For law firm administrators, associate retention is a challenge that extends beyond the talent realm to affect the firm’s finances, productivity, culture and morale. To be sure, law firms invest heavily in recruiting, onboarding and developing junior lawyers, yet many see roughly one in five associates leave within a few years.
When that happens, firms absorb significant sunk compensation costs — now averaging $200,000 for a first-year associate, according to the National Association for Law Placement — and grapple with covering the workload, revamping teams and minimizing the strain on partners and managers. (Not to mention what comes next: spending time and money to find and train the replacement. It’s no wonder associate retention is deemed “The Holy Grail” within Big Law.)
Improving associate ROI does not require perfect hiring foresight. It requires systems that help new lawyers become productive faster, stay engaged longer and contribute more consistently over time.
The Hidden Costs of the Learning Curve
In a Lexis survey, 95% of hiring partners and associates said new lawyers arrived lacking “key practical skills” necessary to do the job. This lack of preparation manifests in real costs to the firm: write-offs, rewrites and partner time.
Indeed, Thomson Reuters reports that the “junior associate learning curve” is the leading reason for partners’ billing write-offs. On average, each partner writes off 84.6 hours of associate time each year for a total of $30,694.
Meanwhile, the second-highest reason for write-offs: associates taking longer than needed to complete a task. This costs the average firm 52.6 junior associate hours for a hit of $19,252 per partner.
Finally, correcting or revising associate work brings write-offs of 23.6 hours, or $8,638, in associate time, as well as 14 hours, or $8,624, of partner time.
All told, this is a loss of $67,208 per partner, per year.
These costs compound quickly. They delay the firm’s break-even point for associates and quietly erode profitability, even before attrition enters the picture. From an operational standpoint, write-offs are often a signal that associates are not receiving the training, feedback or support they need early enough.
Why Associates Disengage
While compensation and workload matter, research and experience show that early-career disengagement is more often driven by uncertainty than exhaustion. New associates frequently struggle with unclear expectations, inconsistent feedback and limited guidance on how to succeed within their firm’s specific culture and workflows.
Many arrive academically accomplished but unprepared for the rigors of the profession. Feedback may come too late to course-correct or not at all when partners simply stop giving assignments. Over time, this can lead to burnout, coasting and early exits.
New associates frequently struggle with unclear expectations, inconsistent feedback and limited guidance on how to succeed within their firm’s specific culture and workflows.
For administrators, this is a critical insight: Retention problems are rarely solved by hiring alone. They are addressed by managing the associate experience more intentionally.
