If you ask associates in an elite law firm about how satisfied they are with their work, you’ll learn that they have big concerns, regardless of gender, about the long work hours that make it almost impossible to care for a family, take a real vacation, or even get regular exercise. That message was almost overwhelming, when a Legal Business survey in 2006 revealed that only 37% of UK associates thought that partnership was an appealing career goal, while 75% expressed the need for an alternative that allowed better work/life balance.

Something interesting happened, however, when five elite London law firms tried to introduce an alternative career path that responded to those concerns, in an effort to retain their high-value employees.  The role they developed, which they called “counsel,” would be held by highly skilled lawyers — like partners — but counsel would do less business development than partners do. The role would be high status and require hard work, of course, but it would involve fewer hours than partners are expected to work.

Yet the associates, who had been so vocal anonymously about the impossibly long hours, responded with disdain. We began researching the five firms in 2007, immediately after they introduced the counsel role. We interviewed 67 people — legal associates and counsel, partners and managing partners, and HR directors — at three time points over 11 years. In addition, we analyzed organizational documents and articles in the legal press. In our conversations with associates we were struck by how strenuously they denied the counsel role’s relevance for their own careers, but insisted that it would be good for other colleagues who had different priorities — especially female colleagues who wanted to start a family. But it was not for them. They were ambitious and wanted to be partners.

What we found when we dug into associates’ responses was that the respondents held multiple “logics” about their work and family lives, but experienced angst about expressing them freely. In their initial anonymous responses, they felt safe in expressing the “family logic,” which holds that family and other relationships outside of work are important to living a good life. Yet their public responses to the role of counsel were based in the “professional” and “corporate” logics that were typical (and legitimate) within the firms. While lawyers recognized that the counsel role would help the firm retain scarce and talented staff, when it came to their own careers, they felt that the counsel role violated the “professional logic,” which holds that being a serious lawyer is about giving everything to the firm, sacrificing all for the chance to make partner.

Over the next 11 years, we observed what happened as HR professionals and managing partners tried to get to the root of associates’ and partners’ objections to the new role and how they responded to mitigate the concerns.

[Here is the first objection they discuss.]

Objection #1: Irreconcilability

It’s just not possible to be considered a serious professional at this law firm unless you give everything to the pursuit of partnership. You may say the role of counsel is legitimate, but it can’t be, because making time for family or other interests is irreconcilable with professional success.

Mitigating Response:

HR directors redirected associates away from the traditional notion of professional status (which considers partner the be-all and end-all) to a more corporate sense of status (the counsel is a senior and respected position in our hierarchy). They defined and stressed the role’s rights and privileges: Counsel is allowed to attend partner meetings; counsel can use the partner lounge. They recast the role as an alternative but not the end of the road to partnership, e.g.  “not everyone has to go through it to make partner … but for some it may be a very good platform.” The HR directors also redirected associates away from interpreting the role as solely for women to care for families and toward seeing it as professional autonomy: “offering different choices for all men and women” and “giving options to talented people with different desires and preferences.”