Age Factor

Question 2

Age Factor

The first allocation decision I made is to allocate a portion of 216 points based on the age of each partners. The case mentioned that there are certain norms that the longer partner stays with the firm, the more points they will get. Based on the ages of the partners provided in the case, I came up with 6 age groups. First group is age 30-35; second group is age 36-40; so on and so forth. The last age group is age 56-60. I assigned 2 points for group 1; 4 points for group 2; 6 points for group 3; so on and so forth. We can easily observe that there partner B is in group 1 (yr 30-35, 2 points); partner A is in group 2 (yr 36-40, 4 points); partner D and E are in group 3 (yr 41-45, 12 points); partner F and G are in group 4 (yr 46-50, 16 points); partner C is in group 5 (yr 51-55, 10 points); partner H is in group 6 (yr 56-60, 12 points). The total points based on age would be 56 points. All relevant data is presented in Exhibit 1. There would be 160 points left for qualitative factors and quantitative factors. Using 160 points divided 8 partners, I believe that average partner can earn 20 points. However, each partner will earn a different points based on their performance.

Qualitative Factors

The case listed a lot of qualitative factors such as external respect in community and cooperativeness with other partners. In order to assign points for these qualitative factors, I divided the comments into 5 ranks. Rank 1 being the worst, and rank 5 being the best. For example, partner D has the comment of “none” from committee work and firm management factor. This belongs to rank 1. Another example is partner F has the comment of “extensive” from committee work and firm management. This belongs to rank 5. Rank 1 will gain 60% of the points allocated to qualitative factors; rank 2 will gain 80%; so on and so forth. I used the same ranking system for all the qualitative factors because I believe that it is not necessary to set separate standards for each factor. Also this ranking system applies well to each factors. The reason why I did not set the celling to be 100% is because I believe that partners that did an exceptional job should be rewarded more. A more clear demonstration can be found in Exhibit 2.

Corporate Partners (A, F, G, H)

After allocating the age compensation, I started to consider the different quantitative factors that should be applied to each partner based on their different departments. I started with partner A, who is in corporate department. Partner F, G and H are also in this department. According to the case, corporate practice has tended to be more based on long-tern relationship rather than individual transactions. Furthermore, corporate lawyers lean heavily on other departments to serve the clients. The