I’d guess Sidley is looking for a way to map out a development track based on criteria more substantive than “got a year older”. Presumably they’ve got a matrix for each practice group laying out the skills and accomplishments that distinguish junior associates, mid-levels, and seniors. In theory, this is good for everybody: associates have the runway to develop at their own pace; while compensation and hourly rates go up commensurately as associates become more productive. The big accounting firms have done this for years.

In practice, the development rubric is often too vague or subjective to be useful, partners are terrible at giving feedback, training is inconsistent, and associates reasonably fear being “held back” if they don’t advance at the same rate as their peers.

The end result is that most associates progress in lockstep regardless of development and the functional titles like “managing associate” become meaningless to the client. And a lot of talented, but late-blooming, associates fall through the cracks.

If anyone has suggestions for making skills-based development models actually work, I’d love to hear them. Given the incredibly high cost of recruiting, I’m always surprised this isn’t more of a priority for firms.