Lateral Partner retention is a vital metric for law firms. "Each year, law firms invest countless hours, money, and resources in their lateral hiring efforts", so the success rate of each lateral hire has significant implications to any firm.

Based on input from a number of firms, a key window for a lateral Partner hire is the first 3 years from joining. Within that timeframe, most firms will have a sense of whether the hire is going to be a success, or not!

Following our recent analysis of lateral Partner retention in the AM Law 100, we're now shifting our focus to the AM Law second hundred.

Using publicly-available data tracked by Pirical, we've analyzed how many of the lateral Partner hires made by AM Law 101-200 firms between 2020-2022 exited the firm within 3 years of joining.

Note on methodology

Each firm's retention rate is based on the cohort of lateral Partner hires made between Jan 2020 - Dec 2022, and how many of those hires subsequently left the firm within the first 3 years of joining.

Excludes firms that made fewer than 5 lateral Partner hires and moves as a result of mergers. Data is derived from tracked lateral Partner moves, numbers may be slightly incomplete due to limited public information. Exits include Partners that left but didn't lateral to another firm, eg. retired.

At 94%, Atlanta tops the chart for highest Partner retention rates in the AM Law second hundred and is the only US City to surpass the 86% average retention rate.

Boston and Houston saw the lowest retention rates at 80%, both far below average.

Private Client and Labor and Employment practice areas had the highest rates of lateral Partner retention at 87% and 86% respectively, surpassing the average retention rate of 84%.

However, Partners practicing in Intellectual Property law were significantly more likely to leave within the 3 year timeframe. Retention in this practice area fell below average at 79%.