By Tracy Whiting Iqbal, Strategic Partnership Consultant, Wildfire Strategies
Resilience has long been the hallmark of the legal profession. But as we move through 2026, resilience alone isn’t enough. Attrition isn’t a quiet background issue or a quarterly nuisance. It’s a strategic, financial, and cultural risk that merits boardroom attention.
At the BigHand Virtual Conference 2026, I had the privilege of joining our CEO, Steve Salee, alongside Michele Blay, Senior Advisor at Unbiased Consulting, in a timely conversation facilitated by David Cook. They tackled a question that every managing partner, COO and HR director is grappling with: How do we stop attrition by rethinking resource management, culture, and talent strategy?
If you were there, you heard a clear message. If you couldn’t join us, here’s the core takeaway: treating attrition as an HR metric won’t move the needle. Treating it as a commercial and leadership issue will.
The Financial Reality Firms Can No Longer Ignore
The data is telling. In U.S. firms, associate attrition has hovered around 20–25% in recent years, well above pre-pandemic norms. Replacing an associate often costs 1.5–2 times their annual salary once you include recruitment fees, onboarding time, lost productivity, and client disruption. For highly skilled knowledge workers, replacement costs can reach as much as 200% of salary, per Gallup.
For a mid-sized firm, that’s millions in direct and indirect costs each year. When partners leave, the impact compounds: client relationships are at risk, teams fragment, culture destabilizes. Senior-level attrition creates ripple effects across the firm, not just in one practice area.
What became clear in the conversation is that too many firms chase quick fixes for a structural problem.
The Post-Pandemic Shift Is Permanent
COVID didn’t just alter where people work; it reshaped what they expect from a legal career. The old apprenticeship model—learning through proximity and casual exposure—has weakened. Younger lawyers absorb knowledge differently now, and expectations have shifted.
Millennials and Gen Z lawyers seek clearer paths, meaningful work, flexibility, and alignment with values. They care about mental health and sustainability, and they evaluate firms as carefully as firms evaluate them.
This isn’t a temporary mood; it’s a fundamental recalibration of what a legal career should look like. Firms that try to rewind to “the old way” meet resistance. Those that engage openly with these shifts build loyalty.
The Hidden Driver: The Utilisation Gap
A crucial theme from the panel was the utilisation gap—the gap between available talent and how work is actually deployed.
Most firms say they allocate work by skill, experience, and capacity. But without visibility into transferable skills, real-time capacity, and cross-practice opportunities, allocation often remains relationship-driven and subjective.
The result is predictable: high performers get overloaded, mid-level associates are underutilized, frustration grows, burnout accelerates, and development feels inconsistent. It’s no surprise if attrition follows.
Data-led resource management isn’t just about efficiency. It creates transparency, fairer opportunity distribution, and development plans aligned with business needs. Most importantly, it reduces the invisible pressure points that drive departures.
Development Must Expand Beyond a Single Path
We also need to rethink how lawyers progress. The old mentor-then-partner ladder no longer fits everyone. Lawyers want options: secondments, internal strategic roles, alternative partnership tracks, cross-practice exposure, and diverse career paths.
Firms that design broader career architectures signal a powerful message: your contributions matter, even if they don’t fit a traditional track.
Sponsorship programs—distinct from mentoring—are particularly impactful. Mentors advise; sponsors actively create opportunity and visibility. In competitive partnership environments, that distinction matters. When lawyers see a real commitment to their future, attrition slows.
Partner Retention: A Conversation Most Firms Avoid
While associate turnover grabs headlines, partner retention is equally vital. Partners face more financial pressure, higher client expectations, and the rapid integration of AI into workflows. Many rose to leadership for technical excellence, not leadership prowess, yet leadership is now essential.
Without structured leadership development, reverse mentoring, and 360-degree feedback, frustration can simmer and spill over. When partners leave, the impact isn’t just revenue; it’s leadership and culture.
Protecting talent means protecting leadership.
Change Is Emotional, Not Just Operational
The big takeaway: firms budget for systems and technology, but often underestimate the human side of change. Resistance rarely comes from disagreement on strategy; it stems from workload pressure, fear of redundancy, a loss of identity, or vague direction.
Psychological safety, open dialogue, and visible leadership sponsorship aren’t soft add-ons—they’re prerequisites for sustainable transformation.
AI will reduce transactional work. That’s already happening. The real question is whether firms will reinvest the capacity gained into higher-value advisory skills, leadership development, and client innovation, or let uncertainty erode engagement.
What Firms Can Do Now
You don’t need a dramatic restructuring to make progress. Start with deliberate, data-informed leadership.
- Examine utilisation data honestly. Where are workloads concentrated? Where are capabilities hidden? Where do development opportunities fall short?
- Bring partners into conversations about stability, succession, and leadership support. Create safe spaces for cross-level dialogue so juniors, associates, and senior leaders can raise concerns without fear of repercussions.
- Define change clearly. Ambiguity fuels anxiety; clarity builds confidence.
The Bigger Picture
The firms that will thrive in the coming years won’t be defined by the most advanced systems alone. They’ll be the ones that blend data with culture, technology with leadership, and strategy with empathy.
Retention isn’t about perks or short-term incentives. It’s about alignment—between purpose and practice, capacity and workload, ambition and opportunity.
At Wildfire Strategies, we believe better resource management protects your most valuable asset: your people. When leadership readiness is clear across senior leaders, mid-level managers, and junior lawyers, pressure points are surfaced before departures happen.
If your firm is experiencing rising attrition, hybrid tension, partner uncertainty, or stalled strategic initiatives, we offer a complimentary Spark Session. In a focused, practical conversation, we’ll help you gauge readiness, uncover hidden resistance, and map immediate next steps.
The profession is changing. The question isn’t whether change will happen—it’s whether your firm will lead it.
Tracy Whiting Iqbal
Strategic Partnership Consultant Wildfire Strategies