Partner Fondly Remembers Era Before Lateral Moves, ‘Show Me the Money’ Attitudes
Back in the day—1970 to be more exact—a lawyer who left his or her law firm in Hartford, Ct., was effectively blackballed. No firm in the city was hiring. The only option was a job in New London County, perhaps, or maybe in Stamford.
Those were the good old days for lawyer Louis Pepe, a partner in the Hartford office of McElroy, Deutsch, Mulvaney and Carpenter.
“The enforced immobility of the 1970s may, in retrospect and in today’s context, seem absurd,” he writes at the Connecticut Law Tribune. “But if I had to choose only between that and what we see all too often today in our profession, I would not hesitate for a heartbeat in electing the way it was back in the day.”
Pepe notes the “feeding frenzy” of law firms snapping up lateral lawyers who feel inadequately recognized by compensation committees at their present firms. The “show me the money” focus extends to the law firms, which are all too willing to cut compensation and de-equitize partners, he writes.
“The end product is hardly an environment designed to promote professional growth, bonding and camaraderie,” he writes. “For when a partner is unwilling to ride out the firm’s inevitable ‘bad years’ with his partners, and the firm is unwilling to be patient and supportive when a partner’s profitability is diminished by illness, personal crisis, or a downturn in demand for his skills, then the true meaning of a partnership is lost—to the profound harm and detriment of all.”
