Law People : Law Practice Management, Law Firm Coaching : Ronda Muir of Robin Rolfe Resources : Law People Blog

Muir participated in a panel discussion last week at the Women Lawyers Alliance first Annual Conference, held in Chicago.  Muir and fellow panelists author Shaunti Feldhahn, eminent psychologist Dr. Florence Denmark and psychologist/coach Karen Kahn identified some of the challenges and facilities women have in making their mark as leaders in law firms, and also addressed specific questions on how to improve rainmaking skills, solve the perennial work/life dilemma, and give effective feedback to junior lawyers. 

Attendees had this to say:

• "Ronda Muir is terrific." 
• "Frank and pragmatic." 
• "Ronda knows so much--I would like a substantive presentation from her alone."

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

From 2:00 pm to 3:15 EST on Thursday April 29, 2010 Muir will lead an audio conference discussion hosted by the Center for Ccompetitive Management (CCM) entitled "Lateral Partner Hires: Selecting and Integrating the Best Fit for the Firm," centering on the issues associated with hiring and integrating lateral partners. A record number of lateral partner moves were made in 2009 and 2010 is shaping up to be another record year.  Don't miss this chance to maximize your firm's efforts to grow while avoiding the expensive pitfalls of lateral partner attrition.

For further information and to register, go to http://www.c4cm.com/lawfirm/lateral-partner-hires.htm. 

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

It was my great pleasure--something I don't often say about a conference-- to attend this invitation-only gathering last week, March 21-23, of both august and up-and-coming law industry professionals as they prognosticated the future of our practice and what that might in fact look like up close for a broad array of providers and clients. 

While I will digest and relay over the next few weeks a number of interesting findings and tantalizing predictions that were discussed, let me summarize a few currents that are of particular interest to me.

One, notable is the influx and rising success of non-lawyer services in this emerging marketplace, whether those services are provided by in-house specialists in law firms, wholly-owned subsidiaries of firms, or independent companies.

Two, changes making their way into law firms are both reducing incoming associate classes and also raising the ante for efficiently training and promoting those associates, with the result being that firms are experimenting with more discriminating approaches to hiring and more sophisticated methods of providing professional development.

Three, perhaps as a corollary of at least the first point above and probably the second point as well, law firms are becoming truly more diverse workplaces that respect and rely on the contributions of non-lawyer sociologists, MBAs, IT specialists, project managers, psychologists, accountants and other professionals to more efficiently analyze, structure and deliver services responsive to client needs.

Stay tuned for the  review of this conference's exciting topics.

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

Back in 1998 management guru Peter Drucker suggested that the capability to operate productively when change is the norm would be critical in the 21st century. Much has been said of late on this issue of managing change when change is the norm, including articles in the Harvard Business Review and from McKinsey.

There are big differences in approach and execution between, on the one hand, bringing about a change and making it stick and, on the other, embedding into an organization the capability to grow in a business environment where change is constant. The first attempts to bring about a single change in an organization that is sluggish and resistant. The second is about developing within an organization a comfort with ongoing change and the ability to leverage that comfort for its own ends. The suggestion from Drucker and all those that have commented since on this subject is that this ‘agile and preemptive organization’ is the future--a place where a change management program, at least as we use that term today, is not necessary.

There are challenging aspects in attempting to change an operation to an agile and preemptive organization. Many conventional values and beliefs about what is, or is not, best practice must change. These two bear mention: The underlying acceptance of hiding or burying bad news and/or spinning accountability to avoid blame must be seen as entirely unacceptable, even if things ultimately turn out for the best. Defensiveness and avoidance of conflict are both attributes that are central to many lawyers’ work style. The logical consequences of those attributes are self-and-other deceiving and justifying behavior, and in the old paradigm often produced a negative result—blind spots in client service, lack of responsiveness to colleague and client feedback, and ultimately exposure to malpractice claims. These behaviors now must be seen as a greater sin than not achieving expected base-line performance. Although frustrating to senior management in stable times, this behavior can have a disastrous impact in times of turbulence. This change is very difficult to bring about in real terms, and the solution is not just a no-blame culture, because people justify and deceive not just to avoid blame.

Another example relates to the conventional view of planning. Making long term plans in times of change is forecasting in fog. Visions are fine as long as they remain visions. The kind of planning that is now required is the type that adapts, flexes and is capable of responding to new opportunities on a continual basis. The fact that only 12% of strategies are ever executed may help in a perverse way, but this change requires a whole new attitude to feedback and accountability.

Peter Senge, author of The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization, also contends that in a rapid-fire, information-driven, technology-powered world, success is contingent on our individual and corporate abilities to adjust, adapt and learn. The organization, therefore, must incorporate processes of reflection and evaluation into its organizational systems, he says. Leaders must commit to their own personal learning as well as fostering an environment of learning in their organizations. We lawyers are often on a “drive to closure” escalator that makes it hard to step aside and undertake that sort of reflection.

Chris Argyris, emeritus professor at the Harvard Business School, advocates "double-loop learning." He takes the position that most people define learning too narrowly as mere "problem solving," so they focus on identifying and correcting errors in the external environment.  If learning is to persist, managers and employees must also look inward to reflect critically on their own behavior, he says, identifying the ways they often inadvertently contribute to the organization's problems, and then change how they act. In particular, they must learn how the very way they go about defining and solving problems can be a source of problems in its own right.

There is much of this accommodation to a new constant-change climate that falls into what is essentially an emotional category—how to appeal to and acclimate people who are not by their natures or histories comfortable with change. For example, lawyers are notoriously risk-resistant. Change is therefore anathema because it is by definition taking a risk. How do we effect a change in so fundamental a trait? A trait that is useful when advising our clients yet perilous if allowed to shape our practices? And not only must our approach understand and appeal to our deepest inclinations but it also demands that we put into place more objective, operational changes in the shape of a whole new set of specific working practices.

The problem is that so much of the solution to achieving this new business model of accommodating, no, even encouraging and celebrating, change will not be found in our practices of the past. 

It is a brave new world--one which we would prefer to avoid.  But can we afford to?

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

Firms are placing their futures at risk if they cannot identify, develop and empower the next generation of leaders.  So it is no surprise that more law firms are investing in leadership development.  For example, according to PaLAW 2009's 14th annual Managing Partners Survey, cited in the November 23, 2009 issue of The Legal Intelligencer, the number of firms surveyed that provide leadership training at any level increased from 40.5% in 2008 to 67.7% in 2009, almost a 60% increase. 

What does it take to be a good leader?  And do we lawyers have what it takes?

There are numerous theories about the best style of leadership--see  Primal Leadership (2002) by Goleman, Boyatzis and McKee for an informative evaluation of 6 major styles. Apart from style, Richard Daft, author of The Leadership Experience, cites numerous studies that have sifted out five recurring personal attributes of successful leaders: openness to experience, emotional stability, conscientiousness, agreeableness and extroversion.

If you look around for potential leaders in your firm, chances are few of your colleagues possess all five of those attributes.  While conscientiousness is something lawyers tend to have in spades, openness to experience (also known as risk tolerance), emotional stability (or emotional intelligence) and agreeableness (aren't we hired NOT to be agreeable?) are all factors that in various studies lawyers tend to fall short on. Certainly, we have clear and robust data that most lawyers (over 70%) are introverts, rather than extroverts. 

So can introverts lead?  Successfully, that is?

There seems to be some hope.  If the concern is that introverts tend not to be charismatic, outgoing personalities, Jim Collins's book Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap . . . And Others Don't provides some comfort. Collins discovered that glitzy, dynamic, high-profile CEOs are actually a hindrance to the long-term success of their corporations. Charismatic leaders are attractive to others, but they may be less effective in drawing people to the mission and values of the organization itself.

Collins contrasts Lee Iacocca, Chrysler's leader and spokesperson in the 1980s, with Colman Mockler, the CEO of Gillette from 1975 to 1991. While Iacocca almost single-handedly steered his car company away from disaster and put it on the road to prosperity, after his retirement Chrysler's profits faltered, and the company was sold to a German rival five years later. Apparently Iacocca had done little to invest in his successors or build a culture that would ensure the longevity of Chrysler.

In sharp contrast, Mockler made personal sacrifices and took substantial risks for the long-term success of the company and the profits of the shareholders, and he was so effective that $1 invested in Gillette in December 1976 was worth $95.68 in December 1996 and eventually earned a significant premium when the company was sold to P&G in 2005. Laconic and reserved, Mockler labored in relative anonymity for a big-time executive; he was a man who prioritized the success of his company over ego gratification.

Mockler and executives like him are examples of what Collins calls "level 5 leaders," those who are modest, self-effacing and understated, and display a workmanlike diligence—more plow horse than show horse, they set up their successors for even greater success in the next generation.

Leadership guru Peter Drucker goes further to say that "charisma becomes the undoing of leaders. It makes them inflexible, convinced of their own infallibility, unable to change."

So maybe we introverted lawyers, likely to be low on the charisma meter, may have some hope of mastering leadership. Certainly being people who think before we act and listen before we talk can be useful in leadership roles.

Successful leadership may also be enhanced by introspection--a natural for introverts. Leaders who scrutinize every aspect of their leadership and personality (and that of others) may be able to find internal motivations and assumptions that contribute to dysfunction and inefficiency.

Another way that introverts may be able to surpass the traditional leadership attributes is in their ability to "make sense." Wilfred Drath and Charles Palus at the Center for Creative Leadership explain that "most existing theories, models and definitions of leadership proceed from the assumption that somehow leadership is about getting people to do something."  Essentially cheerleading.  That is an effort that requires relish for and persistence in being extraverted.

