McDermott’s Assoc. Tiers Twist: The B Team

Law Practice

McDermott’s Assoc. Tiers Twist: The B Team

Posted Nov 1, 2007, 01:35 pm CDT
By Martha Neil

Another major law firm is planning to institute a two-tiered system for associate attorneys. But it is taking a different approach from what some other avant-garde law shops are doing.

Instead of giving current partnership-track associates a choice between working more hours for more pay or taking a kinder, gentler approach to law practice at the same highly skilled performance level, McDermott, Will & Emery is planning to create a second team of lower-paid, non-partnership-track associates. They will help handle work such as the deluge of discovery created by modern-day e-mail, reports the Recorder.

The new second team of associate alternates will be perform less-challenging tasks that will be charged at a lower billable rate by the 1,000-attorney firm, the legal newspaper explains. Thus, they will fill a gap between what are, today, relatively standard-option outsourcing and short-term contract attorney arrangements made by many law firms to complete lower-grade legal work and the traditional system of hiring as associates young attorneys who are viewed as qualified eventually to become partners.

Initially, McDermott plans to hire a group of about 15 associate alternates with "good pedigrees" and big-firm experience. The newbies will work roughly 30 to 40 hours weekly, probably can expect to be rotated to different locations without a fixed office and will be paid perhaps 25 percent less than the firm's regular associates. (McDermott now starts first-years at an annual salary of $160,000.)

"They'll have a status within our structure that's brand-new," says Robert Mallory, a Los Angeles partner in the firm's trial group, noting that the idea is so new that no one knows yet what the lawyers in the second team will be called. "The idea isn't that this will be a training ground. This isn't a path into the firm."

As discussed in an earlier ABAJournal.com post, Chapman and Cutler and Perkins Coie already have two-tiers of associates. However, these firms say they have done so to offer existing partnership-track associates a chance to do the same kind of work at a more relaxed pace, if they wish, at a reduced salary.

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Posted by Erin - 8 months, 2 weeks, 4 days, 1 hour, 6 minutes ago

Is this a new concept? I thought firms were already doing this, and calling this position a “staff attorney.”
Posted by EZT - 8 months, 2 weeks, 3 days, 22 hours, 15 minutes ago

Do you think that the 2 groups will work in the long run? Calling this new team the “second team” and/or “B” team seem to indicate that they are basically lesser. This second team gets “lower-grade legal work” (seriously, the first year associates generates high-grade legal work? They just finished law school!), make less pay (for the first year, it wouldn’t surprise me if both teams do essentially the same kind of work), gets to be called the “second team”, and it is not a “path into the firm”. Yes, I see that the 2 groups will get along. They will be treated the same by everyone in the firm: from partner down to the support staff.
Posted by Katie - 8 months, 2 weeks, 3 days, 22 hours, 9 minutes ago

Why don’t they call it the Mommy Track?
Posted by Philthy - 8 months, 2 weeks, 3 days, 21 hours, 55 minutes ago

Earning $120k for working roughly 30-40hrs per week (rather than earning $160k and working twice those hrs...)...sounds good to me, sign me up!
Posted by CC - 8 months, 2 weeks, 3 days, 21 hours, 43 minutes ago

Seriously, who went to law school to ONLY do discovery? Okay, so you have to do it as a first year associate, but then you get more interesting work, let’s call it “higher level” legal work. I agree with Phitthy though - I would love to be paid 120 for 40 hrs/wk. But, I also want to actually LIKE my job. I can see this as a stopover, but not a career.
Posted by Andrew - 8 months, 2 weeks, 3 days, 21 hours, 9 minutes ago

Honestly the “us” and “them” mentality that permeates this article is astonishing!

The proposition that working 30-40 hours a week puts you on the outside with no “path into the firm” is an absolute disgrace!

It seems that money isn’t everything in large US law firms - but status sure is! This is all too sad.
Posted by jennifer - 8 months, 2 weeks, 3 days, 20 hours, 57 minutes ago

Wow. I don’t see many people seeing this as a good alternative. It’s the same message big firms are stereotyped as having always said: “If you don’t want to give us all your waking hours, you will be treated poorly”. Il’d be shocked if any qualified candidates stick with the JV squad long term.
Posted by Sarah - 8 months, 2 weeks, 3 days, 16 hours, 32 minutes ago

I am not sure any self respecting individual will take a job that gives him/her no fair shot of becoming a partner and no respect from the teammates that will treat him/her as a second tier associate. Having received all this education I believe a normal person is more likely to just trike on his/her own in any capacity. It just shows how abnoxious some people can be when they are sitting at the top of the ladder.
Posted by foleydog - 8 months, 2 weeks, 3 days, 15 hours, 45 minutes ago

