Female Partners Strike Out on Own, Cite BigLaw Rate Hikes as Reason
Two former partners at a large San Antonio firm who left to strike out on their own report they’ve been able to retain 90 percent of their clients.
Janet L. King and Eileen E. Sommer left Jackson Walker to start King & Sommer to focus on their business and real estate clients, according to My San Antonio.
The partners told the publication that they started investigating starting their own firm when rate increases—which ranged from $180 hourly to $400 hourly—made it increasingly difficult to bring in new clients.
“There are people who did not come to us or who struggled to pay us,” King is quoted as saying. “I would discount rates or do whatever I needed to make them work. But at a certain point, you say this won’t work anymore.”
Jackson Walker, however, shot back that their rates, compared to national firms are “a bargain.”
