Figures including Linklaters senior partner David Cheyne and Slaughter and May corporate partner Nigel Boardman joined a roundtable hosted by Dominique Graham, director at consultancy Graham Gill, to look at what firms should be doing for partners coming up to retirement.
Participants called for firms to offer those nearing retirement age help to find positions outside the law and, in particular, to start dealing with the issue earlier on.
Former chief executive of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Hugh Crisp, now with
He said: “It is quite difficult for someone who has been working flat out from the age of about 22 or 23 to find the time to go and research other stuff. How much bandwidth do you have left in your week to think about networking to create opportunities for you later?”
The debate comes as a number of firms introduce initiatives in the area. Freshfields has launched a pilot with an external consultancy to help partners identify what career they could take up after law and Clifford Chance (CC) has examined a similar venture. Simmons & Simmons has a policy encouraging partners to take up not-for-profit positions and non-executive directorships.
Chairman of Nationwide Building Society and former CC managing partner, Geoffrey Howe, commented: “The first piece of advice I was given when I started looking at the non‑executive world was, ‘What is your network?’ The single greatest asset you have is your personal network.”
Stephen Williams, general counsel and chief legal officer at Unilever, added: “To jump out of a law firm at 55 or 50, and to choose to spend the next 15‑20 active years doing something different is good for society, good for yourself and something you should embrace.”
Participants from US firms such as Michael Hatchard of Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom, Jerry Walter at Fried Frank Harris Shriver & Jacobson and Charles Lubar at Morgan Lewis & Bockius stressed the benefits of a US-style system allowing partners to stay within firms for longer.
Lubar commented: “I find it extraordinary that so much talent is cut off in the
However, Cheyne and Boardman argued that part-time partners and reduced workflow would be unmanageable within a lockstep structure.
Boardman warned: “If you allow older people to take a part‑time partner role and pursue other activities part of the time, you have to make it available to all partners.”
Cheyne added: “Lockstep is an extremely punishing method of remuneration. Unless you are willing to abolish it, it is very difficult to keep people on.”
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