Last time we looked at the roles of finders, minders and grinders, and noted that the grinder, or service partner, has real advantages and significant drawbacks. The finder, or rainmaker, holds not only the best position in the law firm hierarchy but one of the better positions anywhere in professional life.
A lawyer in private practice with her own client base has a great deal of control over her career. There are a great many practice areas open to her, and once she has chosen one she can generate as much business as she is capable of generating, which gives her real control over her working day.
Lawyers in private practice can also change employers almost whenever they choose, provided there is a market for their background. With narrow exceptions, restrictive covenants on the practice of law are unenforceable, which leaves them free to move.
All of that gives a lawyer in private practice more autonomy and more economic security than professionals in most industries have. It depends entirely on having her own client base. Without clients, or a portable book of business as it is known, a lawyer usually cannot change firms when she wants to. That is the grinder’s second disadvantage: not only does he rely on finders for the work, but when the firm becomes a problem, he finds it hard to leave.