[niss]

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Here are some hiring partner questions:

1. At your firm, is the hiring partner position permanent or temporary?
2. Does your firm give you any credit for it, or is it just something that people have to do?
3. Do you still have to maintain the same hour requirements while being the hiring partner?
4. What are your class standing requirements? Top 20%? Top 10%? Do higher ranked schools get a lower cut line? Would you rather have a 50th percentale Yale grad or a top 10% Rutgers grad?

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Thanks for your questions, all good ones.

1. We have rotating committee obligations. Hiring partner is not one of the more popular jobs, as the hiring committee involves more work than most other committees. The prior hiring partners have all moved on to "better" appointments when given the opportunity. I enjoy being the hiring partner. I enjoy interacting with the students, and I enjoy doing interviews. I enjoy having something of a head start on knowing our new hires and our summer associates. So I imagine that I'll keep doing it for a while ... but it's not really a permanent position.

2. Being a partner is a lot like being an associate. Those that succeed are those that show the most commitment to the team, those who go the extra mile. Even in a partnership, you may have those who are into it more than others. So while we all are assigned to various administrative obligations, those of us who give up more of our free time than others to help the firm may receive some type of additional, small financial benefit at the end of the year.

3. My hours now are more than when I was an associate, but I have much more non-billable time than I did. There is much more administrative work, as well as client development obligations. Personally, I enjoy most of the administrative stuff, and the client development stuff can be fun too -- a lot of golf and travel.

I should mention that I do not work in New York City. So no matter what happens, my workload is never onerous. I rarely work on the weekends, and if I do it's usually from home, Sunday night, after the kids go to bed. I have a life (which includes time for poker), and have time to enjoy it.

4. Class standing requirements vary depending on the school. But they are far from set in stone. There are a number of other things we consider -- employment experience, clerkships, interests, diversity, etc. It's not just grades, although grades are certainly important.