Young lawyers are willing to sacrifice their comp for these benefits

Compensation is still the most important variable for younger lawyers who are evaluating job offers. But most of them say they’d also be willing to sacrifice some pay for options such as additional free time, a cut in billable hours or a more flexible work schedule, according to a recent survey.

More than half of survey respondents (51.5%) said they would trade a portion of their compensation for more time off, according to a recent report from Major Lindsey & Africa and Above The Law. Nearly that many (47.5%) said they would exchange some of their pay for fewer billable hours, and only slightly fewer (39.5%) said they’d do it for a more flexible work schedule.

A law firm’s compensation package is still the most important factor for millennials in evaluating a potential employer, according to the same report. On a scale of 0-10, with 0 being irrelevant and 10 being the most important, lawyers responding to the question gave compensation an average of 7.85 in terms of importance and work-life balance a 7.81.

But a more myopic approach to work is one of the defining characteristics of millennial lawyers, said Michelle Fivel, a partner at MLA and one of the creators of the survey. And it’s one of the reasons more firms are creating additional paths to partnership with lower hours requirements, Fivel and Ru Bhatt, another MLA partner and survey creator, said.

“I think the survey results showed attorneys will give up some of that compensation, but they won’t give up that brass ring for that lifestyle,” Fivel said, referring to additional findings showing a big increase over the last few years in millennial lawyers who say they want to make partner.

R. Cameron Garrison, managing partner of Lathrop GPM, said his firm debuted separate partner tracks last year, one where associates could choose to bill 1,600 hours per year and one where they could bill 1,900.

He said the compensation is of course less for billing fewer hours, but everything else — the partnership, client and professional development opportunities, for instance — is the same.

“The idea is we have associates that want to work really hard and bill a lot of hours and they’re motivated by that, and we also have really talented associates that don’t want to bill as many hours, but they’re still really valuable to our team and our clients, and we don’t want to lose those associates just because they’re not interested in billing 1,900 hours a year,” Garrison said.

“We created those tracks and allow associates to opt in based on where they are in their journey, so that’s something we’re pretty proud of and that we put in place for those exact reasons,” Garrison said. “We do think people are looking for more flexibility, and it’s not one-size-fits-all these days, so we want to be a little bit more bespoke and give people different paths and opportunities to succeeding here.”

The survey of 1,643 ATL readers was conducted online between January and March of this year. Respondents were comprised of junior associates through equity and non-equity partners and other positions, such as of counsel, working across practice areas. More than half of the respondents came from firms with 500 or more lawyers, and more than 85% graduated law school between 2005 and 2022.

About a quarter of respondents (23.9%) said they wouldn’t trade any portion of their compensation. Additional choices on the question included better health benefits (12.7%), more time for career training and development (12%) and more pro bono hours.

Another small segment of respondents (4.7%) said “other” when asked if there was anything they’d trade some of their compensation for. According to the report, those respondents said options such as better fringe benefits (e.g. transportation), more maternity benefits, “sane partners,” a more predictable schedule, and the ability to be fully remote.

The report noted there were some differences between how men and women answered the question, too.

“The proportions of male and female respondents who would trade some of their pay for more time off is nearly identical (51% of women and 52% of men). But women are more willing than men to give up compensation for either a cut in billable hours (52.9% for women vs 42.2% for men) or a flexible work schedule (40.4% for women vs for 34.3% men),” the report stated.

Related: Reintroducing the full spectrum of your benefits to workers

Bhatt, one of the MLA partners, said increasingly in Big Law, “there’s room for both” attorneys who get a thrill from working extremely hard, billing more, and being compensated for it, but also people who want to ease off the accelerator and focus more on a different kind of lifestyle.

“So, perhaps there’s an opportunity for millennial attorneys, particularly as they get to places of power or as partners, to really shape and speak to both sides of the workforce,” he said.