The Talent
August 4, 2008 6:06 PM
ASSOCIATES SURVEY 2008: Leaders of the Pack
Posted by Dimitra Kessenides
Perspective is everything.
It's not unusual for a non-Am Law firm to best the Am Law 200 participants in our annual midlevel associate satisfaction survey. There's definitely an upside when the firm is small, and we tend to get a clearer picture of those benefits on just such surveys.
To add some additional perspective to our national associate rankings, we've compared apples to apples by grouping this year's participants by size--Am Law 100/Global 100 (very large); Am Law Second Hundred (large); Non Am Law 200 (medium).
The three firms below ranked at the top of their respective size categories. We checked in with each to talk about the high marks their lawyers give them.
Am Law 100/Global 100 – Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner
Go on Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett & Dunner's Web site and search for an associate, and you may get frustrated--the IP leader does not list "associate" as a staff title. There are lawyers and staff attorneys and patent specialists, but no associates.
That's not by accident. Though it uses a traditional partner-associate pay structure, the Washington, D.C.-headquartered firm tries its best to de-emphasize rank and foster a feeling of equality.
"We like to refer to people as 'attorneys,'" says Leslie Bookoff, a partner who headed associate recruiting in 2005 and 2006. "We're all attorneys, and we all work together." (Unfortunately, clients like to know who's who, so the firm will unveil a new Web site August 4 with traditional attorney titles).
The egalitarian culture is one reason Finnegan scored the highest among Am Law 100 firms in our annual midlevel associates survey. The firm even has an unwritten rule banning lawyers from hanging diplomas in their offices.
"We don't care what law school you came from," Bookoff says. "We recruit from all kinds of law schools."
For associates, the less hierarchical culture has one major benefit: The partners share the meatiest work.
"Before my second year, I'd already taken depositions, argued in court, and won a trial," says Joyce Craig, an associate who spent 14 years as a computer programmer before deciding to attend law school in 2002. "That definitely exceeded my expectations."
Career-changers like Craig make up an unusually high percentage of Finnegan's associate ranks, something that helps explain their high-level of satisfaction. The scientists turned associates chose Finnegan so they could use their prior career skills. The firm, in turn, puts them to work quickly.
"The partners actually listen to what I have to say," says Jennifer Johnson, who finished her Ph.D. in plant biology before switching to law school. "I was floored by that."
Johnson is one of several Finnegan associates who mentioned the firm's scheduling flexibility. She has a 15-month-old daughter, Valerie, who spends most days at a day care center in the firm's office building. She picks Valerie up at 5:30 p.m. and leaves for home. Nobody protested when, in the months after Valerie's birth, Johnson left for 30 minutes at a time to nurse her during the day.
"When she was first born, I said, 'There's just no way I'm going to be able to do this,'" says Johnson, who works in the firm's D.C. office. 'I didn't know what to expect. But they've been very understanding.'”
The firm encourages lawyers to take vacations once they've billed their minimum 2,000 hours, and they stop paying bonus money once an attorney has reached the 2,400-hour mark.
And there are more innovations to come. The D.C. office hosts a yoga class each Monday; the first class is free, and lawyers can pay to enroll full-time after that. The firm upped its maternity leave from 12 to 18 weeks and recently started a program where lawyers can pay for caregivers to go to their homes and watch children or elderly family members on a temporary basis.
"We get good lawyers here," Bookoff says. "And we want to do whatever we can to keep them."
--Zach Lowe
Am Law Second Hundred - Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler
Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler ranked high on our midlevel survey yet again, coming in fifth nationally and first in this size category.
"It's not just this year that our associates are satisfied with their positions at the firm," says Lisa Cleary, the firm's litigation assigning partner and chair of both the pro bono and associates' committees. "For many years, there has been a culture of inclusiveness of our associates that makes them feel respected, valued, and challenged."
Cleary attributes the high score to associates' professional development, the opportunity to take on pro bono matters, and the high degree of associate-partner interaction. The 180-lawyer firm rewards lawyers of all levels for their contributions, she says.
