Why Not To Burn Bridges, Part II

Following up on this earlier post here is yet another article on alumni networks, this time from the Chicago Tribune, entitled Companies Learn to Value Alumni (December 18, 2005).  As the article reports, law firms are the latest to join the trend:

Law firms are among the latest adopters. Their practice of forcing out lawyers who don’t make partner scatters their former members far and wide. “The more successful our alumni are, the more it builds our brand,” said Stephen Patton, a senior litigation partner at Chicago-based Kirkland & Ellis LLP, which launched an alumni network Nov. 1.  “Our alums are friends and cohorts, but they’re also our current or future clients. It just makes sense to strengthen our relationship with them.”

So, is it awkward hobnobbing with a firm that pushed you out the door?  I don’t think so (and that’s based on personal experience), especially if you’ve moved on to something even better, like starting your own firm.  And sometimes you find that there are people whom you get along with much better when you don’t have to work with them.

2 Comments

  1. Jay Gatsby on December 20, 2005 at 2:37 pm

    Actually, I would think that anyone who a firm pushed out the door would be extremely disinclined (to put it mildly) of ever sending any work to the firm in the future. This would especially be the case if the involuntary separation was a result of politics, a vindictive group leader or influential partner, etc…
    In fact, I’ve known several individuals who ultimately landed in-house positions, and *pulled* their company’s work from their former firm based upon how they were treated leading up to their departure. All but one of them pulled the work from partners having nothing to do with their prior practice area. When I asked one of them why he was pulling the work from an “innocent” partner, his response was that the partner could have stuck up for him at various times, but didn’t. He also didn’t want a dime of his company’s money ever to see the pocket of the partner who had screwed him.
    The moral of the story is that firms shouldn’t burn bridges either. You never know where someone may end up in the future.



  2. Jay Gatsby on December 20, 2005 at 2:37 pm

    Actually, I would think that anyone who a firm pushed out the door would be extremely disinclined (to put it mildly) of ever sending any work to the firm in the future. This would especially be the case if the involuntary separation was a result of politics, a vindictive group leader or influential partner, etc…
    In fact, I’ve known several individuals who ultimately landed in-house positions, and *pulled* their company’s work from their former firm based upon how they were treated leading up to their departure. All but one of them pulled the work from partners having nothing to do with their prior practice area. When I asked one of them why he was pulling the work from an “innocent” partner, his response was that the partner could have stuck up for him at various times, but didn’t. He also didn’t want a dime of his company’s money ever to see the pocket of the partner who had screwed him.
    The moral of the story is that firms shouldn’t burn bridges either. You never know where someone may end up in the future.



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