Partners -v- Associates

Everyone is familiar with the war between the lawyer and his client. The client wants to escape from litigation with (hopefully) a successful outcome; but his lawyer wants the biggest fee he can get. Warily the two sides eye each other, hoping that they prevail.

Less well known is the almost constant warfare between associate lawyers, who are the employees of big law firms, and the partners who own the firms. Partners must pay their associates as much as they possibly can to secure the top talent, but as little as they can get away with so they keep the partner's share of the pie as big as possible.

Pay your associates too much, and your profits go down. Pay them too little, and they tend to leave. Most firms try to squeeze whatever they can out of their hard-pressed employees, cross their fingers and hope they won't disappear down the road to a higher bidder.

Of course, you can make your associates partners, and keep hold of them indefinitely. But then, you've got to share out the profits.

Warfare indeed.