My First Year on the Fast-Track Path to Partner

Since officially joining in September 2017 as a brand new associate fresh out of law school, I’ve been on the fast-track to becoming a partner at our boutique entrepreneur’s law firm. The mutual expectation between me and the existing partners is that I should have the experience, technical knowledge, and business development skills I need to support myself as a peer/equity member by the end of 2020.

I’m the only associate (for now), but they trust me with plenty of operations, sales, marketing, and finance tasks that other firms (very) infrequently leverage down to young associates: website development, marketing vendor searches, resolving billing disputes, etc… I know this because I did a tour of duty as a summer associate for a mid-size BigLaw firm in Minneapolis.

For a while, I feared I was the only one. Since graduation, most of my peers have taken traditional lawyer jobs at traditional firms dealing with traditional clients, or clerked for judges, or joined in-house legal departments or government agencies. They all seem to have been tasked with what we all know to be “typical” first-year responsibilities. Almost no one, it seemed, had taken (or been given the option to take) calculated risks with their careers.

Then, I found the Lawyerist community. This post is my attempt to contribute to the conversation about how we can constantly improve how the profession “does law.” My wild hope is that others in similar circumstances out there in internet-land can learn from my struggles or gain the courage to take this road less traveled.

In no particular order, here are a few reflections on my first full year on the fast-track path to partner:

Business Development Is Easier Than I Expected

I intentionally did not set any “origination” goals for myself in 2018. This was partly driven by the reality that my main function this year is to service the partners’ matters. But it was also driven in large part by that little “imposter syndrome” voice in my head—you know, the one that’s constantly repeating “why would anyone ever agree to hire a lowly first-year?”

Despite all that, I’ve still been able to develop a modest but respectable low-5-figures book of business this year without trying all that hard. Most of the leads came from warm referrals by friends or my spot in the rotation for handling direct website inquiries. These were great low-stakes learning opportunities because these potential clients were, respectively, either already inclined to trust my abilities, or had self-identified as interested in our firm for their particular needs.

The takeaway that I’d hope to give another fast-tracker is that business development for someone like us is mainly a mental-game. There’s not all that much to lose by faking it until you make it, assuming the firm can back you up. I’ve been fortunate to have unwavering support the entire time – if I think I can learn the material needed to give awesome client-service, the partners are prepared to fill in when needed. So much of this business is apparently learn-as-you-go, it can’t hurt to get paid a bit while you learn!

Business Development Is Harder Than I Expected

The flipside of the ease of getting into the client relationship is the struggle of wrapping it up. The part I expected to be most stressful–the actual delivery of legal services–turned out not to be any more or less intimidating than anticipated.

In hindsight, I wish I would have thought more carefully about the lifecycle of each matter, and then discussed that with the client, and then set up each matter to reflect the type of engagement. For example, on simple entity-formation matters, there is a point where we send the client off into the real world. Several times this has required multiple phone conversations and email exchanges to explain corporate formalities, tax ID numbers, registered agent services, and the like. In the future, we will be making use of a pre-drafted send-off packet to avoid this.

The A/R reconciliation process is also something I was wholly unfamiliar with. Like any good transplanted Midwesterner, I instinctively avoid uncomfortable conversations about past due balances. Apart from just putting on my native-New Yorker voice, I suspect explaining billing policies verbally (instead of in writing) up-front will be effective in the future. I’ll gladly trade a few minutes initially for agonizing hours later on,.

And, for any large flat-fee engagements I take on, I’m inclined to require full payment up-front from now on, even if that means extra time to design multiple earnings milestones in the engagement letter. No more unnecessary write-offs or getting strung along as clients “wait for their funding round to hit.” It’s not fair to me or the firm, who took a chance on me doing that project instead of other collectible work.

Your Employer Needs Vetting as Much as You, the Employee, Do

Every day I feel fortunate to work for people who have consciously designed their compensation and firm overhead structure to allow for maximum flexibility. By and large, our firm has streamlined most of the traditional functions of small firms. Our offices are in a shared floor with some important clients; our staff is large enough to get the work done but not so large that anyone is bored or underutilized; our software tools eliminate most physical storage requirements and  allow for remote work 100% of the time if desired (but honestly, why associate with a firm if you don’t want to see the people every now and then?).

Not every fast-tracker is so fortunate, though. A good friend of mine moved back from out of state to take a position at a similar-sized firm with similar promises/expectations of expedited partnership consideration. However, less than 12 months later, she has already seen enough to know that the majority of those promises were unrealistic, and had to move on. I’m told that her departure has even called the firm’s continued existence, outside of merger, into question.

The moral of the story here seems to be that a potential fast-tracker should be asking tough questions about a firm’s plans to assist their professional development. It’s hard enough to learn how to practice law in three years, much less become a savvy legal entrepreneur in your own right. Some of the answers you need to know are:

• How does firm expect to able to support itself while you go through those first few months of learning how to be a brand-new lawyer?

• How will the firm allow and provide you opportunities to practice managing client relationships?

• What defines a matter you are trusted to “originate” at various stages of personal growth?

• How do your billable work-requirements balance against your nonbillable professional-development-needs?

• What benchmarks will you need to hit, and when, to stay on the fast-track?

• What is required once you’re ready to become partner (i.e., equity commitment)?

I got lucky — I had clerked with these partners for nearly three years before licensure. But honestly, we never (and still haven’t) had many of these conversations even one year in. Without the trust generated over three years of close working relationships, a prospective fast-tracker is absolutely well-advised to conduct its own, entirely legitimate diligence, and to insist on honest answers and buy-in from their potential future teachers and colleagues.

One-year in and I still don’t regret the choice to roll the dice on my career, but I’d be lying to say it hasn’t been challenging, memorable, and at times painful. Are you doing something similar with your career? Leave a comment with the struggles you’re having and/or solutions you’ve found work (or don’t).

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