Re: Nonequity partner salary as draws

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What does your contract say? You DO have a written
contract, don't you????

On 12/29/07, Bill wrote:
> This one nonequity partner (NEP) has been getting a
> bimonthly salary. The first six months he had been
> working on contingency cases. The second part of the year
> he brought in a substantial amount of revenue. Now he
> thinks the managing partner (MP) is stealing money from
> him because the MP is offsetting a lot of his revenue from
> the first half of the year where the NEP didn't produce
> much. The NEP keeps using the phrase "I eat what I kill"
> but seems to be really in denial that he got a guaranteed
> salary all these months. Doesn't eat what you kill entail
> not getting anything until you actually kill something?
> So I asked the NEP what is your salary then? Aren't you
> an employee? He said "no, I am a partner (he's actually a
> non-equity member of the firm since it's a LLC - but let's
> just stick to the partner terminology) and the salary were
> just advances against my draw at the end of the year."
> The guy sounds confused as he wants to benefits of the NEP
> arrangement since he gets guaranteed salary, but wants to
> keep his profits under the EWYK system. I don't think you
> can pick and choose like that. Plus under the EWYK
> system, you don't get credit for contingency cases until
> you actually hit, right? I would appreciate some feedback
> on this as I am not completely versed in the various law
> firm partnership/compensation/profit models.