In our recent partnership track piece, we looked at industry-wide trends in partnership timelines and attrition rates. Here, we go firm by firm across the AM Law 100 to see who has the fastest track to partnership, who has the slowest, and whether the fastest tracks are a sign of opportunity or a revolving door.

Using Pirical data, we ranked the AM Law 100 firms by average time to partner, then checked partner attrition rates at the firms promoting fastest.

Note on methodology

Time to Partner is the average tenure before partnership elevation, based on promotions in the last 36 months. Firm coverage is limited to AM Law 100 firms with sufficient promotion data in the tracked window to produce a reliable average.

Kirkland & Ellis promotes to partner in just 6 years, well ahead of every other AM Law 100 firm. Kirkland runs a two-tier partnership model, so much of that speed reflects a fast, high-volume non-equity cohort rather than equity partnership. Troutman Pepper Locke sits at the other end at 17.9 years, the lowest in the bracket. Across the AM Law 100, the average time to partner is 12.2 years.

Between those extremes, more than half the AM Law 100 fall between 11 and 13 years. Litigation-heavy and boutique firms tend to promote faster, Susman Godfrey (9.5), Polsinelli (9.7) and Wilson Sonsini (10.6) all sit near the front, while several of the slowest firms are large, full-service practices.

A fast partnership track can reflect opportunity, or it can reflect churn. We looked at partner attrition rates at the 10 fastest-promoting AM Law 100 firms. 

Kirkland & Ellis has both the fastest track and one of the highest attrition rates on the list, at 15%. Goodwin Procter shows a similar pattern, a fast track paired with attrition at 12%. Susman Godfrey and Williams & Connolly sit at the other end: fast tracks with just 2% partner attrition.