My new book is published!
- Jaap Bosman
- May 26
- 4 min read
Two years. One book. The most complete guide to law firm partner compensation ever written.
It started with an article. September 2023. I wrote a newsletter on partner compensation that ended with a suggestion: this topic deserves a fuller treatment. The response was immediate. Enough encouragement arrived to make writing the book feel necessary rather than merely possible.
Two years later, the book exists. It took longer than I anticipated. Considerably longer. The scope kept expanding because the subject kept demanding it.
What it is
This is the most complete guide on the topic that exists. It covers all the major systems: lockstep, eat-what-you-kill, and the full range of hybrids. It covers the psychology of compensation, the cultural dimensions, the strategic implications. It addresses origination credits, partner evaluation, the size of the equity partnership, succession, and the pressures that AI and private equity are now bringing to bear.
It is written for managing partners, compensation committee members, and anyone who wants to understand what partner compensation actually is, how it works, and what it can and cannot be asked to do.
More than 300 pages, fifteen chapters. A global scope: North America, Europe, Latin America, Asia. A foreword by Jaime Carey, Senior Partner of Carey and the 2025 President of the International Bar Association.
My co-author
I co-wrote this book with Jaime Fernández Madero, a friend and fellow consultant with deep experience across Latin America and a long track record of advising on compensation committees. A third contributor, Michael He - a good friend from China -, wrote a dedicated chapter on partner compensation in China. Between the three of us, the book covers partner compensation across the full range of markets in which elite legal practice operates today.
The central argument
No compensation formula can convert a weak partner into a strong one. What a well-designed system can do is create the conditions under which talented people choose to collaborate rather than compete, to build the institution rather than extract from it, and to stay rather than leave.
Shared ambition is a more reliable predictor of a firm’s success than its compensation formula.
These are not comfortable conclusions. They are, however, the ones the evidence points to.
What will be next
In the weeks ahead, 'Your Friday Insight' will go deep into a number of topics the book covers. These are live questions, playing out right now in managing partner offices and compensation committee meetings across every market.
We will look at why partner compensation conversations never resolve. Not because partners are irrational or greedy, but because the compensation system is trying to do something it structurally cannot do: substitute for a shared culture. When culture is weak, the formula bears weight it was never designed to carry.
We will look at AI. Not the breathless version, not the dismissive version. The specific question: if AI absorbs the Production end of legal work, what happens to the earnings model that has funded partner compensation for three decades? The pyramid does not just change shape. The economics of the whole structure shift. Who earns what, and on what basis, will need a different answer.
We will look at private equity. Not whether it is coming — it is already here — but what PE actually sees when it looks at a law firm. Hint: it is not impressed by the profitability. It sees a business run by talented people who have never had to compete properly, and it sees the distance between what that business earns today and what it could earn with professional management. That gap is the opportunity. For some firms it is a lifeline. For others, a warning.
We will look at salary partners. The layer that most compensation discussions quietly skip over, even though it is where the talent pipeline either holds or breaks.
We will look at lateral hires: what they actually cost once you run the full calculation, what they signal about a firm's culture, and why so many of them disappoint.
And we will look at culture directly, the word every firm uses and almost none define. What it is, how compensation either honours it or quietly destroys it, and why the firms that get this right tend to be the ones that do not talk about it very much.
There are many more topics derived from the book. Not as a summary of its content, but the book used as the basis for discussing the topic.
Get the book and share it on LinkedIn
Available now on Amazon. If you prefer your local online bookstore, it should be there, alternatively your favorite shop around the corner, should be able to order a copy. (availability may differ across countries and continents)
One request: once you have the book please post a photo of the book on LinkedIn, this will help me tremendously to spread the news! Your help is valuable and will be highly appreciated🙂
Also a - favorable - review on Amazon will be most helpful to help promote the book!
Visit the book dedicated website: www.lawfirmpartnercompensation.com
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