‘I know one when I see one’, might well have been the answer a partner would have given not so long ago to the question ‘what makes a prospective partner?’. These days, however, as firms have grown and extended their international reach, relying on instincts and a tacit common understanding of what partner potential looks like is no longer enough to ensure partner appointment decisions are made consistently and successfully.
The sheer size of many firms is the first challenge. Once law firms expand beyond the point of about 100 partners, the ability to spot talent and get to know those assistants that might be on partnership track from among the ranks becomes more and more difficult. It also becomes increasingly unlikely that partners will have had the opportunity to supervise a wide enough range of trainees or to work with a large enough group of assistants on client matters for them to feel confident about the abilities of all partnership candidates. Depending on past personal experience to inform partner admission decisions is therefore no longer reliable.
