Monitoring the implied promise : promotion to partnership in large UK law firms

Drawing on tournament theory, this paper seeks to shed light on the ‘black box’ of promotion within large UK law firms. Is there a promotion to partnership tournament which encourages associate lawyers to work hard with minimal supervision and to remain with their firms? Do these lawyers have the means by which they can monitor their firm’s implied promise that a number of them will attain partnership? The paper analyses the first-hand experiences of lawyers to assess: who are the participants in the process; when partnership becomes their main source of motivation; how they calculate their promotion prospects; and how they develop the human capital, business case and internal political support required for promotion. The paper concludes that these associates acquired incomplete but sufficient knowledge to monitor and act upon the implied promise, although the promise itself differed significantly from that envisaged in the tournament model.