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Answer to question 4
4. At my firm, part-time associates
If your firm has a real part-time program, your answer is
d: do make partner, sometimes with their own class and sometimes on a proportionally delayed timetable.
Some firms refuse to consider part-time associates for
partnership, or require part-time associates to return to full-time
status before being considered for partnership. In so doing, they
completely undermine their part-time policies and cause good attorneys
to leave if they want advancement.
Firms that don't take part-time associates off the
partnership track but that nevertheless have never made a part-time
associate a partner are not doing much better. Actions speak louder than
words, and firms with no part-time partners are sending a strong message
to its attorneys that part-time work is not valued or supported.
The firms with the best programs not only make
part-time associates partners, but also hold out the option of
part-timers being made partners with their classes while continuing to
work part-time. They consider at what point in their legal careers the
part-time associates reduced their hours and the amount of the
reduction, and delay their partnership decision only if the part-timers
have not had sufficient experience relative to full-time associates in
the firm. (For example, if an associate switched to a part-time schedule
in her sixth year and worked 80% of a full-time schedule, it is unlikely
she would be held back. Conversely, an attorney who came into the firm
on a 50% schedule and remained on that schedule for his entire associate
career could expect to have his partnership decision delayed by several
years relative to the associates who joined the firm at the same time
that he did.)
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