In some ways, the country's most recently promoted partners are more prepared than ever to take on their new roles. But the change still comes with its surprises.

“I will acknowledge it is one of those things where you signed your marriage license and walked down the aisle without fully knowing what it was going to be [like] until afterward,” says Lillian Hardy, a litigation partner at Hogan Lovells who was promoted to partnership in 2017.

Still, Hardy says she felt prepared for partnership, having sought out advice from others in her network on how to build a book of business. She also spent some time on a secondment, which “gave me a sense of what in-house people care about and what it means to be serving as their business partners.”