To make partner, an insider says, you have to show the potential to generate business. The partnership track is said to be seven to 10 years, although I haven t heard anybody who had made it by the seventh year. Partners talk about it in a fairly direct way, a source says. By your sixth to seventh year, you will know if you re on the track. Since, you have a pretty decent idea of whether you re going to make partner or not by the fifth and sixth year, that s when so many people leave.
Most people leave to go in-house, and a few jump to the business side.