Ed. note: Welcome to our daily feature, Quote of the Day. I talked to one guy who heads a big New York firm, who said ‘We just have to invest in the people [we already have], or at least show them a career path, or we’re gonna lose them. — Brad Hildebrandt, chair of Hildebrandt Consulting and one of the authors of the 2024 Client Advisory from Hildebrandt Consulting and Citi’s Global Wealth at Work Law Firm Group, in comments given to the American Lawyer on one of the reasons Biglaw firms are expanding their nonequity partner ranks. The survey notes that 83% of Biglaw firms expect to increase the size of their income partner roles in the next two years, a “staggering jump” from the 68% projected growth reported last year. Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter and Threads or connect with her on LinkedIn.

Not every company asks their employees to write a self-evaluation. But as a law firm associate, I had to write one, and now that I’m in-house, it is a part of my team’s process. If you have never done one before, it can be daunting. But even if you have written a self-evaluation before, it can be a dreaded task, especially if you haven’t prepared. Here are some tips that have worked for me. Research The Criteria To evaluate yourself (or anyone for that matter), you need to know what the criteria are. How are you being measured or judged? Is it according to skills developed or results achieved? Is it based on a client satisfaction survey or whether your work aligned with company core values or furthered company goals? How are wins defined by your legal department, quantitative or qualitative? And what does excellence or meeting objectives or not meeting objectives look like? The more clarity you have on the process, the better you are able to prepare. It may also be helpful to have a mentor at your company to ask questions if you are not comfortable going to your manager directly. Keeping A Done List A best practice is to keep a running list of what you’ve been working on throughout the year and do your best to update it weekly or monthly, using calendar reminders. The method behind this madness is because it can be even more difficult or extremely time-consuming to try to remember a year’s worth of work at the end of the year, especially when you have a looming deadline to submit a self-evaluation. While it may take some time to create the habit of updating your running “done” list, the list itself doesn’t have to be complicated. One way this can show up is to have a page in your OneNote or in a Word document where you make a list of all the categories you want to keep track of — trainings, arbitrations, mediations, projects, etc. — and update it periodically. The categories will depend on the criteria as well as the kind of law you practice. My categories as an employment lawyer likely differ from my intellectual property colleagues. Another way to keep a running list is to take a sheet of paper, divide it into quadrants, and simply jot down what you work on each quarter (fiscal or calendar) in shorthand. This is also helpful to discern at a glance which quarters tend to be busiest for you. Note that your shorthand needs to be descriptive enough that you will remember it a year from now. If you haven’t done this all year, don’t give up! Go ahead and take the time to review your calendar to create a running list of all the work you’ve done. Then consider grouping the work in ways that make sense for your evaluation. Know Your Audience The last tip is to consider your audience. Is it simply your direct manager? If so, do you think they will prefer bullet points that may be easier to read? Or do they need paragraphs written in third person so that those paragraphs can cut and pasted into your company system? Is your audience an entire committee? Do what you can to tailor your self-evaluation to your audience’s need and use case. Invest The Time Regardless of how you might feel about having to do a self-evaluation in the first place, if it is a part of your process then it’s worth doing well. Invest the time to create a system that works for you as well as the time to write well. Do what you can to provide specific examples that show how you have been been a value-add. Meyling “Mey” Ly Ortiz is in-house at Toyota Motor North America. Her passions include mentoring, championing belonging, and a personal blog: TheMeybe.com. At home, you can find her doing her best to be a “fun” mom to a toddler and preschooler and chasing her best self on her Peloton. You can follow her on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/meybe/). And you knew this was coming: her opinions are hers alone.

As salary hikes and bonuses are dominating Biglaw news, it’s easy to get the impression all is shiny and bright in Biglaw, and whatever layoffs were reported in the industry are in the past. But the latest news is a stark reminder that not every big firm is throwing money around. The American Lawyer is reporting top Biglaw firm K&L Gates is conducting associate layoffs in at least four of the firm’s offices: Chicago, Boston, Washington, and Pittsburgh. And the thing behind the layoffs? A lack of billable hours. “The person I talked to was totally blindsided and shocked,” said one legal recruiter, who commented for this story on the condition of anonymity. “It was a lack of work; that was the explanation they got.” The firm’s comment on the headcount decreases indicates the overall health of the firm may not be implicated by the “personnel decisions”: Every year, K&L Gates manages headcount based on “personnel performance, client demand and related reviews,” which typically result in “personnel decisions,” the firm’s representative said in a statement. “This year was no exception,” the statement said, which went on to assure the firm’s financial health. “The firm is performing quite well, with year to date revenue up strongly over last year, which was itself a record revenue year for the firm.” The scope of the layoffs isn’t yet known. But Above the Law wishes everyone who suddenly finds themselves out of work the best of luck. If your firm or organization is reducing the ranks of its lawyers or staff, whether through deferrals, open layoffs, stealth layoffs, or voluntary buyouts, please don’t hesitate to let us know. Our vast network of tipsters is part of what makes Above the Law thrive. You can email us or text us (646-820-8477). Thank you for your assistance. If you’d like to sign up for ATL’s Layoff Alerts, please scroll down and enter your email address in the box below this post. If you previously signed up for the layoff alerts, you don’t need to do anything. You’ll receive an email notification within minutes of each layoff announcement that we publish. Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email

2023 is rapidly coming to a close. It was a wild year for the legal industry — it had everything: layoffs, raises, presidential indictments, Supreme Court controversy, law school free speech clashes… just about everything you can think of. So let’s gather together to rehash the year that was. If you’re a fan of legally themed cocktails, in the NYC area, and interested in hanging with your friendly neighborhood ATL editors, come on down! Here are all the details: When: Monday, December 11thWhere: Black Sheep at 583 3rd AveTime: 6:30 p.m. – 9 p.m. Remember to RSVP here because space is limited. See you there. Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Law, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the best, so please connect with her. Feel free to email

Earlier this week, Jonathan Turley’s thirst for attention led him to go on TV to describe “car loan payments” as corruption that “none of us have seen the likes of.” Turley is, of course, an idiot. But it did get us thinking: what are the rules for paying back money you’ve borrowed? So we’ve created this helpful annotated guide! 1 Clarence Thomas took money from Harlan Crow to pay tuition for the grandnephew that the justice considers “as a son.” 2 Despite hollering to every news outlet available about the irresponsibility of students seeking federal student loans forgiveness, multiple conservative legislators actually took big bucks in federal PPP loans and took the option of just pocketing the money. 3 Back to Clarence Thomas. The justice had a health care executive buy him an RV. It was styled as a loan… but it was just a gift. 4 Thomas took half a million in free vacations that we know of. 5 Sam Alito takes private jets to luxury resorts with billionaire litigants. It’s just a bottomless cesspool! 6 Fed Soc paid Ginni Thomas under the table. 7 And, yes, Turley’s complaint about Hunter Biden. Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.