Maister Bombshell
Posted By Rob Millard - 0 Comments -
I must confess that I hadn't read David Maister's article 'Are Law Firms Unmanageable?' until Bruce MacEwen's quite poignant response in Adam Smith Esq hit my aggregator yesterday. My copy of April 2006 edition of "The American Lawyer" (containing David's article) has yet to reach me, so instead I printed out the advance copy that he was kind enough to email me a week or so ago, settled down into my favourite leather wingback chair in my study and read it through. Then, I look a deep breath and read it a second time.
With all the subtlety of a nuclear-tipped cruise missile, David goes to the heart of why he believes law firms not only are not, but can not be managed as efficiently as other professional firms.
He starts:
"After spending 25 years saying that all professions are similar and can learn from each other, I'm now ready to make a concession: Law firms are different.
The ways of thinking and behaving that help lawyers excel in their profession may be the very things that limit what they can achieve as firms. Management challenges occur not in spite of lawyers' intelligence, but because of them.
Among the ways that legal training and practice keep lawyers from effectively functioning in groups are
-problems with trust;
-difficulties with ideology, values and principles;
-professional detachment; and
-unusual approaches to decision making."
I'll not regurgitate David's article further, nor Bruce's (as always) thoughtful comment. Rather, I strongly recommend that you read both in the original. Both tackle head-on, issues that firms have tiptoed around for years, pretending that they don't exist or downplaying their impact. There is a good reason for this, I think, and it lies in a fifth bullet that I would propose:
-lack of a 'burning platform' to change.
Simply put, many firms know that their management is dysfunctional, but they don't have to care. Back to David:
"A persuasive case can be made that lawyers will not change, because times are good and partners (and associates, for that matter) earn a lot of money."
In my humble opinion, much of this is going to change over the next couple of years. There are a few platforms that are beginning to smolder. Increased client demands are one; increased competitiveness as clients consolidate their panels is another. There are others....
Among the platforms that will burn hottest, are the changes looming in England and Wales, with the impending Clementi inspired legislation. This will allow other professions (and others) into the hallowed ranks of legal services providers. I have no doubt at all that this will catalyze a rapid and fundamental metamorphosis of management practices in British law firms. After a likely period of uncomfortable trail and error, some of these new "Law Firm 2.0" type enterprises that emerge will probably prove to be very highly competitive enterprises, having solved David's four issues.
This metamorphosis will be as much cultural as structural, so it is naive to think that firms elsewhere in the world, including the USA, couldn't adopt some of the new practices too. Given that clients are unlikely to be averse to firms providing the same high level of technical excellence in a context that really is "genuinely interested in [their] industry and business," those US firms that don't may soon need to look to their laurels in the ongoing law firm "Battle of the Atlantic."
None of the four issues are irresolvable, but doing so in the absence of an externally induced driver is a real challenge. In effect, it calls for schizophrenic behaviour:
Firstly, it calls for lawyers to firstly learn a new skill set, based on the requirements of management and business development, where there are few absolutes and where failing is OK. Imagine telling a managing partner that you know of a bright young lawyer that you'd like to recommend for a place in his firm. One out of five of the contracts that the youngster drafts will stand up to scrutiny in court!!! You're likely to be invited to leave via the 35th storey office window, rather than the lobby! But in business development, a hit rate of one in five is not at all bad.
Secondly, the lawyers need to know when to wear the critical/analytical "lawyers hat" and when to take it off and replace it with the creative/collaborative "business-thinking hat." Like a terrier that has to restrain itself from chasing a passing cat, the constant temptation to default to "normal" behaviour makes this far more difficult than simply flipping a switch.
Thirdly, behaviour that runs contrary to this must to be actively discouraged. This may be easy with junior fee earners and quieter lawyers. It is REALLY difficult in the case of the 900 pound gorillas that many firms have in pride of place because they are the greatest rainmakers and power lawyers in the firm. Winning them over is critical. But gorillas, by definition, only allow themselves to be won over voluntarily. Which is difficult if the motivator is long term and vague rather than immediate and compelling.
David's solution is, in effect, to artificially create a burning platform by tackling in a head-on confrontation, the issues of trust, values, interpersonal behaviour and decision logic that he describes in his article. There is no easy way out:
"[Firms] must address such issues as what behaviour partners have a right to expect from each other, what the real minimum standards and values are, and how common values and standards can actually be attained, not just preached."
"Suffice it to say that unless law firms undergo a cultural revolution, not just minor changes, most will not be able to achieve their ambitions. Dysfunctional behaviour by partners, currently not only tolerated but vigorously celebrated, will prevent firms from functioning as they desire."
Issues as deeply steeped in culture as these are best tackled with a two-pronged approach.
Firstly, the required behaviour needs to be internally legislated, by incorporating it into those systems that really matter. It is difficult to conceive how this can be achieved without some sort of balanced scorecard approach to performance evaluation and compensation, where the non-financial metrics REALLY have an impact.
Secondly, it needs to be inculcated into the firm's culture. This is achieved by making sure that the firm's leadership, including the gorillas, openly support and drive it. As Ernest Hemingway once wrote, "the only way to find out if you can trust somebody, is to trust him." There is some risk involved here (risk of course being very much a 'four letter word' in the legal profession.) There are ways that can be used to get this going, though, that are far more useful than the "fall blindfolded backwards into the arms of your colleagues" type nonsense that some teambuilding specialists think works. Business Driven Action Learning, strict application of the rules of brainstorming and skills training (as opposed to simple impartment of information on what needs to be done) are just a few of them.
In closing, back to Bruce MacEwen:
"What we need are one, or a handful, or exemplar firms, which will doubtless be led by exceptional individuals of uncompromised vision. .... My bedrock belief is that there are more than enough lawyers out there who are, as I am:
-deeply inquisitive
-risk-taking, open-minded, and eager to experiment
-trusting (by default-until crossed)
-instinctively dissatisfied with a static status quo, and
-unwilling to settle for unimaginative, brute-force business models."
Comments, as always, are most welcome and may be posted away. I have a feeling that this is not going to be the last posting in the blogosphere or elsewhere about David's article, or the issues in it. Not by a long chalk!
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