The Eternal Disequilibrium

Lockstep vs. eat-what-you-kill:  Joined at the hip?

Legal Week argues, using the apparently unending saga at Clifford-Chance as a journalistic "hook," that the boundary zone between the two models is wide and flexible, not narrow and bright.

Now at one level, this is not news:  Pure-as-the-driven-snow examples of each model are, when one actually looks around, quite rare.   Even Clifford-Chance's fabled wrestling match with the issue can be read, in a sense, as teaching that a nuanced blend is essential and that a Manichean approach is economically perilous and divisive.  And then when it comes to actually dividing the pie at year-end (or driving markers in the ground during the year as clients and matters are "claimed" by would-be originators), things get even murkier.  Rarely is a new client truly bagged by one and only one partner—certainly if you asked the client they'd almost certainly report that while a personal relationship with the partner was instrumental at the moment of selection, the key business rationale driving the choice was a reliance on the firm's assets and expertise as a whole.

Moreover, the laundry list of behaviors which management wants to reward through remuneration includes (or should include) many having nothing to do with new client origination, such as:

• contributions to practice group management;
• associate recruitment and development;
• lateral recruitment and integration;
• pro bono, civic, and bar association activities; and
• active or leadership roles in firm governance.

Look at that list again and ask yourself what those activities best correlate with:  I would argue, with seniority.  So setting out to be "meritocratic" can intrinsically—and correctly—introduce a "seniority premium," just like lockstep.

Finally, the article observes, in an exercise in stating the obvious, that both lockstep and eat-what-you-kill can be done well or badly, and that it all depends on "what the firm is trying to achieve and how well it's applied."   To be sure.

I have a more specific theory:  I think an emphasis on one or the other depends on where a firm is in its "lifecycle."  A pure lockstep may be an anchor if you're just launching a practice, and a pure meritocracy may destroy a mature, "climax stage" firm.  So the question becomes, where are you?  And do you want to stay there?