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Compensating the Rising Star

By James D. Cotterman
April 27, 2007

A young, dynamic partner is rapidly building a practice. She is active, visible, and well connected in the market. She aggressively pursues business opportunities. She is known for her keen intellect, is highly respected, and her work is first rate. Clients regularly comment on her ability to seamlessly blend pragmatic legal and business advice that advances their agendas in very positive ways. Other firms have periodically made runs at her beginning around her mid- to-senior associate years, but she began her career here and feels much attached to the firm.

She has come to you, the Compensation Committee Chair and a member of your firm's Executive Committee, to discuss her compensation. She was delighted to be the youngest associate invited to become a partner. She saw partnership as affirmation that hard work and loyalty to the firm would be rewarded. She has been happy in the past with her pay package and very upbeat about her future with the firm. But now she is conflicted because other firms are offering her substantial increases in pay to lure her away. Politically astute, she is not demanding or threatening. Rather, she is wrestling with the conflicts between her loyalty to 'her' firm and her obligation to her family's economic future.

Not an unusual situation for a firm to be in. So what do you do? Here is a future leader of the firm being courted by other firms. She has never been greedy, but the dollars being offered would make anyone at least think about their situation. You do not want to lose her, but you understand the practical and political repercussions of simply matching offers.

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