Why is There a Bottleneck of Senior Associates?

It’s frustrating being stuck in the limbo of non-promotion. You’ve put in the hours, the hard work, and the time at your firm, but it seems like there are simply too many other senior lawyers who have been there just as long, or longer, for you to have any hope of partnership in the near future.

Why is it so, and can you avoid it?

Unclear Promotion Criteria

While many firms have rigorous policies in place about promotions, there is almost always a subjective element.

Absent direct communication from the existing partners that subjective element can result, sadly, in none of the senior lawyers ever really knowing how and when they should be making noise about partnership.

That’s particularly the case if you’re not the “next in line” and might assume “if person X hasn’t been made partner yet, then I certainly wouldn’t get it”.

Imbalanced Leverage

We see leverage in the ratio of partners to senior lawyers to junior lawyers (and clerks, administrative staff and so on).

If a firm or a team in your area are most profitable when highly leveraged (less senior staff, more junior staff) then it can be easy for things to become unbalanced over time.

It happens naturally – the team hires plenty of junior lawyers, many of whom stay and become more senior. The result is an inevitable choke point of senior lawyers but an inability for the firm to profitably promote anyone to partnership.

Unpromotable Senior Associates

While firms have variations on the requirements for partnership, one thing is consistent: you need to have clients or a high potential of getting some.

With large firms particularly, this can be quite a problem. Because such firms often have deep relationships with large institutional clients, young lawyers can be kept extremely busy right from the day they start as a clerk all the way through to senior associate.

Because the work comes in at a steady pace, nothing during that time equips those lawyers to build their personal brand, market their services, or get new work through the door. It’s simply not necessary.

This can result in highly competent legal professionals, but not particularly skilled business owners.

Existing Partners in the Same Space

There’s a point at which a firm has a demonstrated ability in a particular space which is going well for them. Perhaps they already have a few partners in the same area who are growing their revenue consistently, but not yet run off their feet.

In the wrong circumstances, offering a new partner into this situation might, in some cases, simply dilute the existing profitability rather than adding another channel for revenue.

In essence, a new partner (especially one without demonstrated marketing abilities) could just be competing with the existing practices, which would make no sense from a business perspective.

Partners Who Won’t Let Go

The final reason we suggest explains the bottleneck at senior associate level is fairly simple: the existing partners don’t want anyone else at the table right now.

This might be for economic reasons, for personal reasons, for business reasons or a variety of other possibilities.

Whatever the cause though, it can lead to the feeling that senior associates are being misled about opportunities that don’t really exist.

Stuck in the Bottleneck – What Can you Do?

The first step is diagnosis – why is there a bottleneck? Is it one of the reasons we’ve put here, or something else entirely?

Next figure out whether it’s something over which you have some control. For example, if you lack the ability to market your practice, then that’s a skill you can probably develop if you put some time and effort into it.

Once you know what needs to happen, you need to consider whether the effort of breaking through the bottleneck is worth the opportunity that’s available to you.

After that, you’ll have a good idea of whether hanging around is a good plan, or whether you should be thinking about how to package up your practice or begin to strategically make new connections for another firm.

If you’re wondering which way to jump, we’re happy to talk you through it – give us a call.