Why lateral partners leave: the strain comes before the exit
Law firms treat a partner who moves as a recruiting and revenue problem. Martha's national report, built on published market and clinical data, argues it is also a clinical one: the strain that drives a partner out is rarely addressed before the resignation.
Martha Fernandez, LCSWLead author. Licensed Clinical Social Worker, California license 127918
National report built on published data: Decipher, NALP Foundation, Bloomberg Law, Major Lindsey & Africa and peer-reviewed studies, 2016 to 2025
A plain-language summary of The Lateral Partner Attrition Report: The Mental-Health Cost of Law-Firm Turnover, a white paper by Martha Fernandez, LCSW, published on cerevity.com by CEREVITY, the private-pay therapy network she co-founded. The full paper includes the methods and every reference.
Partners leave long after they stop being well
Thousands of partners change firms every year, and most firms read each move as a pay or culture miss that a counteroffer might fix. The report reads it differently. The partner most likely to leave is often one who has been carrying strain nobody at the firm can see, and the move is the last step, not the first. When a partner goes, the client relationships often go too, and they frequently end up at a competitor.
The clinical backdrop comes from the largest study of its kind (Krill, Johnson and Albert, 2016). Of 12,825 working attorneys, 28 percent screened positive for depression and 20.6 percent for problematic drinking. In Bloomberg Law’s 2024 report, attorneys said they felt burned out 48 percent of their working time on average.
What the report found
- Lateral moves often fail. Close to half of lateral partners leave within five years, and fewer than 10 percent of lateral hires recoup what they cost to bring in.
- The book does not travel well. 62 percent of laterals fall short of the business they promised, and 90 percent have trouble generating business at the new firm.
- Women carry more of it. In a study of 2,863 attorneys, 24 percent of women had thought about leaving the profession over mental health, burnout or stress, against 17 percent of men.
- Firm programs go unused. More than 40 percent of attorneys had put off treatment they thought would help, most often for lack of time.
Somewhere to think through the strain, or the move, with no record inside the firm.
Book your first sessionWhat removes it
The report maps a four-step path from overload to concealment, disengagement and exit, and argues the cheapest point to help is the earliest and least visible one. Care at that point has to be confidential, run by someone who understands partnership, and fit around a litigation calendar. The report specifies private pay, kept outside any insurance or firm record. That is the structure here: no insurance claim, no diagnosis code sent to a payer and nothing in the firm’s benefits file or HR systems.
For partners in Southern California, see therapy in Los Angeles or Orange County.
Frequently asked questions
Is this based on Martha’s own clients?
No. It is a national report built on published research, surveys and legal-market data, and it uses no CEREVITY client data. The lateral-market figures come from industry studies reported through secondary summaries, the dollar figures are estimates, not audited and not adjusted for inflation, and the prevalence figures are screening results, not diagnoses.
Is lateral attrition really a mental health issue?
The report says it is both a market issue and a clinical one. Moves are driven by pay and opportunity, but with 28 percent of attorneys screening positive for depression, a real share of departures follow strain that was never addressed.
Why don’t partners use the programs firms already offer?
In Bloomberg Law’s 2024 survey, lack of time was the most common reason for delaying care, followed by a belief they could handle it alone. For partners with major clients, the report adds the worry of a record inside the firm or with insurance.
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