The firm's effort to track professional development and actually put substantive work into the hands of associates is appreciated by Patterson Belknap's young lawyers: they gave the firm above national average marks in training and guidance (4.33 vs. 3.77 national) and opportunities to work with partners (4.94 vs. 4.77 national). And with only 49 partners, tapping associates for more substantive work early on in their careers is essential.
Every lawyer--not just associates--participates in the firm's pro bono program, with lawyers contributing an average of 125 hours of this work each year. This translates into more valuable training, Cleary says. "Associates grow when given opportunities and challenges to reach higher levels of performance," she says.
In fact, the firm has been an American Lawyer A-List perennial, too, thanks to its stellar pro bono commitment and the satisfied associates, as the magazine reported in July 2007. The pro bono program is a key piece of the firm's recruiting and rentention efforts. "People come here in part because they want to do [pro bono]," associate Amin Kassam told The American Lawyer's Ross Todd.
Also, says Cleary, associates are motivated to do well given what they see of the partners' commitment to their work and the firm, and how engaged they are.
And the firm makes the effort to expose younger lawyers to clients early on in their associates tenure.
"A very important part of the mentoring program is to inform and encourage associates that the reason we recruited them in the first place is they have great minds," Cleary says. "It's the respect [they find] and the understanding that they've brought value to the enterprise that I think makes them feel very good about the firm and their role in it."
--Kirstin Maguire
Non Am Law 200 - Nutter McClennan
Boston's Nutter McClennen & Fish has got a lock on the hearts of mid-level associates.
The full service 156-lawyer firm, founded by Louis Brandeis in 1879, ranked at the top of our overall survey (up from fifth last year) and is the top firm in this size category.
"When we recruit associates, we want those who have the intelligence and academic record to do the substantive work, but also those who fit in with our teamwork-type culture," says hiring committee chair and business development partner Michelle Basil, who joined the firm as a summer associate in 1996.
Nutter's small size works to its advantage; it is highly leveraged, with 65 partners and 70 associates; there also are 21 of counsel. (The firm is headquartered in Boston and maintains one satellite office in Hyannis, Mass.)
"[Our size] helps create our collegial environment and also helps integrate our associates into the partners practices," Basil says. "I think that is part of why associates have a quality practice here."
The "top-down, bottom-up" approach to everything is another meaningful factor in associate satisfaction. While Nutter partners lead client teams, says Basil, associates have a high degree of integration with clients.
"It's like working at a small firm but with the mid-size firm aspect in terms of the quality of work," says fifth-year associate Christopher Lindstrom, who moved to Nutter as a third year associate after starting at Cahill Gordon & Reindel in New York. Firm clients include Cigna Corporation, Sovereign Bank, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Basil also points out that the firm's reputation as an office that doesn't have "the anonymity that might come from being in a national practice" is an incentive to younger lawyers.
While the firm's core comes from Boston-based law schools like Harvard, Boston University, Boston College, and Northeastern, Nutter also recruits nationally, attracting young lawyers from Virginia, Michigan, and Cornell. Basil herself grew up in and attended law school in the Golden State. She became a Nutter partner in 2005.
Nutter has no plans to expand or merge, despite the fact that geographic flexibility was one negative cited by associates who filled out the Am Law survey.
"We're happy being a New England-based law firm and we think that's where our opportunity for growth is so that's where we're focused," Basil says. "That being said, we'll still continue to get feedback from associates during our twice-a-year review process, but where we're particularly effective is in those informal channels of communication."
One-on-one relationships between associates and partners directly affect associate satisfaction as well, Basil says. The firm hosts a weekly "winedown" after work on Thursdays, where associates and partners--including managing partner Michael Mooney--have the chance to meet face to face and discuss the issues of the day. Mooney was out of the office and unavailable for comment.
Still, one associate griped that Mooney has a habit of "hogging all the nuts" at the firm's weekly social.
Hey, nobody's perfect.
--Brian Baxter
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