Lockstep: An Endangered Species?

"The few, the proud, the Marines?"  I would make that, "The few, the proud, the lockstep-compensation firms." 

I've opined before that partnership compensation at many firms is in disequilibrium:  While lockstep has its merits in encouraging collegiality and the firm's long-run best interests over short-term profits, and while it promotes client-sharing, and assigning the best people regardless of "originating" partner, it can also stifle entrepreneurial instincts and invite superstars to look for the exits.  "Eat what you kill," meanwhile, creates the problems that lockstep solves, encouraging client-hoarding and an egregiously short-term outlook.

[I recently heard of one particular horror story, out of Australia:  A firm that had "owned" as a client the leader in a particular industry got twisted up in its knickers when the client's CFO was fired in a high-profile and enormously acrimonious accounting scandal.  One of the firm's star litigation partners decided to represent the CFO in a wrongful-termination case against the big client.  Nine years later, the firm is still trying to win back at least a smidgin of business from the former client.  I'm not saying a lockstep system would guarantee this would never happen—"I cannot prevent him from being a &#*$-head" comes to mind—but surely it would be rare.]

Now Clifford Chance is re-examining its lockstep.  In many ways, Clifford Chance is sui generis, but their efforts to confront the tension between keeping, or making, partners in less-profitable offices, while rewarding the heavy hitters in London and New York, is scarcely unique. 

If I had a magic bullet for this disequilibrium, I would be selling it to you for very handsome fee.  Since I don't, I can only advise highly-circumstantial sensitivity, a long-run perspective, and a not insignificant dose of opacity as to the results of the compensation determination, if not its process.