MEMOS TO PARTNERS
Memo No. 1
To: Law Firm Partners
From: Nermin, Esq.
Date: April 6, 2026
Re: “Let’s revisit this later”
I’ve been working with lawyers and partners for 10+ years. And as a lawyer myself, I know how easy it is to say “let’s revisit this later.” We’re just kicking the can down the road, and not making any decisions today.
Afterall, we need more information, we need more time, we need more mental bandwidth to make this decision.
Sometimes, that decision as a partner or shareholder in a firm is financial: how many associates can we afford to bring on, are we going to expand our offices to a third or tenth location, what are we setting our rates to for the next year.
Sometimes, that decision is easy to make but you need multiple people to make it.
That “let’s revisit this later” sometimes becomes a party slogan and can cost you trust among your leadership or management team at your firm.
I’ll walk you through a couple of examples of what I have seen.
Example 1. Partner A wants to discuss origination
Partner A brings in $2 million of billable revenue each year (a $2 million dollar book of business), and is profitable for the firm. Partner A has been originating the work, but it has been serviced in part by Partner B and Partner B’s associate. Partner A’s origination is being capped because Partner A isn’t servicing 100% of the work and wants to discuss this with the Partnership team.
Partner A and B agreed they would let the partners decide on this, and leadership has said some version of “let’s revisit this later” for the last 5 partnership meetings.
Partner A is getting antsy, feeling ignored, and instead of having Partner B continue to service the work, wants to bring in a Senior Attorney to delegate the work to.
In my experience, the firm has lost more money than you can imagine by making a $2 million dollar Partner feel antsy, ignored, and having to basically say: I don’t trust leadership to resolve this for me, so I’m going to resolve it myself by bringing in a Senior Attorney.
Did Partner A explicitly say that? No.
But the actions of repeatedly bringing this matter up, having it not be addressed, and hiring a senior associate all point to Partner A being unhappy.
Partner B and B’s associate now have less billable work they can service, and Partner B’s compensation will be effected.
Partner A and B are effectively unhappy because the Firm’s leadership didn’t take action.
This is 100% going to show up in future partnership meetings and will inherently effect the growth of the firm.
Example 2. Partner C wants to retire
Partner C wants to retire from your firm and has been saying this lightly in partner meetings, in 1:1 conversations and mentioned it at the firm retreat last summer.
All of the partners are aware of this but haven’t had a direct conversation around this around. Rather, they’ve kept it as a “let’s revisit this later” for over 2 years.
Partner C announces their retirement, giving only a 90-day notice.
That’s 90 days to find out which clients are staying on, who can service the work, who will need to be hired to take over the work, training that person and doing relationship management, and figuring out origination and comp for Partner C.
This is a nightmare, and by not addressing it earlier on, the firm is going to lose billable work, loyal clients, and has an operational nightmare of hiring someone new and training them on the client matters.
“Let’s revisit this later” is the easiest sentence to say. Why decide now, when you can decide later? It’s the politically correct thing to say, and it’s what partners love to say.
But, not making decisions, delaying decisions without saying WHEN you should solve it, is costing you millions of dollars each year.
It doesn’t sound like it, but here’s how it breaks down:
-What if Partner A left? That cost the firm $2 million in billable work.
-What if Partner C’s biggest client was not a firm client and had no contact with anyone else, and decides to leave when Partner C retires? That cost the firm $750k in billable work.
-What if Partner B is truly a service partner and doesn’t have the willingness to originate work? How upset is Partner B now that this billable work is gone?
Don’t say “let’s revisit this later.” Instead, list out all of the things that are unresolved in your firm, and find an expert who can guide the partners to make these decisions based on numbers and not the feelings (next post will be about this in more detail).
If your firm is saying “let’s revisit this later,” let’s you and I talk: nermin@nerminesq.com.
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Memo No. 2
To: Law Firm Partners
From: Nermin, Esq.
Date: April 13, 2026
Re: Compensation for Rain Makers and Service Partners
I’ve worked with law firms and partners for years and I see how the rain maker(s) is treated and how the service partner(s) is treated. Each firm I work with is different, but all of them have the same conclusion. The rain maker partner is the most important person in the firm, and everyone should do their best to accommodate the rain maker. I see it in how the comp structure is set up, the bonus structure, and even during monthly partnership meetings and the decisions that are made are usually in favor of what the rain maker partner needs.
In my experience, part of this is because the rain maker, relatively speaking, is more vocal and louder than the service partner.
More importantly, what I notice is often a misunderstanding of the service partner’s role— there is a mutually beneficial, symbiotic relationship between the rain maker and the service partner.
I’ll walk you through a couple of examples of what I have seen where the service partner is just as important as the rain maker partner, but the comp structure of the firm doesn’t reflect that.
Example 1. IP Law Firm
Rain Maker Partner is bringing in $2.5 million in billable work each year, and the type of work that Rain Maker Partner brings in can only be serviced by Service Partner. This is because the work is highly technical, requires a background in mechanical engineering and an expertise in materials and composition of metals. Service Partner is the perfect person to do that billable work because of Service Partner’s educational background and 2 years in the Patent Office as a Patent examiner. Without Service Partner, Rain Maker and the firm would only be able to do $1.5 million in billable work each year. Even if junior associates or senior associates were brought in to support Rain Maker in doing that work, they won’t have the experience. Not only that but the work that the Service Partner does is billed at Partner rates, usually 20-30% more than what an associate is billed out at. Finally, Rain Maker Partner would have to spend less time rain making, developing relationships, and building the firm’s credibility to do the billable work that was brought in and review the work of junior associates.
