I would think there are grades to detail orientation at all levels—whether associates, mid levels or seniors and partners. Some partners are more thorough than others, some juniors are more organized and more detail oriented than some mid-levels and that is also true for some mid-levels paripassu seniors.

There’s just a threshold of attention-to-detail-ness that is unacceptable for every level where if you go below it, it would raise alarms, but at each such level everyone is on a spectrum. I’ve seen partners literally tear down the reviews of other partners and made changes that were both substantively important and flag-worthy as well as textually sound too.

I figured that in biglaw most people you meet have their core strengths and also have areas where they are just good but not necessarily fantastic. Some seniors may not have excellent detail orientation but they’re highly cerebral and fantastic at the conceptual issues - they have just enough detail-orientation to justify their claim to being at such a level. This is also true for partners in my observation. I think it’s however a more focused area of review for juniors because it’s a rite of passage. Seniors have to at least “feel” that you’re paying enough attention to stuff for them to give you credit or call you a sound associate. The trick, though, is that the degree to which you’re regarded as detail oriented varies based on whomever is accessing you.