You have to be in it to win it. Just like getting a zero on an assignment makes snagging an “A” in the class unlikely, a zero score in any of the four A-List metrics makes landing on the A-List essentially impossible. Irell & Manella’s climb from 39th in A-List tabulations last year, with a total score of 871, to the 13th spot this year, with a score of 1,034, was largely based on its participation in our annual midlevel survey. The firm did not participate in the survey in 2012, so it received an associate satisfaction score of zero in calculations for the 2013 A-List. In 2013 the firm did participate in the survey, and even though it received a relatively low score of 126, that was enough to secure it a spot on the 2014 A-List.
A good year. Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi, meanwhile, registered a big jump in its RPL score versus last year, going from 95 to 190. That wasn’t a shock: The firm, which is known for taking cases with contingency elements, received some lucrative payouts in 2013. But what was surprising was that the firm’s associate satisfaction also made a dramatic jump, going from 109 to 161. Martin Lueck, Robins Kaplan’s chair, couldn’t point to any specific changes in the firm’s approach to associate development to explain the improved score. While there’s no way to directly link the firm’s improved financial performance with greater associate satisfaction, Robins Kaplan’s results this year suggests that sometimes money does lead to happiness, or at least associate satisfaction.
