Anyone else struggle with how poorly associates in big law are managed? My SO is in tech and has a one on one with each of his subordinates once a week. He thinks it’s wild that we are constantly shifting deal teams (transactional) and that our managers (I.e. the partners) never check in with us. We have an annual review once every twelve months, and that is it. As a result the partners have no pulse on what’s going on, who is doing well, who is overwhelmed, etc. Anyone figure out a better way?

In my opinion, this is the most difficult aspect of the job. I also think it's the number one source of burn out. Because ultimately it doesn't matter if you have shit juniors, the clients and the partners expect exceptional work product, so it falls to the next in line. This is why recruiting is so important. Yes, it's non billable, but it can mean the difference between logging off at nine vs sometime after midnight.

It's also striking to me how many skills are required in this line of work. Not only do you have to be substantively very good, but you also need to be able to work with people, train them to make your lives easier, and ultimately trust them otherwise you will end up dropping the ball or killing yourself to do all your work plus the juniors work stream. But often the people who have the skillset to survive the most substantively challenging years of big law don't necessarily have the personalities that lend themselves to managing and training others.

Having talented junior associates makes the difference between reviewing things for nits and delegating small tasks that make your life easier versus being required to absorb their entire work stream yourself. My juniors often have abhorrent copy and paste issues, miss hard comments, and make more work rather than less work. And they don't care, but I'm too nice so I end up being burned and am regularly left carrying their weight as they are just checked out or otherwise incapable of delivering any coherent work product more often than not. And what breeds resentment that ultimately leads to the 5-8 years leaving is just not being supported by the partners up top to get more help in the door or help train and develop young associates. In some cases, I can empathize with the juniors, as many are just cast into the fire with no real training other than "read this" as if this stuff is all intuitive. But when you miss hard comments, and regularly log off during crunch time when you're already late for a deadline so that you can "get your workout in" for two hours, then it's hard to feel sorry for them.

The entire BL business model is trash. They don’t manage associates like other industries because they don’t intend to keep 85% of them around. A select few who the rainmakers hand pick get unofficial mentoring that others don’t get. Not only does this allow some of the less skilled lawyers to advance, it also makes the whole process a black box that can cover up discrimination.

They know it’s terribly managed. They don’t care.

I love the folks who say they don’t want to be managed or have one on ones. Part of the problem is there are a ton do people who don’t care about big law long term. They are gonna hit it and quit it. Hard to manage folks who dgaf. On top of that those that do want a more substantive experience are left with Partners who also dgaf. Its just a billing enterprise and those who are left, survive. It’s pathetic, imo. I’ve seen other industries and they have very different structures, touch points, and guidance. Nothing is perfect, don’t get me wrong. But our industry is anemic. And frankly, lonely.

Why are you complaining about one annual review? I’d prefer 0.

There are so many norms in our industry that are objectively ridiculous. This is one of them. It's curious that it's so pervasive and long standing.

Not sure how this would work in biglaw. Unlike your SO, we have 30+ subordinates and 20+ bosses, and have way more work to do. If I had to give and receive feedback from all those people, I wouldn't have time to do my job. If you want to know who is overwhelmed, just look at their hours. Also, you can do the exact work for 5 partners and I can guarantee you that their feedback will be inconsistent with each other.

The micro-managing and layers of middle management that exists in the corporate tech world is honestly ridiculous. And it would also never work with the personalities of most lawyers.

I don’t want to be managed. I like the self-manage style in BL.

I’m not suggesting weekly 1:1s … but maybe quarterly check ins would go a long way. Also hours don’t equate to overwhelm. It doesn’t speak to the first time mom struggling to go back to work, or the senior associate who had a tough month because their parents got covid early early on and was barely sleeping as a result (the latter was me). My point is that there is no communication, and they could lose valuable people because they don’t know what’s in their head. At all.

I think the bigger issue is that you automatically become a manager as you progress without any consideration of your ability to manage others. On top of that, management skills aren’t cultivated. Everyone has worked for a partner that’s a terrible manager but has a huge book so changes. We’ve started doing 360 reviews which I do think help, but until management skills are part of good performance I doubt anything will change.

I mean… we are both over and under managed. I remember first watching office space pre law school and being like “how do you have 5 bosses and work weekends??” And now… I mean technically I have like 10 bosses minimum, and I’m managing associates too.

Efficient review, mgmt, etc would mean some combo of (1) associates work more efficiently, costing the firm $$ or (2) would require partners do lots of nonbillable management tasks, which cost them billable hours or development time and so hurt them personally.

All for not much ROI - meaningfully managing associates better would primarily reduce attrition by resulting lower workloads and necessarily require more staffing the partners pay for. Not a priority given the whole biglaw model is built on attrition.

Firms get the most value out of your median expendable associate when they work them so hard they burn out and quit.

Midlaw or boutique firms where they want people without huge books to stick around tend to manage their human capital better.

It works for the industry. The don't want to keep associates that need handholding. There are people who thrive and grow on their own.

I work in a company now. Theres far more micromanagement but things ultimately aren’t managed any better than at a law firm. Micromanagement by a bad manager is no better an approach. Weekly 1:1s (at least formal ones) are a complete waste of time. Every firm I’ve ever worked at or with has regular team meetings or some other way that partners keep on top of matters. And I’ve yet to see a firm where partners don’t know who is doing good and bad, and who is overwhelmed and has time. The model just doesn’t always care about those things.

OP lawyers are and have always been notoriously bad managers as a whole. My only advice: be part of the solution by practicing with Juniors what you think or wish was practiced with you. I agree with your standpoint and try to be a good manager myself (based on my management classes from biz school, for whatever that’s worth), but you’ll find it’s not easy and it can be a huge time suck. But, if you feel strongly about it, be a model for what you think should be done differently (to the extent within your power to do so).

Oof I would hate a weekly one on one

I find this very interesting. My husband works in tech and he thinks that my firm is much better managed than his company. The main issue he has is that the managers do not have the subject matter expertise of the people they are managing. It’s easy to implement some of the benefits of tech without doing all of it (e.g., I meet with all of the associates on my team in e a week).

When you say “better way”, you mean a way that would produce more revenue?