Law Firms and Associate Careers: Tournament Theory versus the Production-Imperative Model

Kordana, Kevin A.

doi:10.2307/797035

Cited by 49 publications

(41 citation statements)

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“…Kordana (1995) shows that the fraction of associate cohorts large law firms promote varies dramatically from year to year, which is inconsistent with the proposition that promotions are based only on associates' relative performance. He also questions whether individual associates' performance is difficult for other lawyers to evaluate.…”

contrasting

confidence: 46%

Hierarchies, Specialization, and the Utilization of Knowledge: Theory and Evidence from the Legal Services Industry

Garicano¹,

Hubbard²

2004

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What role do hierarchies play with respect to the organization of production and what determines their structure? We develop an equilibrium model of hierarchical organization, then provide empirical evidence using confidential data on thousands of law offices from the 1992 Census of Services. The driving force in the model is increasing returns in the utilization of acquired knowledge. We show how the equilibrium assignment of individuals to hierarchical positions varies with the degree to which their human capital is field-specialized, then show how this equilibrium changes with the extent of the market. We find empirical evidence consistent with a central proposition of the model: the share of lawyers that work in hierarchies and the ratio of associates to partners increases as market size increases and lawyers field-specialize. Other results provide evidence against alternative interpretations that emphasize unobserved differences in the distribution of demand or "firm size effects," and lend additional support to the view that a role hierarchies play in legal services is to help exploit increasing returns associated with the utilization of human capital.

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contrasting

confidence: 46%

Hierarchies, Specialization, and the Utilization of Knowledge: Theory and Evidence from the Legal Services Industry

Garicano¹,

Hubbard²

2004

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“…The up-or-out model is a form of tournament promotion (Gilson and Mnookin 1985;Lazear and Rosen 1981;Galanter and Palay 1991;Kordana 1995;Landers, Rebitzer and Taylor 1996;Wilkins and Gulati 1998). In economic theory, tournament candidates compete against each other for promotion to a limited number of positions at the next grade within a certain time period and promotion is based on relative ranking within the cohort rather than any individual's absolute merits.…”

Section: The Up-or-out Promotion Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

New career models in UK professional service firms: from up-or-out to up-and-going-nowhere?

Malhotra

Morris

Smets

2010

The International Journal of Human Resource Management

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In this paper, we empirically examine how professional service firms are adapting their promotion and career models to new market and institutional pressures, without losing the benefits of the traditional up-or-out tournament. Based on an in-depth qualitative study of 10 large UK based law firms we find that most of these firms do not have a formal up-or-out policy but that the up-or-out rule operates in practice. We also find that most firms have introduced alternative roles and a novel career policy that offers a holistic learning and development deal to associates without any expectation that unsuccessful candidates for promotion to partner should quit the firm. While this policy and the new roles formally contradict the principle of up-or-out by creating permanent non-partner positions, in practice they coexist. We conclude that the motivational power of the up-or-out tournament remains intact, notwithstanding the changes to the internal labour market structure of these professional service firms.

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“…Only the highest performing lawyers, who adopt increasingly demanding roles throughout their careers, attain this Darwinian achievement (Kordana, 1995). Partners play the roles of owner, leader, decision-maker and producer (Pinnington & Morris, 2003).…”

Section: Competencies and Abilities For Career Success In A Law Firmmentioning

confidence: 99%

High performers are not superheroes: bridging exclusive and inclusive talent management approaches for law firm sustainability

Lopes

2016

International Journal of the Legal Profession

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This paper elucidates findings in relation to bridging exclusive and inclusive approaches to talent management at law firms that could promote the revision of the up-or-out career model. We explore the competencies required for career success, and we describe high-performing lawyers and their peers' profiles. We surveyed 358 lawyers and stakeholders of the lawyering role in 12 European and Latin American countries. The stakeholders noted that high performance in an array of competencies is necessary for a lawyer's career success, but they still valued legal skills the most. Debunking the superhero myth, we argue that high performers have a narrow focus on legal skills as the driver for innovative solutions for clients, but lack strength in interpersonal competencies. In contrast, their peers have more adaptable mindsets and are more relational and focused on quality. Rather than challenging the up-orout career model, which overvalues the role of high performers, we propose that the talent management exclusive approach is a good fit, and therefore promotes only a minimum of change. For talent management that ensures business sustainability, we support a more inclusive approach linked with strategic talent mapping and assessments that use several competency profiles and present several possible career paths.

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Law Firms and Associate Careers: Tournament Theory versus the Production-Imperative Model

Cited by 49 publications

References 0 publications

Hierarchies, Specialization, and the Utilization of Knowledge: Theory and Evidence from the Legal Services Industry

Hierarchies, Specialization, and the Utilization of Knowledge: Theory and Evidence from the Legal Services Industry

New career models in UK professional service firms: from up-or-out to up-and-going-nowhere?

High performers are not superheroes: bridging exclusive and inclusive talent management approaches for law firm sustainability

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