In my experience this ‘lower grade’ work is done primarily by single-mothers and minority attys from ‘top’ schools - is it just a tool for easy discrimination by suggesting folks have a ‘choice,’ when realistically there may be no other jobs out there for them.
Posted by Robert M. McDermott (no relation to McDermott, Wil - 8 months, 2 weeks, 3 days, 9 hours, 9 minutes ago

I agree with those who view this as an atrocious abuse of power.
30-40 hours per week is a full time job, and every full time employee deserves an equal opportunity to advance.
When most people look back on the beginnings of the industrial revolution, when employees had to work 60-80 hours a week, they generally find such forced labor inhumane. And here we have a law firm making such inhumane practices a requirement for advancement.
Shame on you, McDermott, Will & Emory, for fostering and institionalizing this barbaric policy.

Sincerely,
Rob McDermott
Patent Attorney
Posted by Willem DeFoe - 8 months, 2 weeks, 3 days, 1 hour, 58 minutes ago

What is the problem? If you need to work and wish to make $120K a year, this sounds good to me. So what if others make more. It’s a free country, US of A. Besides, you Americans don’t need to make too much. All work can be outsourced to India or Croatia, where smart legal minds do work for 1/10 the price. Dumbkopfs!
Posted by Irwin ironstone - 8 months, 2 weeks, 2 days, 19 hours, 45 minutes ago

why not call this the “Mom” option. Many woman (and some men)who are fine attorneys want to spend more time with their families and children. currently, many firms will not hire them, or retain them as associates.
This option may allow a part time attorney to work and then at a later time, move back to a full time position.
Posted by beckie moriello, 3L - 8 months, 2 weeks, 1 day, 20 hours, 23 minutes ago

As a non-racial minority who has no intention of procreating, the option to work 30-40hrs at $120k rocks my world. That would leave me time to do pro bono and have hobbies and a life!

Not all of us give a shit about prestige and advancement. Discovery sounds kinda fun. Where do I sign up?
Posted by Maria - 8 months, 2 weeks, 19 hours, 38 minutes ago

The “lower-level legal work” part is what’s insulting and offensive to me about this structure. I don’t have an objection to an “A Tier” and a “B Tier” in principle based on number of hours worked, but there are many highly capable associates who can add a lot of value doing “high-level work” without logging in a lot of hours. Many partners have told me they would rather have one of these highly capable associates working 80% or even 60% of the “standard” time than a “full time” associate who put in a lot of hours but did not necessarily have the same intellectual capability. In my opinion, we are pushing out a lot of potentially very profitable associates (especially female ones) by sending the message that only billable hours, not talent, can make the grade in a law firm. This is exactly why I left law firm life to go in-house.
Posted by Catherine - 8 months, 2 weeks, 18 hours, 21 minutes ago

Practicing law is my second career. As a 50 year old first year associate I would jump at a chance to be a “second tier” associate like the onles beign proposed.I really don’t care if i ever make partner - I had my sahre of fancy titles and my fill of management in my first career. All I want to do is make a decent salary practicing law Mon to Fri and have my weekends to myself.
Posted by Mary J. Perry - 8 months, 2 weeks, 18 hours, 19 minutes ago

This sounds like just another way to formalize what is already being done by many law firms who routinely assign such dead end work to female and minority attorneys. If law school recruitment offices want to retain any integrity, they will nix any attempts by firms who use the “b” team approach to recruit on campus. What intelligent self-respecting person who has a choice would opt for this line of work. Even though the top tier firms might pay higher amounts, as this system is adopted by more lawfirms (who will now have a “legitimate” name to call their drudge work, you can bet that they will not be paying decent wages for this work).
Posted by C - 8 months, 2 weeks, 16 hours, 8 minutes ago

The main problem with this concept is who McDermott plans on hiring for this job. I do not understand why an attorney needs “big-firm experience” to simply handle discovery matters. Rather, McDermott should be seeking attorneys who recently graduated law school who would appreciate a temporary position (particularly one where they earn $120k) while they look for a more permanent position. By establishing this is a temporary position for currently unemployed attorneys, which there are thousands of, McDermott would diminish the stigma of being part of a “B Team.”
Posted by Ken - 8 months, 1 week, 3 days, 17 hours, 11 minutes ago

Lots of people will jump at this. And what will happen is the best of the so-called B-Team will start getting more substantive work anyway. Seriously, do you think if a partner there has a genius on B-team staff who wants to work 40 hours, that the partner is just going to give that person crap forever? Pu-lease. This may not end up being a partnership job, but I can promise you that if talented people go for it, they won’t be doing document review forever.

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