Let’s try a thought experiment. If you were to update your LinkedIn profile tomorrow to show you were at a different firm, would your clients notice? Would they care? Would they call?

For some partners, the answer is an immediate yes. For others, the honest answer is they might not.

Asking this question doesn’t change your relationship with your clients, nor does it mean you’re disloyal or planning to leave. But it does tell you something critical about your leverage (your ability to ask for resources, advocate for what you need, and build your practice the way you want to build it) at your current firm.

And right now, many partners are discovering they have less leverage than they thought. Recent data from Decipher shows claimed client portability at 57% in 2024, down from 64% in 2023. When your clients belong to the firm rather than to you, your leverage shrinks. Partners find out too late that what they built doesn’t give them the negotiating power they assumed it did.

Why this matters (even if you love your firm)

These changes in client portability aren’t happening in a vacuum. There’s been a sea of change in how firms handle client relationships. More specifically, firms are moving toward institutional client relationships. They’re building team-based relationships, spreading client touchpoints across multiple partners, implementing strategic account management programs, and ensuring no single partner is the sole relationship holder.

From the firm’s perspective, this makes sense because it protects against departures, ensures smooth succession planning when partners retire, reduces key-person risk, and often delivers better service to clients who benefit from having multiple attorneys they can reach out to directly.

But this is a situation where what’s good for the goose might not be good for the gander. When clients become institutionalized and owned by the firm rather than by a particular partner, your portability drops. Partners with 31–40 years of experience and strong personal client relationships have portability rates of around 86%, while the overall market sits at 57%. That gap represents millions in potential revenue and, importantly, millions in leverage you might think you have but don’t.

You don’t have to be planning an exit for this to affect you. Markets shift, firms change direction, management turns over, your needs evolve, and economics fluctuate.

You can be a great team player, introduce colleagues to your clients, cross-sell across practice areas, and still maintain the relationships that give you leverage. Firms want partners who have options and choose to stay.

Three partners, three paths

Understanding where you fall on the portability spectrum helps you make better decisions about your career, whether that’s building more leverage at your current firm or keeping your options open. These composite examples drawn from common patterns show three different positions and what you can do about each.

Paul Partner: the institutional player

Paul works at a prestigious firm on major institutional clients. He’s one of 15–20 partners touching these accounts. Throughout his career, he’s done excellent work and been well compensated.

Yet as his career goals have changed, the status quo no longer works for him. Paul has been evaluating his options, but when he started asking himself honest questions about his book, he realized something uncomfortable. He’s always brought in after the initial client conversation. He’s never been the primary point of contact.

This limits his leverage at his current firm. When he asks for resources, advocates for a different role, or pushes for leadership positions, he doesn’t have the client relationships to back up those requests the way other partners do.

And if he ever explored opportunities elsewhere, he’d likely face another problem. Firms vet lateral candidates intensively on client relationships, asking questions like “Are you the primary originating partner?” His answers would show the same underlying issue.

Steps institutional partners can take to strengthen their position

You don’t have to hoard relationships to make yourself more central to clients. The goal is to become the hub, the person clients think of first, even when you’re coordinating work across the team. These steps can help:

Start checking in with clients directly, even when you’re not doing the billable work on a matter.
Position yourself as the trusted advisor who coordinates across practice areas and geographies.
Look for secondary conferences where you’d be the only firm representative so that you wouldn’t be competing with senior partners for spots at major industry events.
Ask to join initial client conversations, not just get brought in after decisions are made.
Keep a running list of matters you helped originate or relationships you developed, even if you’re not the named relationship partner.

Brandon Billable: the background builder

Brandon does sophisticated work at a high level. He’s built his career on being the go-to person for difficult legal problems. The problem is he’s never done business development.

The same senior partners attend all the conferences and client meetings; they write articles and appear on podcasts, all while Brandon works behind the scenes. He’s known internally but invisible externally.

This creates two problems. First, Brandon has almost no leverage at his current firm. When budget discussions occur or resources are allocated, partners with client relationships take priority. Second, he has no independent reputation in the market. If he tried to move firms, he’d have nothing to show firms beyond his technical work.

And if his firm’s direction changes, if new leadership comes in, or if his practice area sunsets, Brandon doesn’t have the relationships to give him options.

Steps background builders can take to build market presence

You don’t need a substantial book of business to start building your reputation. The partners who have strong client relationships today started somewhere. These steps can help you become visible in your market from the ground up:

Attend one industry event per quarter where your clients and potential clients actually gather.
Volunteer to present at your firm’s client seminars or webinars on technical topics you already know cold.
Join an industry association relevant to your practice area and attend meetings.
Start reading the trade publications your clients read so you understand their business problems beyond legal issues.
Ask a rainmaking partner if you can shadow them on a pitch or client meeting.

Rebecca Rainmaker: the relationship owner

Rebecca brings in clients who specifically want to work with her. She’s nurtured these relationships and her practice deliberately over the years. Clients call her first, regardless of the issue. She introduces other partners when it makes sense, but she’s always in the communication loop.

The difference this makes is significant. When Rebecca asks her firm for resources, they listen, and when she advocates for her team or practice area, she gets taken seriously.

Rebecca has options beyond her firm. If she ever moves to another platform, her clients would follow. That portability gives her something many partners don’t have: the ability to build her practice on her terms, not just accept whatever her firm offers.

Steps relationship owners can take to maintain their position

The work you’ve done to build these relationships wasn’t accidental. Staying intentional about maintaining them protects what you’ve built. These steps can help you avoid letting those relationships drift to other partners at your firm:

Document your origination contributions for compensation discussions. Don’t assume leadership remembers everything you’ve brought in.
Stay involved in client strategy conversations even after you’ve delegated the execution. Make sure clients know you’re still coordinating their team even when you bring in other partners.
Be the one who checks in when clients go quiet, not just when they have active matters. If there are issues, take the lead in solving them.
Get to know the people who report to your main client contact. When your contact retires or changes jobs, you’ll still have a relationship with whoever takes over.

The best time to think about client portability is before you need to

The right time to think about your leverage, your client portability, and your options isn’t when you’re frustrated with your firm or weighing a job offer. It’s now, when you can make deliberate choices about how you build your practice.

If this feels uncomfortable, remember that thinking about your own career doesn’t make you a bad partner. You can introduce colleagues to your clients, cross-sell across practice areas, contribute to your firm’s success, and still invest in building and maintaining the relationships that give you leverage. The two aren’t in conflict.

Your firm is making strategic decisions about client relationships that make sense for the institution. You can make strategic decisions about your career that make sense for you. Both can be true.

If you’re unsure where you stand or what your options might be, let’s talk.