But Drath and Palus reimagine leadership as "the process of making sense of what people are doing together so that people will understand and be committed." Leadership, in this view, is a matter of providing interpretation. Leaders can give people a lens and a language for understanding their work and experiences in light of larger purposes. They can help shape the mental frameworks of others so that those people see themselves as making contributions to the mission and direction of their organization, working in community for a common purpose.  Here is an opportunity for the thoughtful introvert to make his or her mark.

In the corporate world over the past decades, leaders have produced greater organizational efficiencies by employing advanced analytics and defined metrics and systems. But most organizations that have successfully manipulated these resources are finding it difficult to extract even greater efficiencies from them over time. Many are turning to their human capital as the next source of growth.  Yet many businesses are realizing the difficulty of identifying and developing leaders, particularly those who can lead this kind of productivity growth.  For example, the 2008 IBM Leadership Survey found that over 75% of CEOs lamented their ability to identify and develop leaders to succeed them.

Law firms should take note. 

Leadership involves not just leveraging the collective knowledge and expertise of an organization. Leadership is also about cultivating and nurturing human capital, particularly in such a talent-dependent industry as ours.  Leaders who recognize the perennial needs of individuals to be appreciated, to be part of a community and to feel they are contributing to the greater good are more likely to be able to raise the productivity of their troops.

And even introverts can do that.
 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments (2)
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

Following up on our November 1 entry "The Importance of Glue" is an article by Patricia Gillette, a partner at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, published December 9 in The American Lawyer, and reproduced below in its entirety.

"The Message That Will Seal Law Firms' Doom: 'It's Nothing Personal'

It's not personal.

This is the current mantra of law firms with regard to their staff members, associates and partners.

"Sorry, first-year associate, you won't be starting work when we said you would. Come back in a year."

"After careful consideration, tenth-year associate, we just can't make you partner yet. Maybe next year."

"We're sorry to do this, twenty-year legal secretary, but we have to cut back on costs and so we're letting you go."

The messages all inevitably are followed by the exculpatory: "It's not personal, it's business."

There is no question that change is coming to the legal profession -- in the way firms are structured for advancement, in the career expectations of associates and in how work gets done. But law firms have yet to come to terms with the fact that these changes might also impact profits, in the same way that changes to the medical profession affected the profit margins of physicians. As such, in many law firms, change is embraced as long as equity partners can continue to earn salaries that will be reflected positively in the almighty profits per partner competition. (And make no mistake that it is a competition, as are most things with lawyers. Thus, we see firms stretching the definitional limits of "profits per partner" as they vie for the top spots on the "list.")

In the resulting wreckage, personal connections are lost. Because what these firms fail to realize is that managing only to the bottom line is a short-term strategy. And while that might be OK with the megafirms that want to see their shadows cast further into the global market and higher up on The Am Law 100, it is not strategic and it ignores the reality of the changing market. Still, large law firms continue to march down this path. And that is the path that has led to the depersonalization of large law firms.

Depersonalization is what allows big-firm associates to come and go freely (no question, when the economy comes back, they'll start moving again). It allows powerful partners to take large books of business to competitors so they can make more money. And, in many of these firms, depersonalization means that quality work plays second fiddle to realization, and good citizenship and mentoring are trumped by profitability.

This phenomenon doesn't stop at the entrance to the law firm. It has spilled over to the clients. The lack of a relationship-driven business model permits clients to be arbitrary and fickle. Historical relationships are traded for "what have you done for me lately" and "how much did it cost." Years of good work and great results are thrown out for the low-cost leader, or a change in the general counsel. Because it's not personal ... not for you, not for anyone, not anymore.

Law firms used to be about relationships. Relationships between partners and partners, associates and partners, clients and lawyers. Law firms used to be about retention and growth of lawyers and client relationships, mentoring and development, loyalty to the institution and to each other and respect for those who came before. Law firms used to be about trust.

That trust, however, has been broken. Witness the demise of giant firms like Heller Ehrman, Thelen and Brobeck -- all big firms that appear to have traded their culture for currency. As a former partner of Heller, I saw our firm, with its rich culture of consensus and collegiality, collapse in part because some partners thought it would be OK to trade core values and firm identity for a moment at the top of a list; because some partners favored the elusive "global reach" over more realistic ambitions; and because some partners chose more immediate returns over the history and tradition of the firm. In big firms that have survived, loyalty is too often defined by the portability of a partner's business, associates are seen (and see themselves) as fungible commodities in whom no one has a stake, and fudging numbers of women and minority associates and partners is justified, if it gets the firm to its rightful place on yet another list.

Is this bottom line/list-driven model sustainable? The answer has to be "No." Because, it ignores what law firms need to fuel their engines: associates who are invested in the firm and the future of the institution. There is no question that the new generation of lawyers is relationship-driven -- social networks define their reality; connecting with others and sharing experiences is their passion. Money is important, but community is more important. Loyalty from young associates cannot be bought with law firm logo-emblazoned swag and big pay checks. It must be earned by good and meaningful work assignments, team approaches and a feeling of being an integral part of the firm.

If Big Law wants to have a sustainable and renewable model, these law firms will have to re-engineer their models. Some law firms are making efforts to do just that by:

Reconnecting with clients for the broader and longer relationship.

Looking at associates as valuable assets that have to be mentored, developed and retained by the firm incentivizing firms to deepen their relationships with associates through active mentoring programs, investing in training and instituting career development programs that recognize and support a nonlinear path to partnership.

Developing a skills-based evaluation and compensation system that rewards teamwork, productivity, quality work, loyalty and competence.

Valuing institutional maturity, diversity and historical contributions along with immediate returns by crediting nonbillable hours spent on broadening client relationships, rewarding partners for retaining associates and increasing diversity, recognizing the need to pass the baton through institutionalized succession planning on client relationships.

Finding ways to truly partner with clients so that law firms and clients have shared risks and rewards by encouraging and supporting alternative billing arrangements, knowing the client's business and recognizing its needs and seconding associates when needed.

Big law firms simply cannot continue to trade relationships with their associates and clients for the prospect of raising profits. In fact, firms that ignore this do so at their own peril. Firm leaders need to recognize that it is relationships and culture that bind people to their firms -- because, for the best and the brightest lawyers in big firms and for the clients who want quality legal work, it is personal."

 

Thanks, Patricia.  Couldn't have said it better.

  

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

Now is the time to really get to know your clients. What are their budgetary constrictions?  What are their priorities for the next two years?   What do they want more of and less of from their outside counsel?  What keeps them awake at night? 

Do you not only know the answers to all of these and other questions but are also proactively doing something about each of them?

In a recent article in The Legal Intelligencer entitled "Firms, GCs Starting to Talk the Talk," Gina Passarella reports on the growing awareness of law firms of the necessity to dialogue with their clients about their delivery of legal services. 

As Lorraine Koc, general counsel of Deb Shoppes, notes, "the idea of communicating with clients is something that virtually every business does except for law firms."

Some firms realize the importance of addressing that, particularly in the context of this economy.  "If you don't have communication and [clients] can't tell you what they like and dislike, then you're leaving them one choice and that's to leave," Flaster Greenberg managing partner Peter Spirgel says of the reasoning behind their hosting client panel presentations.

Reed Smith has held a client panel at every one of its firmwide meetings since at least 2000. The firm also surveys clients at the conclusion of large matters and survey its largest clients regularly. Managing partner Gregory Jordan also meets with clients regularly to learn more about their businesses and get feedback on the firm's work.

What is the best approach to determining client feedback and where do you start?  Which clients do you include?  How do you format the inquiry? In a forum or with each client individually?  Who inquires and what questions do you ask?  What technology best assists the inquiry?  And, most importantly, how do you translate the information you get into substantive improvements in client delivery?

Our firm provides unparalleled expertise in assessing and cementing relationships between law firms and their clients.  Now is the time.  Let us help.

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

"In times of drastic change, it is the learners who will inherit the earth.  The learned will be perfectly positioned for a world that no longer exists."  Swarthmore College's 2009 Lax Conference's keynote speaker Richard Teerlink started his presentation with this quote from Eric Hoffer.  

Teerlink led Harley-Davidson's fabled turnaround, fueled in part by his belief that people are the most important resource in any company.  Teerlink was CFO, CEO, and Chairman of the Board of Harley-Davidson during the time it went from the stepchild of a public company to private ownership by 13 managers carrying $40 million of debt to its reemergence as a public darling again.

How did they do it?  At the time of HD's privatization, the Japanese dominated the motorcycle industry, and HD's board had to make some tough decisions: they laid off 40% of the workforce--all at once, Teerlink points out, so that fear would not weaken the remaining group; cut compensation of the rest of the employees; killed an expensive new development project; reduced their dealer network; asked suppliers for reductions; eliminated all the Senior Vice-Presidents so that responsibility would be pushed down further in the ranks, with more direct reporting to top management and fewer silos; and collaborated with employees, dealers and customers to enhance the HOG experience. 

Teerlink says that as with all major shakeups HD made some dumb decisions but learned to reverse course quickly.  An advertising campaign was launched that honestly acknowledged past weaknesses and promised owners a different experience.  And the company delivered. 

Teerlink emphasized to HD employees that they were not selling machinery, but an emotional experience, one that offered entertainment and a community.  Thus the HOGS--Harley Owners Group--was born, with networking, social events and riding support (fly and ride, for example) offered nationwide. 

The premise that "people are an organization's only sustainable competitive advantage" drove Teerlink's transformation of HD.  His book, "More Than a Motorcycle: The Leadership Journey of Harley-Davidson," chronicles how he brought that premise into reality.

