At senior associate level, the tone of conversations changes.
Most of the people I speak to here are busy, competent, and trusted. They are doing good work and are relied on by partners. From the outside, things look stable.
Internally, many feel stuck.
The frustration is not usually about workload. It is about direction. They cannot see what the next step is meant to be, how decisions are made, or what the longer term plan looks like.
In firms that are doing well and not under pressure, this can be particularly difficult. When nothing is broken, there is no urgency to change anything. Succession planning becomes vague. Promotion processes feel bureaucratic. Feedback becomes non-committal.
Associates often worry that raising these concerns will make them look impatient or disloyal. So they do not. They keep their heads down and carry on.
Over time, that uncertainty starts to grate. People begin to look sideways, not because they want to leave immediately, but because they want reassurance that staying actually makes sense.
At this stage, titles matter less than clarity. Most senior associates are not chasing labels. They want to know what they are working towards and whether the path in front of them is realistic.
If that clarity is missing internally, it is entirely rational to look for it elsewhere.