The total upside for the firm is: $1 million in additional annual revenue and credibility in this field of IP law.
Now, most law firms have a KPI that requires all partners to generate $1 million of new business each year and ties comp to how much work is originated.
This means the Rain Maker Partner is being rewarded for originating all the work, and Service Partner is being punished for only servicing the work.
The reality is that Rain Maker Partner and Service Partner need each other, and the firm needs both of them.
KPI’s need to be flexible for both of these partners’ skill sets and roles within the firm. Additionally, compensation (origination, bonuses, equity) needs to take into consideration not only what new business was brought in but how it was serviced. Often, origination and a percentage of billable revenue is not enough to keep both Partners incentivized, motivated, and committed to the firm.
Example 2. Appellate Lawyer
Appellate lawyers are in a league of their own. Writing briefs and arguments is a true skillset and it’s undervalued across a majority of firms.
The Appellate Lawyer is the Service Partner, the one who is researching the case law, structuring the argument and writing the brief that is submitted to the highest court.
Yet, the Appellate Lawyer is often treated as less because he/she did not originate the work.
If you look at how the Rain Maker Partner is comp’d versus the Appellate Lawyer Service Partner, there is a 20-50% difference.
The reality is that the Rain Maker Partner neither has the time to do the in depth research and work required nor to manage the team that would be required were it not for the Appellate Lawyer Service Partner’s expertise.
All through law, there are examples of the Rain Maker partner being rewarded for generating the revenue without taking into consideration the other side of the equation, who is actually doing the work.
I see this in these practice areas as well:
- M&A
- Tax law
- Healthcare and life sciences
- Private Equity
- Real Estate
If you are a Service Partner in one of these firms, or if you are a Managing Partner and you want to keep the peace among the partners, then you have to look at comp in a way that doesn’t only favor the Rain Maker partner.
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Memo No. 3
To: Law Firm Partners
From: Nermin, Esq.
Date: April 25, 2026
Re: Who is responsible for growing the firm?
If each partner is responsible for doing business development and managing and growing their own book of business
+
Doing the legal work and billing their time
+
Managing their junior associates/their team
Then who is responsible for growing the practice revenue and profits?
Is it the managing partner? You might be quick to answer “yes,” but in my experience, the managing partner is often holding the firm together with duct tape. All the little things that happen behind the scenes, all the times the managing partner has to smooth things over between partners or associates, while doing billable work. Where on the managing partners schedule is “grow revenue” and “increase profits”?
You might argue back and say that’s the point of the monthly partners meeting. In reality, the monthly partners meeting is more political, an attempt to keep the peace amongst intellectual people who are emotionally invested because money is on the line (and everyone is emotional about money).
If it’s not the managing partner, then it has to be the Chief Operations Officer or Operations Manager, right? Except, I’m pretty sure they’re spending their day chasing down overdue invoices, figuring out why the printer isn’t working, and managing employee time off requests. If you look at the emails/Teams messages you’ve sent to your COO, how many have the word “revenue” or “profit” in them?
It’s not the partners responsibility.
Is it the managing partner? You might be quick to answer “yes,” but in my experience, the managing partner is often holding the firm together with duct tape. All the little things that happen behind the scenes, all the times the managing partner has to smooth things over between partners or associates, while doing billable work. Where on the managing partners schedule is “grow revenue” and “increase profits”?
You might argue back and say that’s the point of the monthly partners meeting. In reality, the monthly partners meeting is more political, an attempt to keep the peace amongst intellectual people who are emotionally invested because money is on the line (and everyone is emotional about money).
If it’s not the managing partner, then it has to be the Chief Operations Officer or Operations Manager, right? Except, I’m pretty sure they’re spending their day chasing down overdue invoices, figuring out why the printer isn’t working, and managing employee time off requests. If you look at the emails/Teams messages you’ve sent to your COO, how many have the word “revenue” or “profit” in them?
It’s not the partners responsibility.
When it comes to growing a law firm’s revenue, and increasing partner profits, someone has to take ownership of this role, explicitly, and understand what it means to own revenue.
If you look at any tech company or manufacturing organization or other business, there’s usually someone who has the title “Chief Revenue Officer” and there’s multiple people with a title along the lines of “Vice President of Sales” or “Sales Manager.” Anyone is this role is explicitly responsible for revenue, taking the business from $10,000,000 in annual sales to $15,000,000 or $20,000,000.
Is the same true for your law firm? Is there one person who is responsible and owns all the micro tasks and decisions that come with growing revenue and profits for your law firm? Is there someone who spends 80% of their time on growth metrics, tactics, analyzing data and trends to help the firm grow?
I’m betting your answer is no.
If you have 5 people “kind of” owning growth but in reality they spend 5% of their time each month on growing the practice, it’s nowhere near the time and effort it takes to grow a law firm.
I am saying you need to be honest: if no one’s is spending more than 20 hours/month to grow the practice and the partners collectively spend less than 10 hours/month, then it’s unlikely that you are going to grow.
What the partners are doing is making decisions. But making decisions is different from owning the growth responsibilities of the firm. And sometimes you can make decisions without tying it to impact on revenue.
Here’s what I mean (you can zoom in on the image below):
When I work with partners and their firm, I am tracking what decisions are being made and how that ties to revenue increases and ultimately firm growth.
Not only that, but where decisions are stalled or delayed, I can show how much it’s costing the firm by delaying these decisions.
Pause and ask yourself: do you know how much each decision you and the partners made brought in revenue wise for the firm?
You may be flying blind. And this is what it would look like if you could see.
Nermin
nermin@nerminesq.com
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