Associates leave law firms for reasons partners rarely hear about. Upward reviews are a structured way to change that before the resignation letter arrives.
What is an upward review?
An upward review also called a reverse appraisal or upward feedback, is a confidential process in which junior employees formally evaluate the people they report to. In a law firm, that means associates and senior associates submitting structured feedback on the partners and supervising attorneys they work under.
Traditional performance reviews flow from partner to associate. Upward reviews reverse that direction. The goal is not punitive. It is to give firm leadership accurate, actionable information about the quality of supervision and mentorship that the people closest to it actually experience.
Upward review: a confidential process where associates rate and comment on the supervision, feedback quality, and development support provided by the partners they work under, without fear of attribution.
Why law firms have a specific feedback problem
Power dynamics in a law firm are more concentrated than in most professional workplaces. A first-year associate's entire experience, the matters they get staffed on, the clients they meet, the references they receive when they leave, can depend on a small number of partner relationships.
That concentration creates a feedback vacuum. Associates observe supervision quality every day. They know which partners invest in their development, give clear direction, and share credit. They also know which ones don't. But almost no firm has a structured channel for that information to reach leadership. The result: firms lose talented lawyers for reasons that were visible and addressable at the associate level, just never surfaced.
According to the NALP 2023 Associate Attrition Report, associate turnover at large US law firms averages around 20% annually. A significant share of that attrition is driven by supervision quality and lack of development feedback not compensation.
Three problems upward reviews solve
01
Retention blind spots
Exit interviews collect sanitized answers. Associates rarely name a supervising partner as the reason they're leaving. Properly administered upward reviews, run by a third party, surface the real pattern: most associates leave supervisors, not firms.
02
Partner development gaps
Senior partners are rarely given direct developmental feedback. The formal review process almost never reaches them in a meaningful way. Upward reviews create a structured, defensible channel for delivering it.
03
Broken internal anonymity
When a firm runs its own upward review, anonymity often breaks down in practice. If two associates work under one partner, "aggregate" responses are identifiable. Associates know this and self-censor. Third-party administration solves the problem structurally.
How a well-designed upward review works
There are four components that determine whether an upward review program produces useful data or wasted effort.
1 Behavioral survey design
Questions must target specific, observable behaviors, not personality. "This partner gives me clear direction before I start a task" is actionable. "This partner is a good manager" is not.
2 Structural anonymity
Either third-party administration or a minimum respondent threshold (typically five or more per partner) before results are reported. Without this, honest responses don't happen.
3 Clear reporting structure
Aggregated results go to the partner being reviewed and to firm leadership, with defined thresholds for what triggers a follow-up action.
4 Defined follow-through
A written protocol for what happens after results are shared: coaching, development plan, or a leadership-level conversation. Firms that skip this step often find the second survey has far lower participation, associates gave honest feedback, saw nothing change, and stopped engaging.
What good upward review questions look like
The quality of the output depends almost entirely on question design. The best questions share these traits: they are behavioral and specific, anchored to a 1–5 or 1–7 rating scale, paired with an optional open-text field, and written to surface problems without creating defensiveness in the person being reviewed.
Example questions from SRA's validated survey framework:
"This partner provides feedback in time for me to apply it to the current matter."
"This partner explains the business context behind the assignments they give me."
"I feel comfortable raising a concern or question with this partner."
Each of these targets an observable behavior, uses neutral language, and generates data a partner can act on.
Upward reviews vs. 360-degree feedback: what's the difference?
These terms appear interchangeable in most HR writing. They are not the same.
Three mistakes law firms make with upward reviews
Running them without true anonymity protection
If associates believe their responses can be traced back, they give safe, unusable answers. This is the single most common failure mode. It is also the hardest to fix after the fact trust, once lost, does not recover quickly.
Collecting data without visible follow-through
Associates invest time and candor in giving honest feedback. If nothing visibly changes or if leadership doesn't even acknowledge that results were received, participation in the next cycle drops sharply, and the program loses credibility.
Using generic HR survey platforms
Standard employee engagement tools are not designed for law firm power dynamics, small practice group sizes, or the specific anonymity thresholds that make upward review data trustworthy. Off-the-shelf tools tend to produce off-the-shelf results.
What the research says
The case for upward reviews is well-supported by research outside the legal sector. A 2019 Harvard Business Review study on feedback practices found that specific, behavior-anchored feedback drives measurably better development outcomes than general assessments. A Gallup analysis of manager effectiveness found that the quality of a direct supervisor accounts for at least 70% of variance in employee engagement. In a law firm context, where associate-partner ratios are small and individual relationships carry outsized weight, that variance is even more consequential.
SRA has administered upward review programs for law firms for over 30 years. The firms that run rigorous, third-party-administered programs consistently show lower voluntary associate attrition than firms that rely solely on exit interviews and informal feedback channels.
Sources and further reading
- NALP 2023 Associate Attrition Report — national data on law firm turnover rates
- Harvard Business Review: The Feedback Fallacy (2019) — evidence on what makes feedback effective
- Gallup: Manager effectiveness research — supervisor impact on engagement and retention
- SRA: Upward review programs for law firms — SRA's methodology and case studies
- SRA resource library — sample questions, reporting templates, and implementation guides
Thinking about running an upward review?
SRA has helped law firms design and administer upward review programs for over 30 years. If you're trying to figure out the right approach for your firm's size and culture, our team offers a free 30-minute consultation no pitch, just a practical conversation.
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