Biglaw Firms Now Offering Rainmaker Partners Forgivable Loans To Prevent Them From Leaving

// Ed. note: Welcome to our daily feature, Quote of the Day.

You could have someone who wasn’t a partner before and used to getting money on a regular basis … so the firm looks at giving them a forgivable loan. That’s where the firm is trying to address the challenges of a transition.

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But there are also forgivable loans when they’re trying to retain somebody and you have to give some back if you don’t stay for a certain amount of time.

— Alisa Levin, principal at Greene-Levin-Snyder Legal Search Group in New York, in comments given to the American Lawyer on bonuses structured as forgivable loans that have been used as partner retention tools. Firms like Kirkland & Ellis and DLA Piper have reportedly used forgivable loans to keep partners from exiting to rivals, and Shearman & Sterling did the same just prior to its merger with Allen & Overy as a way to “incentivize” partners to stay.

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Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter and Threads or connect with her on LinkedIn.

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Biglaw, Bonus News Alerts, Bonuses, Forgivable Loans, Partner Issues, Quote of the Day