Nixon Peabody Program Trains, Elevates More Counsel to Partner

Five years ago, Nixon Peabody was at a crossroads.

Associates had begun expressing concerns about how to make the path to partner “smoother,” said firm chief talent officer Stacie Collier. It became clear “we needed to do something in terms of structure,” she said.

Collier, a partner, and others within Boston-rooted Nixon Peabody debated about what might augment the traditional Big Law path to partnership: work intense hours for several years as an associate before an often life-changing judgment is made about whether you’re ready to make the jump to partner.

The firm decided to focus on an often-neglected tier of large-firm lawyers—counsel—and their first cousins with the titles of special counsel, senior counsel, and of counsel, and create a pathway for them to become partners.

The counsel program, which offers training and mentoring for lawyers so they can develop strengths in areas key to partnership success, is a new kind of stepping stone to partner, an alternative to the more standard associate-to-partner path and the program “does help with retention,” said Collier.

Some lawyers come to Nixon Peabody not on “partner track” from the get-go, Collier said, but that “that’s their choice.” She said it definitely wasn’t the case that the lawyers in the counsel program are typically associates who have failed to make partner. “Quite the opposite.” The attorneys on the program’s partnership track “we believe will make partner and we are looking to give them resources to be very successful partners early on.”

It “makes a great deal of sense for the firm and for the lawyers involved,” said Bruce MacEwen with the law firm consultancy Adam Smith Esq.

Such programs are needed, said MacEwen, because they utilize “more imagination on clear paths” to Big Law partnerships.

In 2021, six of 14 new Nixon Peabody partners were promoted to partner from the counsel program; the other eight were associates. Over the past two years, almost all of the new partners were counsel, including seven of eight in 2022, and 12 of 14 in the class announced in December.

Nixon Peabody ranked 83rd in the most recent U.S. law firm rankings by the American Lawyer, with revenue of almost $550 million. The firm in 2022 had 572 lawyers, which included 115 equity partners and another 178 nonequity partners, also known as “income” or “salary” partners.

Those counsel that get bumped up to partner at Nixon Peabody join as income partners. Like an increasing number of AmLaw 200 firms, Nixon has a two-tier partnership, through which income partners, like counsel, earn a salary—far less than the partnership shares equity partners make.

There are similarities between the two positions, and key differences, including a raise for new income partners.

“Very often, our counsel are already acting as owners of the firm—they model exceptional client service, lead client teams, train, coach, and mentor junior attorneys and others,” a spokesperson for the firm said. “As a new partner, all of these behaviors are expected to continue.”

Yet other parts of the job “come to the forefront more” as an income partner, including generating new business or expanding existing relationships, “cross-selling” with colleagues, and managing client teams, the spokesperson said.

Legal recruiters and consultants say such a program is an overdue test of a new type of ascension path within firms.

Nixon’s counsel program is “a huge opportunity” for the firm, and for other firms that may look to emulate it, to make sure would-be partners are sufficiently polished and prepared, especially in client-facing skills, said legal recruiter Michelle Fivel with Hatch Henderson Fivel.

“Back in the day, counsel were off the partnership track. Now, whole new classes of attorneys are getting considered for partner,” said Fivel, a former associate with Jones Day, Kasowitz Benson, and Skadden before making the jump to lawyer recruiting. New paths give firms “a lot more flexibility.”

Two Tracks

The counsel program has two tracks, the most popular of which is the “on-partnership” track for those who aim to make partner, “and who we see joining the income partner ranks likely in the next three years,” the spokesperson said.

The firm sees this track as a “stepping-stone” to partner that gives the lawyers time to develop in areas like people management and business development/metrics, by participating in an “intensive,” year-long business development program that includes group workshops and monthly one-on-one coaching sessions.

The “off-partnership” track is geared for lawyers who traditionally have more often gravitated toward counsel positions, often as subject matter experts “who function at a partner level, but do not want to be partner,” the spokesperson said.

To be considered for either program track, attorneys must have practiced for at least seven years.

The program has proven popular among Nixon Peabody associates, said Collier, with 70 on average participating at any given time.

“We’re now seeing more and more associates become counsel first,” she said, before aiming for partnership. She added that it’s not an “up or out” program, compared with tradition at some firms that effectively show associates the door if they don’t make partner.

“Several” former counsel have become equity partners since the counsel program was revamped, though the spokesperson declined to provide an exact number.

A ‘Change in Treatment’

Julia Casteleiro moved to Nixon Peabody from Stroock & Stroock & Lavan in 2017 as a fifth-year lateral. In December 2020, she was promoted to counsel, and was made an income partner in 2022.

“The counsel program prepared me for what to expect” as a new partner, said Casteleiro, a real estate attorney who now specializes in affordable housing. “A change in treatment comes with the change in title.”

She said her eyes are fixed on someday becoming an equity partner, and was pleased with how the counsel program has helped bring that goal closer to reality.

The counsel program focused less on developing traditional legal skills, she said, and more on the business side of being a partner, including boosting her ability to bring new clients into the firm, and maintain those relationships.

“Everyone that enters the counsel program has different strengths,” said Casteleiro. “Some are amazing networkers and don’t need help getting business in the door, but they could use help developing those relationships; others have the opposite strength.”

The program allows you to set goals, and to strategize about how to accomplish them, she said, as well as to really get to know others outside of her practice.

When asked how eager she is to make equity partner, Casteleiro said the answer was simple: “As soon as I can make it happen.”