For Miami litigation associate Leon Fresco, it was Holland & Knight's demonstrated commitment to pro bono work that attracted him to the firm three years ago.

He spent his first two years with the firm as a Chesterfield Smith fellow, logging thousands of hours of mostly free work for immigrants and other indigent clients.

"Holland & Knight, as far as I'm concerned, is the best firm in Miami," Fresco said. "When you talk about the combination of associate responsibility, ability to do pro bono work, compensation is commensurate with similarly situated law firms in Miami."

Fresco has been doing a significant amount of pro bono work since transitioning out of that program last year into a practice made up primarily of paying clients.

Trial is set next month in his case representing mentally ill prisoners against the Florida Corrections Department seeking to ban prison employees from tear-gassing inmates to subdue them.

Holland & Knight is the only large law firm based in Florida to improve its ranking on a midlevel associate survey conducted by The American Lawyer magazineaffiliate. , a Daily Business Review

The firm jumped to 84th this year from 117th last year and 142nd the year before based on a score that considers 12 measures of job satisfaction.

Carlton Fields dropped to 113th from 18th last year, and no other Top 20 firms took a steeper drop this year.

Luis Prats, a Tampa, Fla., partner and chair of the firm's associate relations and retention committees, said the firm is investigating why it experienced such a sharp drop in the ranking.

"It's difficult from the survey results to draw any overarching conclusions," Prats said. "We've always been focused on providing the best environment for associates that we can provide."

Greenberg Traurig fell to 139 this year from 92 last year, but Cesar Alvarez, the firm's chief executive officer and a Miami partner, said, "In the last three years, we have had lower associate attrition rates than our peer firms, and that is the number that counts."

He did not respond directly to the steep drop but said the firm ranked above the median in several areas including the amount of client contact, management openness on finances and the opportunity to socialize with partners.

Akerman Senterfitt made its first appearance on this year's list, ranking 144th out of 157 firms that offered at least 10 associate responses.

Fresco said he left a lucrative position as an investment banker to enter the legal profession in his quest to help others, and he said it was clear to him when he began interviewing that few firms took community service and a positive working environment seriously.

"I didn't get a receptive and warm feeling" about people doing the right thing, Fresco said. "It seemed to me like it was just like when I was in investment banking. ... You were here to make money, and that was the end of it."

But Holland & Knight offers incentives to its attorneys to perform pro bono work by giving them credit toward their billable-hour requirements.

"Everyone I spoke to at Holland & Knight said the same thing," Fresco said. "It was all about, 'We have a no-jerks rule.' "

His experience may serve as an example of how a concerted effort by firm leaders to improve associate retention pays off.

Holland & Knight changed its training and mentoring programs, bonus structure and the way it communicates with associates, said Miami partner Adolfo Jimenez. He also is the firm's professional development and recruiting partner.

"We've really tried to re-engineer some of the things that we were doing," he said. "The firm for a long time has been focused on a lot of issues dealing with associate satisfaction. We invested a lot of money, a lot of time, and not everything we were doing was paying off."

The firm reduced the number of training programs, created programs that apply to a variety of practice areas and put more emphasis on legal writing.

The firm also implemented a second bonus based solely on the number of billable hours and launched a monthly newsletter for associates, which Jimenez said provides information that associates need to know about the firm yet isn't simply a public relations piece. He said the firm continues to work on improving access to partners.

Sherry Schneider, managing partner of headhunting firm Lucas Group's legal division in Miami, said communication is an important piece of associate satisfaction.

"Firms that have open communication with associates tend to [have] much happier" associates, Schneider said. "They feel like they're part of the firm."

Despite Greenberg Traurig's drop in rank and a reputation for being a tough place to work, Catherine Jones, a corporate associate in the Fort Lauderdale, Fla., office, said she has been pleased with her experience with the firm.

Though she worked for another firm in New York, Jones said she has had plenty of opportunities with Greenberg for hands-on experience on complex assignments, and the pace of the work is reasonable.

"I was burned out on New York, but I wanted to have the same quality of work," she said. "How often do you get to do billion-dollar [initial public offerings?] I haven't pulled one all-nighter in two years. I used to do them once a month."

Jones was involved in an $878 million IPO for Liberty Acquisition Holdings, which closed in February, and several billion-dollar deals last year.

Mark Shapiro, chair of Akerman Senterfitt's litigation practice group in Miami, said the firm has made an effort to formalize its retention program; he leads the retention efforts.

"We've always been concerned about associate retention. That's nothing new," he said. "As Akerman has grown, I think Akerman has had to develop strategies to incorporate within all of its offices, and lawyer retention is no exception to that."

That includes higher compensation and efforts to make it easier for associates to communicate with partners.

Jimenez said Holland & Knight's retention rate improved slightly from 2006 to 2007.

"There's no question we're seeing what the marketplace is seeing, which is more attrition than we'd like," he said. "It's between 18 and 22 percent. That's a little better than the national average."

The average attrition rate for law firms with more than 500 attorneys is 21 percent, according to the NALP Foundation, which focuses on law placement.

Legal headhunter Abbe Bunt of Fort Lauderdale said retention is important.

"Midlevel associates no longer define success by the same standards that the old generation defines success, meaning making partner, sharing in the profits and sharing in the prestige," she said. "Since firms are recognizing there's a different standard to success in this generation, firms are faced with learning about what this generation of midlevel associates wants and how to give it to them."

Ana Spiguel, a corporate associate in Hughes Hubbard & Reed's Miami office, said she's happy with her firm but isn't sure partnership is her ultimate goal. Hughes Hubbard ranked 30th on the national survey.

"It depends on the day -- sometimes yes, sometimes no," she said of her thoughts about partnership. "The higher you go, the more responsibility."

But she added, "The hierarchy here is practically nonexistent. It makes for a very pleasant working environment."

Nicolas Swerdloff, managing partner of the firm's Miami office, said, "You spend a lot of effort trying to get good people. You want to try to accommodate them."