Performance Feedback and Career Guidance

We prompt ongoing feedback and development discussions to support our attorneys’ continuous growth and advancement, aiming to deliver performance-based feedback and goal-oriented discussions on a regular, timely basis. This is facilitated through formal and informal processes, including periodic discussion prompts, trainings on seeking and responding to feedback and on delivering feedback, individual check-ins, and opportunities for our attorneys to provide upward feedback. In addition, our annual evaluation process provides associates the opportunity to share their written self-evaluation and solicit feedback from the attorneys with whom they have worked throughout the year.

Attorney Development staff regularly check in with our attorneys to provide tailored career and professional development guidance. These check-ins may prompt follow-up discussions with the attorney’s mentors, supervising partners, and others within the firm who can help support the attorney’s needs and goals. In addition, we hold more frequent check-ins with our new lateral attorneys, including a “First 90” meeting upon the attorney’s three-month anniversary with the firm.

To encourage and promote a positive workplace culture at the firm, the firm invites associates and staff to review all partners, of counsel, and counsel at the firm biennially. Our hope is that those colleagues will score well on the following two questions:

The firm values this feedback and shares it, confidentially, with each evaluated attorney.

Our attorneys are invited to participate in regular roundtable sessions with members of our firm’s Executive Committee, who answer questions submitted anonymously by attorneys across all offices. Attorneys often use these fora to ask questions about navigating the firm, as well as to share observations with firm leadership and provide upward feedback about their experience as a Snell & Wilmer attorney.

As one’s career evolves, so too does the tailored support we provide each attorney. In addition to our regular check-ins to discuss individual career goals, we developed the Partnership Pathways Program to provide tailored guidance about preparing for partnership at our firm. The program is geared toward associates starting in their sixth year of practice, and counsel who opt in. We provide access to financial metrics, assignment to a focused “partnership advisor,” periodic discussion prompts for advisors and mentees, and regular training topics tailored for those who wish to pursue partnership. In addition, in 2021 our partners overwhelmingly approved qualitative and quantitative standards to provide better clarity to our partner candidates. These standards are updated annually and communicated to all attorneys.