Written by: Roy Strom

I’m going to tell you two stories about two different law firm partners.

Partner A is a grinder. This person eats, sleeps, and breathes billable hours. In fact, they billed more than 40 hours per week in every single week last year. It tallied up to 2,400 hours.

Partner B works differently. The job’s important, but logging hours isn’t exactly this partner’s specialty. They billed about 29 hours a week last year. It totaled 1,500 hours.

Now, here’s a question: When these partners get their paychecks, who is more satisfied?

It turns out that both are just as happy.

That’s according to a long-running survey of partners conducted by recruiting firm Major, Lindsey & Africa. The latest survey, released last week, shows 77% of partners who billed more than 2,400 hours were at least “slightly satisfied” with their compensation. Among partners who billed fewer than 1,500 hours, 74% reported being some level of satisfied with their wages.

The responses were virtually similar across all levels of billable hours. The survey included responses from more than 1,700 partners.

It’s easy to assume that is because partners who bill more hours earn vastly more than their lower-billing peers. But that’s not necessarily the case.

Higher compensation is most closely linked with higher origination (bringing in work) and higher billable rates (the cost to clients), the survey found.

Full Article