates Has Been Cut in Half. (excerpt below).

Kansas City firm Husch Blackwell Sanders reports it has cut its attrition in half after it cut its lockstep evaluations of associates in 2001.

"It doesn't make a lot of sense to compensate, bill for and advance associates based on how many years they've shown up for work," partner Peter Sloan told the Los Angeles Times in a story about the student-led effort, Building a Better Legal Profession.

Sloan notes that the firm evaluates young lawyers based on learned skills. They also give credit for pro bono work and other initiatives. Clients are pleased with this system because they pay based on an associate's experience level rather than how many years it's been since graduation.

I'll be commenting on this in Part III of my guest column over at Connecticut Employment Law Blog in the next couple of weeks so keep an eye out for it there.   

Full post as published by Settle It Now Negotiation Blog on March 21, 2008 (boomark / email).