At a time when law firms are facing some of the most challenging marketing conditions of all time, we might do well to learn a few things from the people who brought us the HOGS.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

An article by psychologist Amy J.C.Cuddy in the February 2009 issue of the Harvard Business Review reports that we make fast assessments of people on two bases:  their intentions and their competence.  And more importantly, we assume one is related to the other.  This response is evolutionarily linked, she argues, to the advantage of quickly determining whether an unknown person 1) is friendly or hostile and 2) can follow through on their threats or promises. 

Unfortunately our assessments are often marred by biases that produce faulty judgments.  For example, we have a bias towards the elderly as being incompetent but non-threatening.

In the business world jungle, these instant assessments can carry long-term consequences, particularly if they are inaccurate because of poor perception skills (a common problem area for lawyers) or individual biases.  Inaccurate assessments can lead managers to trust untrustworthy associates or undervalue potentially important people.  They can also undermine efforts to build effective teams and retain valuable employees. 

Which One Are You?

For our work with lawyers, the more important finding of the research is that people see "warmth" and "competence" as inversely related:  a surfeit of one ("She's SO nice") is believed to imply a deficit in the other ("She probably can't stand up to a board").  For example, employees who are  consistently perceived as "warmer" are also viewed as less competent, with the practical result that employees who are mothers are often demonstrably underpaid and under-promoted.

While lawyers as a group are not usually at risk for being rated high on the warmth scale, leaders who know the importance of interpersonal relationships, and particularly women, often struggle with portraying to clients and colleagues the "right mix" of warmth and competence, fearing, just as the research tends to show, that too much of the former undercuts the perception of the latter. 

There is some trepidation in telling lawyers not to be too warm--certainly there are those who would argue there is little risk there.  Yet, particularly at a time when, rightfully, the legal world is exhorted to value and praise and build relationships, knowing how to do that practically without impairing the legal product produced, either in actuality or in the perception, is important.

Our advice has long been to bifurcate these two parts of leadership:  warmth is important and should be directed toward individuals, while critical analysis should be directed toward issues, not people.  

Whether with clients or colleagues, inquire about the kids, rib them about their  diet and praise them for their recent efforts, but when you review the business product, do not stint on hard analysis.  In both conflict resolution and decision-making research, similar findings make it clear that too pervasive an effort to build cohesion can overwhelm the validity and productivity of the underlying endeavor. The hard but important work of critical give-and-take can be mortally blunted by attempts to be "nice."

In order to improve our judgments and others' perceptions of us, Cuddy suggests that we also spend time working to reeducate ourselves and our employees away from the savannah influence:  don't be too quick to make judgments in these two areas, and do not assume that kindness and competence are mutually exclusive.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

The news is out:  "Law is becoming more of a business."  That was the headlights line by David Lat, founding editor of AboveTheLaw.com, in a January 25, 2009 New York Times article about the salary freezes, layoffs and dropping profits in the legal marketplace. Lat adds, "And you will see more of an emphasis on results than in the past."

Surprisingly enough, that realization seems to be downright radical, and a gathering consensus to that effect may mark a tipping point, pushing the conception of legal practice into a brave new future.

Certainly some firm managers will respond by taking out their calculators and trying to quantify their way to results--slashing salaries, reducing pencil-count.  Jones Day partner Mickey Pohl advocates refocusing legal services on providing "business-focused solutions." The job of a law firm is not to solve "a legal problem," he contends. "It's to approach a client's legal situation with an eye toward the overall health and strategy of an ongoing business, a business that has to worry about remaining in existence; satisfying customers, shareholders, and stakeholders; staying acceptably profitable; protecting its reputation; and resolving litigation disputes in a cost-effective manner." In short, brilliant legal strategy, at least in isolation, can make for poor business solutions for a client.

We counsel both our law firms and individual lawyers that "getting the right answer" is only a small factor in the successful practice of law.  Getting it right in a timely manner, getting it right in a way that best serves the client from a holistic viewpoint, getting it right so that the client understands and appreciates the answer, and getting it right in the method of delivery and followup are other critical parts of providing valuable professional services.

According to a pundit at Law and More, "there is a downside to recognizing that law is a business and that it should be focused on the business of its clients. For one thing, the specialness of this profession ends... it loses its protective aura... Instead, it stands out there like, well, any other brand, competing for attention...In addition, lawyers, even the most legally adept, will be called upon to put a human face on new business development, ongoing client interaction, and being influential with all other constituencies, be they judges or government agencies."

"Yet, this [skill] remains alien to many prominent lawyers...They address me in legalspeak or, worse, in the top-down tone and content of those who know far more than I but are patiently taking the time to bring me along. They lack more than a conversational mindset. They are downright deficient in Emotional Intelligence [EI].  Boosting EI of the individual lawyers, the law firm, and the classes in law schools seems like it's job-one in the business of law." 

The data demonstrating the challenge most attorneys face in emotional intelligence is already in. Fortunately, emotional intelligence, unlike IQ, can be improved through training, but most law firms have not considered it worth the investment.  But not only will the type of interpersonal style described above fail to obtain, keep and develop business, we also know that it clearly risks alienating the client to the point of litigation. Research shows that more than 80% of malpractice lawsuits against doctors can be predicted by examining not the doctor's education or skills, but simply the tone of the doctor's interchange with his/her patient:  a tone of "dominance" places the doctor at extremely high risk for a lawsuit.  And who but lawyers know how to pitch dominance to an off-the-charts level.

We are being pushed to explore taking bold new steps on every front that has historically defined our profession.  Compensation is being overhauled, partnership structure is adapting to the demands of the times, the billable hour is under siege, real estate is being reevaluated and leverage is under scrutiny.  But perhaps one of the most radical steps that may come from considering legal practice to be, after all, a business is the one that pushes us to educate ourselves and our attorneys in the fine, perhaps once known but now lost art of providing service.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

What does behavioral science and our expertise about lawyers tell us about President and Mrs. Obama, who are both Harvard-educated lawyers?

Assessments.   A number of assessment tools give us a profile of what a typical lawyer's attributes are. Lawyers on average score one or two standard deviations higher on IQ assessments (i.e. 115-130) than the general US population.  Using the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, lawyers are likely to have the following personality types:  "introversion" (need for time alone to think and recharge), "intuition" (greater comfort with concepts than with details), "thinking" (decision-making based on objective reasoning rather than empathic compassion) and "judging" (a work style that methodically charts out and completes goals).  According to the Caliper Profile, compared to the general population, lawyers generally have high levels of skepticism and strong abstract reasoning skills, highly prefer autonomy ("I am the boss of me"), exhibit a strong sense of urgency, show low resilience in the face of setbacks (and criticism), and are often uncomfortable and/or unskilled at forming and building relationships ("sociability").  Of the five conflict resolution styles, lawyers tend to use only two:  competing ("I want to win") and avoidance, compared to the collaboration that business people often prefer.  Lawyers also have on average lower (by one standard deviation) emotional intelligence than the general US population and are much more pessimistic.

Handedness. President Obama, as he recently pointed out when signing his first Executive Order, is a lefty. Mrs. Obama is right-handed.

Humans--while not the only species to exhibit handedness--are and have been for over 5,000 years the only one with a consistent, strongly preferred handedness. Ninety-three percent (93%) of humans are right-handed and a higher proportion of males than females are left-handed.

The left hemisphere of the human brain processes things in parts and sequentially, and is usually the center for language, science, mathematics, and logic. When the left side of the brain is dominant, it controls the right side of the body, making these individuals right-handed.  The right side of the brain synthesizes and is a source of dreams, fantasies, art, music, and feeling, and is dominant in left-handed individuals.  Almost half of left-handers also use their right hemisphere for language.  Lefties are therefore more likely to mix emotion and language, vision and feeling.

Is it better to be left-handed?  Research on handedness tends to place the abilities of left-handers at the extremes--over-represented among both the gifted and the mentally challenged.  And a number of miscellaneous attributes are reported to be associated with being left-handed, including higher instances of allergies, alcoholism, epilepsy, eczema, thyroid problems, and a shorter life-span by an average of nine years.  Also, a significantly higher portion of male lefties than righties are homosexual. 

What makes someone left-handed?  Premature birth, prolonged labor and breech births seem to correlate with babies who become left-handed. While there is no conclusive explanation for handedness, one theory suggests that the male hormone testosterone might be responsible. Large amounts of this hormone slow left hemisphere development in the male fetus and might explain the clear predominance of males among lefties. 

The hormonal theory also seems consistent with differences that have been found in cognitive performance at the intersection of handedness and gender.  For example, overall, males perform better than females on spatial tasks (a left hemisphere and therefore right-hand dominant task), while left-handed males perform poorer than right-handed males on those tests (and right-handed women perform poorer than left-handed women).  As to verbal abilities (a right hemisphere and therefore left-hand dominant task),  left-handed males out perform right-handed males (and, by the way, right-handed females out perform left-handed females).  So the picture that emerges is that left-handed males are most like right-handed women in their cognitive approaches. 

Analysis of career choices show, as would be expected (and I predicted in a college paper too many years ago to admit to), that a disproportionately high rate of left-handed males, consistent with their superior verbal abilities, are lawyers.  Similarly, I surmised (and as to which I can now claim vindication), right-handed women should also be over-represented among lawyers.

