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.
Methodology
Structural anonymity
Candor is an outcome of how a program is built, not of how it is introduced. This is the standard SRA administers to, and what it means for what your firm receives.
Applies to every SRA program
The problem independence solves
When an associate is asked to assess the partner who staffs their matters, approves their bonus and votes on their partnership, the honest answer to who will see this determines the quality of everything that follows. If the answer is “someone at my firm”, a diplomatic response is the rational one.
This is a structural problem, not a communications problem. It is not solved by reassurance in the invitation email, and it is not solved by permissions inside a system the firm controls — because the person being rated can always be assumed, rightly or not, to have a route to the data. It is solved by moving custody of the responses outside the firm entirely, and by making that arrangement legible to the people being asked to answer.
Everything below follows from that one decision.
The four guarantees
Suppression thresholds
The reporting threshold is set for your firm before the cycle opens, against the size of each population being surveyed. Below it, 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 recognized 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.
What your firm sees, and what it never sees
Your firm receivesYour firm never receives
Aggregate results at firm, practice group and individual reviewee levelWhich respondent gave which answer
Participation rates by populationWhether a named individual participated
Cuts that clear the reporting threshold agreed for your firmCuts below it. Reported in aggregate or withheld, never estimated
The cycle
A typical program runs eight weeks from instrument design to readout. The suppression and comment-review steps in week six are not optional stages that can be dropped to save time; they are what the guarantees above consist of. Your reporting threshold is agreed during instrument design, against the size of each population being surveyed, so you know before fielding which cuts a report can carry.
- Weeks 1–2Instrument design, competency mapping and firm approval of the questionnaire.
- Week 3Population load and distribution by individual secure link.
- Weeks 3–5Fielding, automated reminders and live participation reporting to the firm.
- Week 6Data aggregation and threshold suppression. Free-text comments reviewed for identifiability.
- Weeks 7–8Report delivery at individual, practice group and firm level, then a findings readout.
Certified handling
ISO 27001 certified. SOC 2 Type I report available under NDA. EU-U.S., UK and Swiss Data Privacy Framework certified.
SRA acts as processor under a data processing agreement in which your firm remains the controller. That relationship is what makes independent custody a contractual position rather than a promise.