This year, Schulte Roth & Zabel can count itself as the firm where midlevel associates are happiest. But two years ago, it was a very different story.

In 2016, the firm came in at 78th on The American Lawyer's midlevel associate satisfaction rankings.

“It was a big billboard saying, 'You should look and see if you can do this better,'” says partner Dan Kusnetz, who co-leads the firm's associate committee. “We had let the gardens go unpruned and untended because of the crush of work and the financial crisis.”