Blood Type.  Okay, we are starting to get a little far out here, I admit, but several theories contend that blood type relates to specific personality clusters, a result of metabolism and other organic forces that mold leaders, followers, bean-counters, risk-takers.  In Japan and other Asian countries, a resume often includes blood type to bolster the applicant's qualification for the job.  In any event, the Obamas' blood types do not seem to be publicly available and Barack Obama's mixed racial heritage (as well as some mixed race heritage on Michelle Obama's side) make assumptions based on race difficult.  Nonetheless, people of African ancestry are most often Type O, the original blood type.  According to Eat Right for Your Blood Type by Dr. Peter. J. D'Adamo, Type Os tend to be hardy and strong, are best fueled by a high protein diet and need heavy physical exercise.  Type Os also have a strong drive to succeed and often exhibit leadership qualities, including a willingness to take risks and, concomitantly, a high degree of optimism.  Former president Ronald Reagan, to whom Obama has been compared, was a Type O, as is Queen Elizabeth II and Charles, the Prince of Wales.

Education.  Moving on to nurture.  Some contend that a lawyer's law school affects how he/she approaches and resolves issues. Noam Scheiber of The New Republic contrasts the differences between the chaotic early days of Clinton's presidency with Obama's smooth and "brutally efficient" transition, concluding that part of the explanation for the difference "lies in the elite institutions that socialized them -- namely Yale and Harvard, their respective law schools."

According to Carolyn Elefant in the Legal Blog Watch, "Scheiber contrasts the rigor and competitiveness of Harvard Law School with the somewhat more relaxed environment at Yale. At Yale, class attendance wasn't required, and professors engaged students in broad policy discussions. By contrast, Harvard classes focused more tightly on legal issues. Likewise, at Yale, the law review conferred little prestige, because anyone could join, whereas at Harvard, law review participation depended upon grades and a writing competition. As a result, Harvard Law review editors like Obama stood a good chance at a coveted Supreme Court clerkship."

Brian Lauter at The Shark goes further to say that it is college that provides "the more formative experience. Personal identity, at least partially formed during the college years, guides the way we approach decisions and situations" -- including one's choice of law school.

Ultimately, Elefant agrees "that our personalities matter much more than where we attend school -- undergraduate or law school. Had Bill Clinton attended Harvard, he probably would have chafed against the rules and formalities with his less-disciplined personality, but I doubt that Harvard would have changed him. Likewise, if Obama had gone to Yale, it's not likely that the relaxed atmosphere would have encouraged him to drop his work ethic."
 

What's Different About the Obamas.  Of course we have more information about the Obamas than just that they are lawyers, what schools they went to and their handedness.  Some of the other information out there can help us piece together a more specific read on their personal work styles. 

First, the fact that both Obamas left the traditional law firm track makes them more likely to be exceptions to the average lawyer profile rather than the rule.  Lawyers who are high on extroversion, sociability, compassionate decision making, and optimism are often the ones most uncomfortable in law firm culture and the first ones to go.

Continue Reading...

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

This is the time of year when many of us take stock of our direction and goals and make plans to step up our effectiveness.  This particular year, 2009, many lawyers are facing an extremely difficult once-in-a-century marketplace for which no one has been truly prepared.  So we may also find ourselves questioning our ability to successfully grapple with the challenges ahead.  

How to acquire the skills that will improve your practice and advance your leadership in such a disorienting environment?

The old adage of two heads being better than one is born out by the data available on the results of coaching.  According to a January 13, 2009 article by Susan Letterman White in The Legal Intelligencer, "a research report by Diane Coutu and Carol Kauffman in the January Harvard Business Review found that coaching is a business tool most often used to develop the capabilities of high-potential performers or facilitate leadership transitions," and one which produces quantifiable benefits. "The Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology has reported that coaching leads to higher interview ratings for individuals. Telecommunications Weekly reported in November that a change program, which included coaching, improved customer satisfaction by 10 percent and call resolution rates by 56 percent at Motorola. And according to a 2008 article in The Chronicle of Higher Education, coaching of university faculty improved the writing process of professors who were under pressure to publish."

As Ms. White states, "coaching is to a lawyer what organizational development is to a law firm; they both foster intentional change toward particular goals through a collaborative process. The goals are those that move the client to a higher level of professional effectiveness...Most importantly, a good coach is paid to ask the right questions."

In addition, a good coach is one who listens.

Sheryl Axelrod of Hepburn Axelrod & White, a Philadelphia firm, was quoted in the article as extolling the benefits of coaching in a law firm context. "We worked with a coach who had an uncanny ability to not only listen to our needs, fears and desires for our firm, but our own internal dilemmas and concerns about each other."

Of course, after listening, a coach must also be able to help coachees arrive at and implement beneficial changes.  And those changes are sometimes unexpected.  In the Hepburn Axelrod case, "one of our partners...reach[ed] the difficult decision to leave the partnership."

But the proof is in the pudding.  "The result of the coaching is that our firm, on our own, and our former partner, on his own, are each thriving in a market in which most firms are doing worse, not better, than the year before, " Axelrod said.

Quantitative evaluations of coaching are rare, but those that have been done demonstrate conclusively its effectiveness and bottom-line contribution.  In an evaluation by MetrixGlobal of an executive coaching program provided by the Center for Performance Excellence in 2004 to Booz Allen partners and principals, results indicated that "all leaders readily applied what they gained from their coaching experiences to make significant strides in self-development, while over half (53%) made significant improvements in their relationships with peers and team members and some  leaders (19%) went on to significantly improve client relationships; gaining greater clarity about how their behavior impacted clients and being better able to respond to client issues."

Of eight business areas senior leaders expected executive coaching to impact, "two were found to be positively impacted by at least half of the leaders who were coached: teamwork (58%) and team member satisfaction (54%). Three other areas were selected by 31% of the leaders as having been impacted: quality of consulting, retention and productivity."

Monetary benefits were rigorously documented in this evaluation. "The total monetary benefits were $3,268,325 with four impact areas each producing at least a half million dollars of annualized benefit to the business: improved teamwork ($981,980), quality of consulting ($863,625), retention ($626,456) and team member satisfaction ($541,250). Given a total, fully loaded cost of the coaching of $414,310, the ROI was 689%."

Coaching can provide to all lawyers the simple but valuable assistance of a supportive yet out-of-the-law-firm-box perspective that can be critical when steering through dangerous waters--and that can positively impact the bottom line. That perspective can help you become a more effective  partner, develop individual business, expand your expertise, master management responsibilities and otherwise plan and implement the next step in your career (whether you are motivated to do so proactively or reactively).

At RRR, we offer confidential high-performance coaching programs of six to eighteen months that are tailored to your objectives and your schedule.  Contact us for a consultation on how we can help you achieve your goals in 2009.

Happy new year!

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

There is no denying that Gen X and Y are most comfortable interacting via technology--IMing, texting, emailing--possibly to the detriment of their face-to-face skills, as some contend.  Employees in large corporations have come to use this technology, particularly on line social sites, as a way to form community and communicate within vast, impersonal organizations.  IMing with the Senior Vice President about favored jazz albums instantly creates up-and-down-the-ladder rapport and also an enhanced commitment to the organization. 

Associates at most law firms are also making use of these technological avenues of communication.  Most firms have official or unofficial firm social groups on MySpace, Facebook and other sites. Ning is a private interactive social networking site that several IT consultants recommend as a good site for law firms to use.  It allows participants to chat real time and also post documents, and the software is free. 

Some firms have banned these social groups while others have embraced them.  On the positive side are the potential gains in networking, which Paul Lippe, CEO and co-founder of Legal OnRamp, claims "is the number one predictor of a lawyer's income," as well as an increased sense of community and therefore commitment.  Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle uses Facebook as a recruiting tool and an "I'm in Love with MoFo" site probably hasn't hurt Morrison & Foerster's recruiting either.  Of course, these sites, largely unsupervised and unsupervisable, also provide renegade employees with the perfect weapon to embarrass a firm.  As do the multitudes of privately run, individual blogs that comment on particular firms or corporations.  See, for example, our February 26, 2008 entry entitled Decorum, Virtue and Other Values in the Age of the Internet, which recounts Skadden Arps public shaming of two Skadden employees for their (unofficial) blog contest for the "Hottest Female Associate."

Microblogging offers an alternative to these social networking sites, with entries that can be relayed not only on line and by email, but also as text messages over cell phones. The degree of privacy varies as to both the individual's information and that of friends or followers.

Twitter, the leading microblogging network, has become a household name with its contribution to the Obama political campaign and its on-the-spot reports on tragedies like the Mumbai terrorist attack.  Started in 2006 and with over 3 million people using its free service, Twitter has no revenue, even from ads.  When you log on, the question that first appears and that you can use 140 characters to answer is "What are you doing?"  Twitter boasts such regular "twitterers" as Benjamin Netanyahu, the leader of the Likud Party in Israel and Kevin Rudd, Prime Minister of Australia, as well as Shaquille O'Neal, Center for the Phoenix Suns and John Cleese, the actor and comedian.

Yammer is a new and smaller microblogging site aimed at business customers with the stated goal of making offices more productive--when a user logs on, the first question is “What are you working on?”  Yammer charges $1 per user when a company joins, although anyone with a business email address can use Yammer free.  Membership gives the business administrator the decided advantage of some control over security and how the site is used. 

Apart from the networking, communication and recruiting advantages, these constant technological interchanges among a growing group of contacts offer a glimpse into the business model that is likely to become more and more the norm for lawyers and their clients.  In a global age that threatens individual anonymity, social sites and microblogging permit personal, even intimate relationships to form and thrive around the world, regardless of where the individual IPs or mobile devices are geographically located.  And it is relationships, however they are formed, both within law firms and with their clients, that will drive the future of the legal business.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

At the meeting of the American Bar Association's Law Practice Management section today in Tucson, Arizona, Muir was presented with the 2007-2008 Law Practice Magazine Edge Award for Bronze Feature Article for her article in the July/August 2007 issue of the magazine entitled "The Importance of Emotional Intelligence in Law Firm Partners." The Edge Awards are sponsored by Edge International, and each year recognize excellence in writing for the magazine.

