An upward review asks associates about the partners who staff their matters, approve their bonuses and vote on their progression. The questions matter less than where the answers are held, but they still matter, and most firms write them in a way that produces agreement rather than information.

Below are thirty, grouped by what each group measures. They are written to be answered on a five-point agreement scale with a free-text follow-up, and a firm should pick fifteen to twenty rather than ask all of them.

Work allocation and staffing

  1. I understand why I was staffed on the matters I worked on with this partner.
  2. This partner gives me work that stretches my current level.
  3. Work is allocated fairly across the associates on this partner's matters.
  4. I have been given the chance to take on responsibility beyond my year.
  5. When I asked for different work, the request was taken seriously.

Supervision and availability

  1. This partner is available when I need a decision to keep moving.
  2. I know what is expected of me before I start a piece of work.
  3. When instructions change, I am told why.
  4. This partner reviews my work in time for me to learn from the edits.
  5. I can raise a problem with this partner before it becomes a crisis.
  6. Deadlines I am given reflect what the matter actually requires.

Feedback and development

  1. I receive feedback close enough to the work to act on it.
  2. The feedback I receive is specific enough to change what I do.
  3. This partner tells me when something was done well, not only when it was not.
  4. I know what I would need to demonstrate to progress.
  5. This partner has invested time in my development beyond the immediate matter.
  6. Difficult feedback has been given to me directly rather than through someone else.

Conduct and professional respect

  1. This partner treats me with professional respect under pressure.
  2. I have seen this partner treat support staff with the same respect as lawyers.
  3. This partner's conduct is consistent, rather than depending on the day.
  4. Credit for work is attributed accurately to the people who did it.
  5. I would be comfortable raising a concern about this partner's conduct through the firm's channels.

Workload and sustainability

  1. This partner is realistic about what can be delivered in the time available.
  2. Last-minute requests from this partner are unavoidable rather than habitual.
  3. I have been able to take planned time off while working on this partner's matters.
  4. This partner notices when the team is overloaded.

Overall and free text

  1. I would choose to work with this partner again.
  2. I would recommend a junior associate seek work from this partner.
  3. What is the one thing this partner does that most helps you do your job well?
  4. What is the one thing you would ask this partner to change?

The questions to avoid

Anything asking for a judgment the associate cannot make. Whether a partner is commercially effective, or well regarded by clients, is not visible from where an associate sits. Asking anyway produces noise and teaches respondents the instrument is not serious.

Anything identifying by implication. "Describe the matter where this happened" will identify the respondent in a small team, however the rest of the program is designed.

Double-barrelled questions. "This partner is available and gives clear instructions" cannot be answered by somebody for whom one is true and the other is not.

A single satisfaction score with nothing behind it. It moves between cycles and tells leadership nothing about what to do differently.

What decides whether any of this can be reported

The question set is the smaller half of the design. Two things decide whether answers are usable.

The first is custody. Associates read "confidential within our platform" as different from "not available to the firm", and they are right to. SRA's median participation on independently administered upward reviews is 87%, against 54% at the same firms when they ran the programs in-house, with much the same questions.

The second is the threshold, fixed before anyone is invited. A partner supervised by three associates cannot be given an individual report without exposing the respondents, and the free text is where identification happens even when the scores are safe. Every comment needs reviewing for identifiability before it reaches anyone, and at small pool sizes that review removes a good deal.

SRA designs and administers upward review programs for US law firms and will tell you which cuts your group sizes support before an instrument is agreed. The methodology sets out the threshold rules, and the figures above are listed with their definitions on figures and sources.