Related Posts
More Posts
When that bonus check hits 🥰
Additional Posts in Law
Best divorce lawyer in NYC?
How competitve is a US district court clerkship?
New to Fishbowl?
Download the Fishbowl app to
unlock all discussions on Fishbowl.
unlock all discussions on Fishbowl.



Most likely each partner only has enough work for themselves/not enough to keep an associate busy.
Then I would say they need a service partner to take control of a few matters so some of the current partners in the group can go and get more work.
Maybe one of the partners wants to retire and someone who can take over the work.
It often means they can consistently bill clients at partner rates which is a good thing
Could be that they farm out the associate-level work to other practice groups but don’t want to invest in training a team-specific associate for some reason. I’ve seen a few teams in my own firm operate like this when they don’t need much associate assistance and can just find an available associate in another group when something comes up.
They might all be a new corporation. They might all be pursuing different areas of law but understand the power of partnership. You achieve more with four partners that have a vision of where they wanted to take their area of practice seriously.
Keeps rates up. Are they service partners?
What practice area? I’ve seen trademark departments with only partners to get the business and the paralegals do the day to day. I know a trademark paralegal who has helped me out who is freelance on her own. She knows exactly what to do filing-wise. You don’t really need associates in that space, or so I’ve observed.
Note that this is not IP litigation, just filing and maintaining trademarks.
If you ever see that lopsided ratio assume there isn’t enough work. Except some areas of law it’s a red flag. There were multiple places where I have seen this Big law and small. In a San Francisco office of a new to the city firm they had that ratio in the Bay Area in general. None of the associates were kept around longer than a couple of years. Always the associates fault of course. The partners will tell management they have stuff in the pipeline. Hire them fire.