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Of partnership and pie

Published: Apr 22, 2008

 Law       

Slate has a terrific new group law blog Convictions, with an impressive roster of contributors, including Dahlia Lithwick, Eric Posner and Jack Balkin. Today, the precocious (and token Slate conservative?) Adam J. White delights in this aphorism:

"Becoming a partner is a decision, not a reward  . . .  Becoming a partner in a law firm is like winning a pie-eating contest where the prize is more pie." (He came across it here)

This observation was hardly new to us--we come across versions of it every year in our survey responses on a variety of topics: partnership prospects, associate/partner relations, firm culture and so on.

White later updated his post by noting that his Convictions co-blogger Orin Kerr had, back in 2005, tried to figure out who said it first. Apparently, it was an old joke 40 years ago and nobody can say who coined it. As for who first printed it, Vault has the second-oldest citation (our 2001 profile of Wachtell), but The American Lawyer got there first in 1978. 

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