Law Commons^™

Coming Of Age In A Corporate Law Firm: The Economics Of Associate Career Patterns, Ronald J. Gilson, Robert H. Mnookin

Faculty Scholarship

The traditional American corporate law firm, long an oasis of organizational stability, in recent years has been the subject of dramatic change. The manner in which firms divide profits, perhaps the most revealing aspect of law firm organization because it displays the balance the firm has selected between risk-sharing and incentives, has changed in a critical way. From a long standing reliance on seniority that emphasizes risk-sharing, profit division is shifting to a system based on the productivity of individual partners that emphasizes incentives. With what seems to be only a short time lag from the change in how profits …