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

In a recent article in The New York Times entitled “Girl Power at School, But Not at the Office,” Hannah Seligson gives some good advice to all working women, even those of the “post women’s right movement” generation in which she grew up. 

After feeling self-assured and equal to men in academia, Hannah found the workplace to be different: women undermining other women, men not taking women seriously--focusing on their appearance and “assistantizing” them.  

But she also recognizes that women can get in their own way in the workforce. Work skills women must develop, in her opinion, are a thick skin, the ability to promote oneself, and the ability to negotiate. She also recommends that women dump the perfectionism and create a professional network.

Here are some jewels to consider:

Rather than getting rattled by their feminine “sensitivity,” women have to “become impervious to the daily gruffness that’s a part of any job.”  

Seeking perfection can lead to paralysis and keep women from speaking up or taking risks. 

“Soliciting feedback… demystifies what your boss thinks about you and it also gives you the data to become a more valuable employee.”

“Reprogram your brain to think that girls do brag. Your job is a two-part process: one is actually doing the work and the second is talking about it in bottom-line terms.”

Since “women don’t have as much of a tradition of business networking (‘Do you want to go grab a beer?’ doesn’t quite roll off our tongues),” learning to ask colleagues specific questions about how to advance can be the organic approach to mentoring. 

Finally, women need to “speak salary.” Women often think they will be paid what they deserve, as long as they do the work. Follow the example of men who fearlessly ask for a raise over and over again, regardless of the response. As a Harvard Business School faculty member explained: ‘By and large women believe that the workplace is a meritocracy, and it isn’t.”

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

The American Bar Association has announced that Ronda Muir's cover article in the July/August 2007 issue of Law Practice magazine, entitled "The Importance of Emotional Intelligence in Law Firm Partners,"  has been awarded the 2007-2008 Law Practice Magazine Edge Award for Bronze Feature Article. 

The Edge Awards are sponsored by Edge International, and each year the awards recognize excellence in writing for the magazine.

Muir will be presented with the award at the Tucson, Arizona October 16-18, 2008 meeting of the Law Practice Management section.
 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments (1)
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

Is a four-foot tall robotic standin the next step in telecommuting?  And what use would such a fellow be in a law firm or law department? 

Currently telecommuting is often an adjunct to an employee's presence in the home office-- three days in, two days telecommuting, or three weeks in, one week telecommuting--and poses its own challenges:  how to condense complicated discussions into an email, how to make sure everyone gets enough face-time.  Some telecommuters supplement their emails with Skype-type individual cameras at their remote desks and/or interact via sophisticated video conference equipment housed in the main office.

A new alternative is becoming available, if you don't mind stubbing your virtual shins on very real brick and mortar wall.

The robot looks like a coatrack on a four-wheeled box, with a tablet computer that exhibits the telecommuter's face halfway up the central metal pole, two speakers below, and a webcam and microphone above.  An attached digital camera  takes photos of critical documents or board presentations.  With the ability to move the robot at will, the telecommuter can participate in discussions and meetings throughout the office, even those that are closed-door to others.

Developed by California-based Sybase Inc., a prototype costing $9,000 is roaming the halls of its subsidiary SybaseiAnywhere in Waterloo, Ontario as the representative of a valued employee whose wife was transferred thousands of miles away.  Sybase notes that expertise is becoming so valuable and recruiting and training so lengthy and expensive, that extraordinary measures to keep talent pay off.

Minneapolis-based company PowerObjects uses robots to bring into the home office those in their Islamabad office.  "With offices halfway around the world, you have to to take advantage of whatever can help the team work together.  We no longer have to fly them back and forth or meet in a specific conference room or office for the remote person to hear all parts of the discussion --that person can move from office to office as if he/she were here," a representative explains.

With more companies and firms locating outposts in Asia and the Middle East (such as Latham & Watkin's recent announcement it was expanding its Dubai office and establishing Abu Dhabi and Doha offices), the challenges of maintaining law department / firm and team cohesion will compound. 

There are shortcomings in the prototype, of course:  a time lag in conversations and the inability of the person on the tablet to look like s/he is looking his/her companion in the eye--the webcam position scews that. 

And of course there are those times when the robot crashes into a wall and has to be rebooted.  But I assume there are days when we can all relate to that.

Robots, anyone?

 

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments (1)
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

The keynote speaker at the opening of the 2008 International Conference on Emotional Intelligence this week was Jim Kouzes, coauthor of the award-winning best-seller The Leadership Challenge, executive fellow at the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Leavey School of Business, Santa Clara University, and, according to The Wall Street Journal, one of the twelve best executive educators in the U.S.

What did he have to say that is of interest to the legal world? At a time when we are struggling, in spite of the economy, to retain both young lawyers and more senior attorneys with books of business, Kouzes revealed what makes people committed to their organizations: values.

According to Kouzes, the first step in earning employees' commitment is the clarification of organizational values. His research indicates that people who are clear about their organization's values (and also their personal values) are significantly more committed to the organization than those individuals who are clear about their personal values but unclear about the organization’s values.

All leaders must, therefore, he contends, be crystal clear about what they stand for.  The lynch pin for making this approach effective, however, is that leaders must be credible—the troops have to sincerely believe that their leaders not only say their values, but also do what they say.

Tony O'Reilly, CEO of H.J. Heinz, said it this way:  "Nothing energizes an individual or a company more than clear goals and a grand purpose. Nothing demoralizes more than confusion and lack of content."

The concept of "organizational values" are often viewed with suspicion by lawyers, who smell something akin to partisanship or other lack of objectivity.  Values are not one of those protected statuses under Title VII.  You can legally proselytize (and hire and fire) "what we believe in."  But you have to start out knowing what that is.  And living it. 

Ahhh.  There's the rub.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

Lawyers are introverts, big time.  According to Myers Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) results, almost 3/4th of lawyers, compared to only 1/4th of the general public, are introverts.  That means they go inward to charge their batteries-- preferring internal introspection to external interaction. 

On the Caliper Profile personality test, lawyers also rank astonishingly low in the sociability trait--which measures how comfortable a person is initiating and building close relationships. Low sociability scorers are less inclined to enjoy interacting with others, preferring to spend more time with information. 

Of course, we know that lawyers are thinkers--they think, analyze documents and deals, edit and write, all loner tasks.  In a recent study, lawyers ranked sixth overall on a list of the 200 best jobs for introverts, just behind the loner braniacs who work as computer software engineers and accountants. 

The question for management becomes how to integrate these loners not only into a coherent, committed organization but also into the 21st century vision of service delivery:  coherent, committed teams.  How do you overcome/compensate for the introverted nature of lawyers in day-to-day management, business development endeavors, client service?

Slowly.  Start by using the strengths of introverts--such as their tendency to (appear to) listen and to deliver well-thought-out opinions-- and proceed from there logically to the overwhelming consensus from research that collaboration improves productivity and satisfaction. 

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

Regardless of your politics, the last year has been a fabulous display of woman-power in the political arena. For the first time in American history, a woman was a major contender for her party's presidential nomination, and came damned close to winning it.

Without Monday morning quarterbacking her entire campaign, there are some interesting nuggets to retrieve from her run, perhaps telling us something about the future of women in politics and in power generally.

As someone who assists women lawyers in developing good business producing skills, I was interested to see the following note about Senator Clinton in the Sunday, June 8 New York Times:

"Unlike her opponents, Mrs. Clinton refused to make solicitation calls to donors and had to be talked into calling the party officials known as superdelegates."

Sound familiar?  Hesitation to make direct appeals for support is a recurring theme in the work I do with women. Results should speak for themselves, they say. I shouldn't have to ask. Who wants to be a squeaky wheel? Men, on the other hand, I find, tend to take the attitude that if they don't ask, how can someone say yes, and that if they are not the ones to champion their own cause, why expect others to?

What seems to underlie the hesitation on women's part to "ask" is a fear of having to deal with rejection and also an uneasiness about putting the relationship at risk.  What if they say no? What do I do/feel? And what happens to our relationship then?

There is an argument that this kind of sensitivity makes women better in the relationship building department, a critical part of developing business.  So is this a tendency that should be overcome or preserved? The answer is both.  The sensitivity should be protected but the kind of fear that immobilizes should be allayed.   Good relationship builders know how to keep the relationship even if there are disagreements.  Good relationship builders survive rejection and help the relationship survive as well. 

Learning and believing the self-talk and attitudes that help overcome the hesitation is one way to start coping with the fear. Taking the risk and then seeing that the results are not as scary as anticipated also helps.  It is a matter of venturing into the unknown, or what has been projected to be a distasteful known, with good intentions and a willingness to listen.  So you get the benefit of both high sensitivity and, hey, if you don't ask, how can they say yes?

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

The use of assessments worldwide is rapidly expanding and lawyers are still lagging at the back of the pack--way back. 

An article by Lisa Belkin in yesterday's New York Times notes that there are 2,500 "profiling instruments" that companies rely on more every year when deciding whom to hire or promote. Sixty-five percent of companies surveyed reported using assessments in 2006, up almost double from the 34 percent reported a year earlier, according to Staffing Industry Report, a human-resources newsletter.

To paraphrase her article, the content of tests has stayed more or less constant for three decades. What has changed is the workplace. The cost of losing experienced employees now represents a tremendous lost of investment.  "Employers want a guarantee that a new hire will stick — and the best way to do that is to make sure that job and candidate are a good fit in the first place."

Globalization that separates performance and accountability/review across continents has further complicated the process of finding and training the best person for the job. So offering on-line testing across those continents makes these assessments not only appealing but also fast.  

