Exit surveys for US law firms

Who this is for

• Managing partners and management committees
• Chief People Officers and Directors of Professional Development
• Firms whose exit interviews are run by the same HR team the departing associate is leaving

The exit interview asks the one question the leaver has least reason to answer

Nearly half of the associates who left in 2025 were people their firms wanted to keep. The NALP Foundation put unwanted departures at 47 percent of the total, desired departures at 27 percent, and found a record 83 percent of leavers going within five years of hire. The firms losing those people mostly had an exit interview process.

The problem is who runs it and when. A departing associate has a reference to protect, a practice area to keep working in, and no incentive to name the partner. Research on exit interviews outside law found people give different reasons on the way out than they give six months later: in one study of factory workers led by a City University of New York researcher, 30 percent cited being needed at home when they left, and only 15 percent gave that reason when asked again later.

Gallup has found 42 percent of people who quit voluntarily believed something could have been done to keep them. An exit process that surfaces the real reason after the person has gone is measuring a decision it can no longer change. What it can do is show the firm where the next one is forming.