Service · Performance & feedback

360-degree feedback for law firms

The same competency questions asked of everyone who works with a lawyer — peers, supervising partners, direct reports and, where appropriate, clients — split by rater group so the answers can be compared without exposing anyone.

Who this is for

  • Firms evaluating partners, counsel and senior associates in the round
  • Professional development teams building a competency framework
  • Practice groups small enough that anonymity has to be engineered, not assumed

In a small practice group, anonymity is arithmetic

A 360 stops being anonymous when a reviewee can infer who said what from the number of people who could have said it. There is no single group size at which this happens — it depends on rater pool size, response rate and how finely the report is cut.

Law firms feel this more sharply than corporates. Reviewees know who staffed which matters, so they can reconstruct the rater pool from memory; and because the reviewee often controls work allocation, the perceived cost of being identified is high enough that people assume the worst and answer blandly.

How a cycle runs

SRA designs the instrument, runs the cycle, chases participation, processes the data and delivers the reports. Your team approves the questionnaire and reads the findings.

  1. Weeks 1–2Competency framework mapping, rater group definition and a threshold model for each planned report cut.
  2. Week 3Population load and distribution by individual secure link.
  3. Weeks 3–5Fielding, automated reminders and live participation reporting to the firm.
  4. Week 6Data aggregation and threshold suppression. Free-text comments reviewed for identifiability.
  5. Weeks 7–8Report delivery at individual, practice group and firm level, then a findings readout.

What you receive

Reports split by rater group

Peer, upward, downward and self views shown side by side, with the gaps between them made explicit.

Self-versus-other gap analysis

Where a lawyer rates themselves differently from the people around them, which is usually the most actionable part of a 360.

Threshold documentation

The suppression maths for every cut, published with the report so the firm can see what was withheld and why.

Coaching-ready summaries

Findings framed so a PD lead can walk a partner through two behaviours to change, rather than a wall of scores.

Confidentiality

How the data is held, in practice

The rules below are the reason participation holds and the reason findings are worth acting on. They are enforced by where the data sits, not by policy alone.

Read the confidentiality pledge →

Independent custody

Response data never enters your firm's systems in an identifying way. SRA holds and processes it as an independent party, under a data processing agreement in which your firm remains the controller.

Suppression thresholds

Below a minimum number of responses, a cut is reported in aggregate or withheld entirely rather than estimated.

Comments reviewed before release

Free-text responses are reviewed for identifiability, so no one can be recognised by role, matter or phrasing.

Certified handling

ISO 27001 certified. SOC 2 Type I available under NDA. GDPR Article 28 and CCPA aligned, with SRA as processor and your firm as controller.

Why firms use an independent party

Every figure below is recorded in an evidence register with its definition, source and period. Illustrative figures used elsewhere in the design are excluded here by design.

35 years serving US law firms
Years of continuous operation, 1991 to present.
100+ elite Am Law firms as clients
Count of distinct Am Law-ranked firms that have engaged SRA. Cumulative, not concurrent.
100,000+ confidential surveys conducted
Count of individual survey responses collected.
1,000,000+ performance reports delivered
Count of individual performance reports produced and delivered.
ISO 27001 certified
Certified information security management system. Certificate number and scope available on request.

Ask us what your group sizes will support