I am often asked by potential clients, particularly those who have been in corporate settings, if we either offer or recommend simple, cost-effective assessments for them to use in attorney recruitment, training and development.  While we can recommend and administer a number of good assessments that can be highly useful -- Myers Briggs Type Indicator (the most popular test in the country, used by 89 of the Fortune 100 and taken by 2.5 million Americans each year), Caliper's Personality Profile, Birkman Method, MayerSaloveyCaruso Emotional Intelligence Test, Thomas Kilmann Conflict Instrument, among others--they are not inexpensive and they are not targeted to lawyers. 

A recent college graduate friend took a Johnson O'Connor aptitude assessment, a common test for teens and young adults to help determine career possibilities.  Since her father and grandfather are lawyers and she is considering going to law school, she was surprised to find that "lawyer" was not one of her designated career possibilities.  She was told that a few years ago Johnson O'Connor stopped offering "lawyer" as an option for any of their test-takers.  The reason?  They are no longer able to reliably correlate attributes or aptitudes with the successful practice of law.

And therein lies one of the problems with assessing attorneys.  While research has indeed identified a number of attributes that lawyers exhibit to a greater degree than others-- for example, high pessimism, skepticism, urgency and autonomy, and low resilience, sociability and collaboration-- the problem lies in the data that shows the impact these characteristics are having on practitioners.  These very attributes present in so many lawyers are also the attributes contributing to the dissatisfaction and distress that the legal profession exhibits:  astonishingly high rates of depression and other mental illness, substance abuse, suicide, and divorce, for starters. High rates of dissatisfaction that are also contributing to the staggering drop-out and attrition rates.

In addition to the challenge of identifying what makes for a good (as well as well-adjusted lawyer), there is also the expense of doing that well.  The testing often done at corporations is highly individualized, developed after an extensive review of what attributes in fact produce productive and satisfied employees at that particular company, and sometimes at that particular location.  Google hires over 10,000 new employees each year and enjoys the amazingly low attrition rate of 4%, but to accomplish that.it invests in a highly detailed questionnaire and assessment that is developed from extensive employee data   That process is not inexpensive. 

Not only is it the individual lawyers who have complex and sometimes hard-to-read attributes.  Law firms and law departments, often in spite of their studied denial, also have "personalities."  Understanding those personalities is critical in determining the type of person who will thrive or fail there. 

Our unique expertise in understanding the attributes of individual lawyers, as well as each legal workplace, makes us ideally suited to help you enter the challenging world of 21st century attorney assessment, development and retention.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

Of the gallons of ink dedicated to analyzing the eye-popping follies of Eliot Spitzer, by far the most trenchant view is contained in the March 14 New York Times OpEd piece by David Brooks. Permit me to quote whole sections of his article.

"Our social structure seems to produce significant numbers of people with rank-link imbalances. That is to say, they have all of the social skills required to improve their social rank, but none of the social skills that lead to genuine bonding. They are good at vertical relationships with mentors and bosses, but bad at horizontal relationships with friends and lovers.

[In school,] they rack up great grades and develop that coating of arrogance that forms on those who know that in the long run they will be more successful than the beauties and jocks who get dates.

Then they go into one of those fields like law, medicine or politics, where a person’s identity is defined by career rank. They develop the specific social skills that are useful on the climb up the greasy pole: the capacity to imply false intimacy; the ability to remember first names; the subtle skills of effective deference; the willingness to stand too close to other men while talking and touching them in a manly way.

And, of course, these people succeed and enjoy their success.

They treat their conversational partners the way the Nazis treated Poland. They crush initial resistance, and the onslaught of accumulated narcissism is finally too much to bear.

[But] then, gradually, some cruel cosmic joke gets played on them. They realize in middle age that their grandeur is not enough and that they are lonely. The ordinariness of their intimate lives is made more painful by the exhilaration of their public success. If they were used to limits in public life, maybe it would be easier to accept the everydayness of middle-aged passion. But, of course, they are not.

And so the crisis comes...

These Type A men are just not equipped to have normal relationships. All their lives they’ve been a walking Asperger’s Convention, the kings of the emotionally avoidant. Because of disuse, their sensitivity synapses are still performing at preschool levels.

So when they decide that they do in fact have an inner soul and it’s time to take it out for a romp ... . Well, let’s just say they’ve just bought a ticket on the self-immolation express. Some desperate lunge toward intimacy is sure to follow, some sad attempt at bonding. Welcome to the land of the wide stance."

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

Now that the British are doing it, maybe even law firms should consider giving it a try.  Articulating an identity, that is.  According to an article in the New York Times last month, Prime Minister Gordon Brown's new government has announced an effort to formulate a British "statement of values" defining what it means to be British, much as the Declaration of Independence sets out what Americans stand for. But it is an undertaking that has produced exasperation in a number of corners. 

In a fitting tribute to British independence (or recalcitrance, depending on your point of view), the winning entry in a contest sponsored by The Times of London, inspired, if somewhat cynically, by the identity campaign, is:  "No Motto Please, We're British."  Pity that so many law firms come to a similar conclusion.

While the British are looking to articulate their Britishness, law firms should consider figuring out who they are as well.  Establishing an identity has long been implicit (though often short-changed) in the process of strategic planning.  Strategic planning involves the projection of a firm forward into new (hopefully better) circumstances based on assumptions about existing and future conditions.

While the vagaries of accurately assessing current and (certainly) future conditions are evident, the ingredient that law firms often neglect is the "who."  Who is this firm?  What is the firm like that is moving through these assumed conditions?  What are its values and goals?  Whom would it like to become?  Because the "who" will be in many cases the determining factor in the outcome of strategic planning.  Is the firm a nimble, highly technological, thinly leveraged outfit that offers its attorneys immediate responsibility or one that enjoys great depth of expertise, long-standing client connections and is a well-respected resume-builder?  Does the firm pride itself on collaboration or aggressiveness?  Does it offer its lawyers a premier training ground or a sustainable life style?

Lawyers often look askance at these types of evaluations.  As a million websites point out, firms aim to be "responsive to our clients' need" and "highly experienced in ..." and be done with it.  But those are not the things that young applicants in the competitive recruiting and retention bullpen are saying about firms.  They are finding ways to distinguish firms, whether we like it or not.

A recent entry referred to an unauthorized Skadden blog that was terrorizing the firm with its "most attractive associate" contests.  Management made it clear that "the 'contests' on one of these blogs is (sic) inappropriate and does not reflect our values and standards of behavior."  It is the "insider" response that seems to us fairly shocking: "We're not quite sure what Skadden's 'values' are (or, for that matter, the Firm's 'standards of behavior')."  It's the "we're not quite sure..." part that should send chills down management's spine.  Not just because of the likelihood of errant contests in poor taste, but because of the wide spectrum of activities-- ill-considered to illegal--that a lack of common values invites.

In an increasingly stratified marketplace, it is more and more important for each law firm to make sure it knows what it stands for and why, and to thoroughly communicate those values from top to bottom.  There are few forces as powerful as smart, ambitious Type A personalities committed to a cause.  And the only way your law firm can become your lawyers' cause, particularly for your Gen Xers and Yers, is for the firm to stake out itself in the law firm firmament.

A law firm's values, evident in how it functions on a daily basis, not only in what it talks about, are what associates and laterals will come for and what they will stay for.  Those values are what will keep your partners from being plundered and your staff loyal.  And they are what will make your firm most productive. 

One of the reasons this British identity search is necessary, according to Vernon Bogdanor, professor of government at Oxford, is that "Britain was something that just happened.  No one's ever sat down and thought about what it means to be British." He points out that having an identity bespeaks a confidence that there is a place in the global realm for the British.  Without a common identity that links its members into a community, he says, the country becomes a hotel, where individuals check in and out but don't have a common connection.  Sound familiar?

From the historically great gray uniformity of law firms has blossomed a broad range of attitudes and actualities on many subjects-- gender and minority diversity, life-balance, training, client service, management involvement, even whether the practice of law is done from dedicated real estate or virtually. 

No longer is the slogan "We're Lawyers" sufficient.

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

Law firms are often bedeviled by the on-line shenanigans of their young (and sometimes not so young), who can carelessly leave a footprint permanently in cyberspace.  While these irritations don't often rise to the level in titillation value or PR devastation as some of the old-tech crimes perpetuated by errant employees/partners, like the Cravath tax lawyer who solicited children for sexual favors, those types of cases are (thankfully) fairly rare and have a limited media shelf life.  Blogs and social networks, on the other hand, seem to just keep on giving and giving, although often an unwelcome PR black eye. 

Here's some recent developments for law firms in the cyberspace sandbox. 

Allen & Overy's London office recently issued a ban on accessing the social networking website Facebook in light of concerns that the impact of downloading videos from the site could compromise the firm's IT performance.  Within days, complaints forced a turn-around by management, nominally on the grounds that the site is used for business as well as social reasons.  Currently there are 932 members on the A&O network on Facebook, a nice bump over the 600+ when the firm tried to shut it down. Internet comments related to the episode ran the gamut from condemnation of the firm's leadership for being so easily swayed to one person's plea for more such bans so that work could get done.  

Arguments for/against law firm blogs/social networks usually include claims that they are useful/extraneous for business development in the internet age, that other businesses do/don't (investment banks often don't, for example) allow workers to access them, that social/work boundaries should/should not be imposed, that the sites are time-wasters/efficiency drivers.

