Legal Commentary

Lost Generation of Associates. Can We Count On Firms To Find A Solution?

By Patrick J. Lamb

By some measurements, 50% of new associates leave their high-paid jobs at AmLaw 200 firms within 4 years.  Two-thirds of these departures of the associate's choice, not the firm's.  And the reason for such departures, in the main, is that associates are given drudge work with no real responsibility.  Training is not provided.  Associates are not incorporated into a team, have no understanding of case strategy and aren't wanted by clients.  

So writes former GE General Counsel Ben Heineman, Jr. and David Wilkins, the Kirkland & Ellis Professor of Law and director of the Program on the Legal Profession and Center on Lawyers and the Professional Services Industry at Harvard Law School.  Heineman now is distinguished senior fellow in the Harvard program.  Heineman is widely credited with transforming the GC position into the powerhouse position it is today and certainly transformed GE's law department into one of the very best in corporate America.  His insights command attention.

The article's title sums up the dilemma facing corporate America: Big Firm associates are a "Lost Generation."  The article, "The Lost Generation?",  appears in the March 2008 issue of Corporate Counsel magazine.  Heineman and Wilkins put the real onus for change on the firms, conclude that firms must radically change the way they develop associates, while still acknowledging that corporate clients must be part of the change.  Here is part of their conclusion:

But the primary responsibility for professional development rests ultimately with big firms, which need explicit cooperation from their corporate clients.  They must address the paradox of ever-higher associate compensation and ever-shorter tenure.  The answer is not late-night dinners from The Palm on silver servers.  It is a stimulating, mind-expanding experience at the beginning of their professional careers that treats associates as adults, gives them responsibility, and, most of all, communicates the intellectual and practical excitement of confronting the significant issues that the best partners enjoy.  This challenging culture of professional service, more than pure dollars, can help firms become employers of choice. 

From my vantage point, this answer is wishful thinking.  The turnover problem has existed for decades.  And firms have simply chosen to throw more money at the problem, as they do confronting man problems.  The legal field has never been a particularly innovative one, so why expect that to change?  One former partner once compared the notion of changing a firm's ingrained way of thinking to the difficulty of "turning an aircraft carrier around in parking lot."

When discussing hourly rate issues, I have frequently said that clients must demand before firms will respond.  I think the same will be true with respect to this problem.

Full post as published by In Search of Perfect Client Service on March 12, 2008 (boomark / email).