Over the last few years many firms have implemented merit-based promotion and compensation systems in part because they think it will please their associates. What do the associates think? In our 2011 Midlevel Associates Survey, 29 percent of associates indicated that at some point their law firms had switched to merit-based pay. And 24 percent of survey respondents said that their firms instituted competency models where associates advance on the basis of their experience and skill level. At first blush, these changes appear to be popular. Sixty-three percent of associates at firms with competency models indicated that they liked them, according to our survey.
Cheri Vaillancour, director of professional development at Fenwick & West, which replaced its lockstep promotion and compensation scheme with a more merit-based model last year, says that traditionally, “firms would wait to see what every other firm was doing, but now they are more focused on what works best for their specific situation.”