Reflecting these mixed feelings, evidently approximately one-third of law firms have Facebook networks, and two-thirds of law firms have blocked them.  Big firms with networks on Facebook include at least eight of the largest: Skadden, Arps (with 379 members), Baker & McKenzie (728), Jones Day (286), Latham & Watkins (291), Sidley Austin (199), White & Case (370), Shearman & Sterling (225), and Kirkland & Ellis (192).  While Mayer Brown and Weil, Gotschal, among others, have apparently banned them.

As a cultural matter, these kinds of social networks can be a very useful tool in building community and connection at firms that have long been known for neither.  Their availability resonates with Gen Xers and Yers, who are most comfortable with an open technological stance.  And there are at least nascent efforts to truly use these types of networks for business development purposes.

LegalOnRamp, a relatively new site being developed in conjunction with Cisco, envisions an  interactive brainstorming locale involving in-house and outside lawyers, who can meet and discuss substantive legal topics, as well as management and personnel issues.  Mark Chandler, GC at Cisco, touts this type of technological meeting ground as the model for how law will be conducted in the future.  Instant access to not only profiles, expert articles and form provisions, but also substantive issue forums and interactive document building certainly make it a useful tool.  Another feature, being able to see who each party is connected with-- their "friends," in Facebook parlance, also efficiently builds reliable connections and makes for more informed referrals.

As to independently run "insider" blogs, most firms have no ability to influence what is on them other than by using their bully pulpit.  The latest controversy involves a blog run by two unnamed Skadden Arps employees-- with admittedly no authority to speak for the firm-- that held a "Hottest Female Associate" contest, with photos of the candidates included.  The contestants were neither notified nor asked for permission to post their names/photos and a few photos were of an obviously personal nature (don't rush to Google it now--the photos have been taken down). 

Much to the apparent surprise of the blog-minders--"Damn, we feel like we were called to the Vice Principal's office today and had our knuckles wrapped (sic)."-- Henry Baer, chairman of Skadden, wrote an email to the firm recognizing the prevalence of blogs but weighing in on the inappropriateness of the contests, which "does (sic) not reflect our values and standards of behavior... We urge the authors of the blog to consider both the privacy and feelings of the affected attorneys and to discontinue the contests." 

Several points seem worth noting regarding this particular standoff.  While the female contest had already been decided, the still outstanding "Hottest Male Associate" contest was promptly cancelled by our erstwhile bloggers. Also, it is interesting that Baer's objections were confined to the impact of the contest on the attorneys involved and other attorneys at the firm, who were concerned and embarrassed.  No doubt he had good counsel on the necessity to counter any appearance of a hostile workplace.  But several comments on the blog make it clear that there is potentially another kind of  financial downside:  the bloggers risked turning off clients and employment candidates as well.

A retort to Baer's letter by the bloggers--"We're not quite sure what Skadden's "values" are (or, for that matter, the Firm's "standards of behavior")"--is perhaps the most troubling aspect of this little imbroglio.  See our upcoming entry Joining the British in Hunting for an Identity on the importance on both sides of the pond of knowing who you are and what you stand for as a firm, and effectively inculcating that into the culture.

A corporate real estate lawyer at Jenner & Block, Jennifer Sara Levin, recently founded  Legal Intelligence, an online platform connecting law school students with top-tier firms.  A pilot program involving three law firms and her alma mater, Northwestern University School of Law, is running online at http://www.legalintelllc.com. The idea is to help students find the law firm that fits them best, partly through online video conferences.

"It's like a Match.com for law students," Levin said of her start-up.

Law firms pay to participate, Levin said, because they want to find law school graduates who aren't just qualified but who also share their firm's values. Often, Levin said, top-tier law firms end up with graduates who don't fit their culture. "There's no way to do it in a 20-minute interview. You can't get enough information to know if this person is the right cultural fit," she said.

There's that "v" word again.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

On February 12, 2008 Muir is scheduled to discuss with students at Northwestern University's Business Institutions Program how to improve decision-making.  Based in large part on the information contained in "Promoting an Effective Board or Management Group," the discussion will explore, among other subjects, optimal personality traits for good decision-making and how to avoid extreme decisions.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

Growing future leaders at our best business schools increasingly involves teaching "softer" skills, and often using personal style assessments. One of the more rigorous and long-standing low-residence courses at Harvard Business School is the nine-week Owner President Management Course (OPM), which spans three years.  Roughly 120 business owners, only half of whom are usually from the US, are enrolled in this course.

Last year, one of the course professors, Dr. Linda Doyle, included The Birkman Method in her "Leadership and Organizational Effectiveness" classes for the OPM, a class that examines leadership styles through case studies.  The Birkman Method is a personal style assessment that identifies a number of traits, and also how those traits manifest in an organization and morph under stress.  Using the Birkman assessment, OPM participants are able to identify and analyze their own authority styles, and the strengths and problems that might develop from those styles.  Harvard has decided to continue the use of the Birkman in this course and is considering including it in other MBA courses.

Yale School of Management has also introduced personal style assessments into its curriculum.  All MBA candidates are now required to take an assessment to help identify leadership styles, strengths and potential problems.

Heidi Brooks, Director of the Leadership Development Program at YSOM and a lecturer in Organizational Behavior, is convinced that these assessments are avenues to self awareness and interactional intelligence that can only improve management effectiveness.  Since most major corporations hire and promote at least in part on the basis of similar types of assessments, having MBA candidates familiarize themselves with the testing process and the information it provides also gives them an early advantage. 

Besides Harvard and Yale, Dartmouth University's Tuck School of Business, University of Southern California's Marshall School of Business, Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan School and Stanford's Graduate School of Business are among the business schools that have heard from alums and companies across the country that it is the softer skills--communication, brokering compromises, managing conflict, developing relationships and leading groups--rather than strategy or financial analysis that are missing in MBA graduates.  And are doing something to address those weaknesses. 

Stamford's B School revamped its leadership-training curriculum this fall, now requiring all first-year students to take personality tests, participate in teamwork and management-simulation exercises and critiques of their people skills.  Professional executive coaches will watch the simulations and offer advice.

At Tuck, the leadership-development program, modeled on corporate programs, that was launched in 2004, puts all first year students in teams of five.  The groups complete coursework together, help each other with assignments and then rate themselves and each other on how well they operate in a team, including how well each of them "solicits feedback and acts on it" or helps "manage conflict."  Reports on their performance are used to inform the coaching sessions the students attend and to design personal development plans.

Says Warren Bennis, professor at USC's Marshall School:  "It isn't just nice--these interpersonal skills.  It's the stuff that's necessary to lead a complex organization."

It is only a matter of time, as they say, before law schools recognize the impact of "people skills training" and follow suit.  Not only are lawyers less educated both in school and in the workplace on the importance of developing these skills and the methods of doing so, the data shows that they are as a group psychologically and behaviorally more challenged  in achieving results.  Which makes this sort of training--whether at law school or on the job-- even more critical.

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

According to Steve Davis, it all went pretty smoothly and quickly: negotiations in July and August, a preliminary agreement the last week of August, votes last Wednesday, September 26, and on Monday of this week, he became chairman of Dewey & LeBoeuf, the newest megafirm in the global law firm firmament, with 1300 lawyers, 26 offices in 12 countries, and a billion dollars in revenue.

So what accounts for this dramatically better outcome, compared to the Dewey/Orrick debacle-in-the-making that first hit the press last year this time? 

For starters, Davis credits the two firms’ long-standing familiarity with each other. No East Coast/West Coast mystique to decipher and reconcile in this case: the two firms were only two floors apart at 140 Broadway for years and had dealt with each other on myriad matters. With good relationships long established, people at both firms, Davis contends, “quickly understood the underlying strategic rationale” for a combination. 

Davis also believes Dewey & LeBoeuf enjoys another advantage that other recent megamergers did not. Both Dewey and LeBoeuf had high concentrations of lawyers in the same key markets—New York, London and Washington D.C. That’s an advantage? The beauty of the Dewey/Orrick merger was thought to have been little overlap, promising to produce that far-flung “globalness” instantly. Overlap, Davis contends, works in the firm’s favor. Unlike the “Noah’s Ark” that some combinations are left with—two of everything, with 1 in LA and 1 in Boston--Dewey & LeBoeuf’s geography is more likely to force the people and cultures at each key location to mesh.

D&L's executive committee of 22 is composed of 11 partners from each firm, and includes Morton Pierce, Dewey’s Managing Partner, with Davis in the chairman’s seat. After the Dewey/Orrick talks failed, Pierce’s management style was the subject of some bruising commentary, with particular notice given to the fact that he billed 3300 hours that year. See our February 7, 2007 entry “Talking to the Troops.” 

So what will management at Dewey & LeBoeuf be like? Davis is often described as managing “like a CEO,” a role which, perhaps in a reflection on the famous independence of lawyers, one LeBoeuf partner characterized as an “elected dictator.” 

Continue Reading...

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

There is no substitute for face time, as people in my business are wont to insist. But maybe there is.

During an interview with Mark Chandler, General Counsel of Cisco, to discuss the evolving legal marketplace, see Leaving Behind the Medieval Model, he demonstrated for me Cisco's newest entry (competing with Hewlett-Packard, Polycom and Tandberg, among others) into the web conference market— a small meeting room that boasts an IP (Internet Protocol) phone, three broadcast-quality cameras, three ultra-sensitive mikes, three 60-inch plasma screens, a crescent-shaped table that seats six and soft back-lighting. The result, as one satisfied client related, is that "you can literally see and hear a pin drop a continent away."  The sensation is of simply being in a small conference room with well-lit colleagues across the table--I admit to the eerie feeling of being able to reach out and touch someone, only I couldn't. 

