Lawyers enjoy using the prefix “non”. Nonlawyer, nonequity partner; as someone who was not a lawyer once told me, “I don’t like being referred to as a non anything.”
For law firms, making someone a partner is a little like a marriage. It brings legal obligations, creates emotional bonds, and can be hard to escape. Making someone a nonquity partner, on the other hand, is like living with someone. If you don’t like how it’s going, you can just cut your losses and move on. No fuss, no muss.
The concept of the nonequity partner tier has been around for a long time. ). But it has picked up considerable steam in the last decade as firms grappled with large groups of associates becoming eligible for partnership. Perhaps, given the numbers, equity partners were not as familiar with many of the associates who were eligible for partnership as they once were. These were often associates the equity partners were perhaps unsure of but didn’t want to lose (aka let’s hedge our bets). All too often, these were, unfortunately, women and people of color.
In most cases, a nonequity partner was (and is) a partner in name only
Whatever the reason, firms began offering nonequity partnerships. In most cases, a nonequity partner was (and is) a partner in name only: they have no voting rights and do not share in the firm profits at the end of the year. They have no rights of an equity partner under the terms of the partnership agreement. They were (and are), for all intents and purposes, glorified employees. The only real benefit in most cases was that nonequity partners could hold themselves out as partners to clients and the rest of the world.
As time