At $300,000+ for each of these pods (and it takes two, of course) and monthly maintenance costs in the thousands, it would require a lot of deferred traveling to pay for the luxury of not having to sit on tarmacs. Nonetheless these systems seem to be enjoying brisk demand, with prices down from $550,000+ two years ago and double digit increases in sales annually. 

There are a number of circumstances that might prompt law firms to take advantage of these technospheres. In light of how time-consuming air travel has become, the need for rapid decision-making and the globally far-flung nature of more and more law firms and their clients, they offer a reasonable and efficient tool in law firms' management and delivery arsenals.

But my interest in this product (in case you've been wondering why I, a techie manqué, am going on about this) relates to something one of the true techies touting this system remarked when I saw it. "The name of the game today is collaboration," he said, and went on to discuss the myriad tech tools now available that promote collaboration—web-conferencing, intranets, extranets, wikis, individual attorney blogs, etc.

Unfortunately, as we all know, the name of the game at many, if not most, law firms has not historically been collaboration, whether we are talking about firm management, practice group, committee or even client and document issues. Lawyers are notoriously independent and skeptical/untrusting of others. The impact of many firms' broad dispersal of offices and lawyers has not necessarily been to produce more of what wasn't much there in the first place. Compounded with the arrival almost daily of lateral lawyers from different work and culture environments, cities, and even countries, the tendency among lawyers towards isolation is often only magnified.

So here comes the possibility of virtual face time, whether you think you need it or not. While we can agree that what needs face time, and what that term means, is often subjective, the absolute necessity of it among lawyers, their staff and clients is indisputable. I concede that web conferencing still lacks a certain something—building a critical relationship, hiring and firing, and even congratulating might still best be done in person. Real person. Where a shoulder to cry on, a slap on the back or a firm handshake can make a difference.

But if a firm determines to include one of these technologies amongst its tools or toys, it should not forget to put introducing, acknowledging, appreciating, recapping, explaining, consolidating, networking, socializing, rewarding, giving feedback, even gossiping and complaining on the list of things they are used for. It is an efficient way to build rapport and community and the productivity associated with that cost assuredly drops to the bottom line faster than whatever productivity associated with paying for either lunches at everyone's desks or sitting on the tarmac does.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments (1)
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

A grand old firm has gone through a rough patch recently—one of its associates not only sued for sexual orientation harassment and discrimination, but also proceeded to file partnership documents and communications that S&C certainly would prefer to not have circulating publicly. Further, an article in the legal press lampooned a memo S&C sent around to its partners exhorting them, among other things, to say "thank you," in case their mothers had forgotten to instill in them that finer point of social intercourse. The legal blogosphere enjoyed batting that one around.

But S&C may have gotten the last laugh. In the Midlevel Associates Review released last month by The American Lawyer, New York law firms (as defined there to mean firms with more than 45% of their lawyers in New York) were once again roundly denounced, with this year only 7 firms making it into the top half of the 162 firms surveyed. The New York associates registered their dissatisfaction particularly regarding relations with partners, training, communication about what it takes to make partner and openness about firm finances. While New York firms have always performed poorly in these ratings, several firms fell precipitously since last year's survey—Cravath Swaine slid 27 places, Paul Weiss was down 59, Debevoise Plimpton fell 64 slots and Wachtell Lipton plummeted 74 places.

Thumbing its nose at the rest of the straggling New York herd was Sullivan & Cromwell, which vaulted from number 153 on the list up to number 48. 

So now that all the chortling has died down, was it the "thank yous" that worked? Perhaps. But also, for the first time this past year, S&C leaders gave associates a series of briefings about firm finances, business strategy and the road to partnership.  Chairman H. Rodgin Cohen and vice-chair Joseph Shenker, among others, made in-person presentations and took questions. 

On those two most damning survey questions for New York firms, "communication about what it takes to make partner" and "openness about finances," S&C's ratings this year were 3.48 and 3.64 respectively, out of the ballpark compared to their prior year's ratings of 2.14 and 2.13, and even much higher than this year's average New York firms' ratings of 2.59 and 2.94. 

So it looks to me like Mom was right. Talking it out—even those tricky financial matters and partnership issues that several New York firms said, and continue to say, were either too confidential or essentially none of the associates' business—creates rapport, incentive and even, get this, trust in an environment that sorely needs all three. And it does so quickly—with the results showing up in the first survey! 

Mom would be so pleased.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments (1)
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

One of the requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley rules for publicly traded companies is that they demonstrate that they are promoting an "ethical culture" in the workplace.  What does that mean?

"The Manager's Book of Decencies:  How Small Gestures Build Great Companies" by Steve Harrison, chairman of Woodcliff Lake, N.J.-based Lee Hecht Harrison, the employee outplacement arm of Adecco Human Capital Solutions, a division of Adecco SA of Glattbrugg, Switzerland, is an attempt to answer that question.

Mr. Harrison's contends that an ethical culture is the result of many small, and sometimes large, gestures made over a long period of time, with the driving force coming from the top.

"Being decent isn't about being nice... or spending more money-- it's about treating people fairly," Harrison claims. He also believes that good role models at the top have certain common traits. Those Harrison acknowledges as outstanding role models are Colgate-Palmolive Co. chairman Reuben Mark, Nucor Corp.'s former CEO Kenneth Iverson (who died in 2002), Campbell Soup Co. president and CEO Douglas R. Conant, Southwest Airlines Co. chairman Herbert Kelleher, and Dial Corp.'s former president and CEO, Herbert Baum. 

These five leaders exhibit what Harrison calls a high level of "moral intelligence," which is marked by humility and honesty during both good times and bad.

If employers can pay attention to the issues that matter to their employees, "like finding some kind of fulfillment in the job they come in to day after day...then they're on their way to creating a culture of decency which is critical to attracting, retaining and engaging employees."

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

Burnishing an image that is bankable is what every professional tries to do--both for him/herself individually and for the profession as well.  Doctors take bed-side manners lessons, the NYPD are being instructed on common courtesies.  What about lawyers?  What do they do to bring out the gold?

From the looks of things, not much.

A Harris Poll annually asks the question “Who would you trust?” about various professions.   Doctors, teachers, scientists, police officers, professors, clergymen and military officers routinely end up at the top of the trust chart, garnering more than 70% of the votes. 

Lawyers are usually found settled at the bottom, where members of Congress, pollsters, trade union leaders and stockbrokers rank above them with 35% or less of the vote. There, in next-to-last place in 2006, lawyers sport 27% trustworthiness, one notch above the bottom-feeding actors, over whom lawyers are able to boast a one percentile advantage.

The recent portrayals of lawyers in mass media are evidence of how low the reputations of lawyers are sinking. Long gone is Perry Mason reassuring the wronged and bringing evildoers to justice.   Last season’s TV series about a lawyer was titled “The Shark,” which pretty much says it all from an image standpoint.  That series has been one-upped by this summer’s arrival of a lawyer drama entitled “Damages,” starring Glenn Close, who will always be remembered as one of our generation’s scariest persona—the man-eating, marriage-dashing, family unfriendly “Fatal Attraction” psycho.  Legal advice, anyone?

Then there are the real-life reports that manage to make these fictional scenarios look reasonable:  the senior partner who throws law books at associates, the criminal defense attorney found naked with an adolescent in the court's conference room, the litigator who admitted to altering documents in a consumer class action, the tax lawyer who bribed IRS officials to accept tax positions, the partner whose language in court was so egregious the head of the firm flew in to apologize. 

Into this combustible scenario comes the question of whether law firms should be able to advertise in mass media, as do other professions, and if so, what they should be able to say. 

The recent back and forth in New York, New Jersey and other states about whether law firms should be allowed to tout their "Super Lawyers" or other commercially recognized stars on their websites, use testimonials from prior or existing clients in their marketing materials, use unidentified actors in their ad campaigns or even send emails that don't clearly identify themselves as "soliciting" are no doubt reflections of the growing role that image marketing is likely to play for lawyers. 

A recent article in the New York Times heralded the arrival of professional-looking canned law firm television commercials that are affordable to "the smaller, more local firms for whom the most important thing is the message to their communities," according to Spot Runner, who is working together with Martindale-Hubbell to market the commercials.  While that approach may benefit a local firm whose clients and potential clients are individuals in the community, as the article notes, it is unlikely to be useful to large corporate firms.  And the unseemly associations with ambulance chasing still prevail.

So, other than mass advertising, how do we burnish our image in this modern era? 

Perhaps in the most old-fashioned of ways:  by building relationships, one at a time.  It does not produce a quick fix or an instant cache.  It takes time-- both immediately and over the long run, so it's not very efficient.  But building individual relationships is effective.

Clients say repeatedly that the quality they most want in their counsel is trustworthiness.  Not just someone who gets the answer right.  Or gets the answer right enough for the price.  But someone who the client can count on to look out for their best interests, provide honest feedback and reliably follow through. 

It's an image worth the investment.

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

An article by Ronda Muir entitled "The Importance of Emotional Intelligence in Law Firm Partners" appears in the July/August 2007 issue of the ABA Law Practice Management Section's Law Practice Magazine. 

Among the attributes that emotionally intelligent partners bring are better judgment, higher productivity, enhanced business development skills and better client relationship management.  Most importantly, high emotional intelligence fuels the kind of leadership-- one which promotes collaboration and teamwork-- that is critical to excellence in the 21st Century, and that can provide firms with a competitive edge.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments (1)
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

Why Feedback?

Effective leadership in lawyers is achieved by using some of the same strategies that work with other high-performing professionals, while also requiring an appreciation of the nuances that are particular to the legal personality.  Awareness is the standard starting point for most leadership assessment and improvement programs.  Studies have clearly shown that the higher your self-awareness, the better a manager and performer you are, and, as an added carrot, the more you actually enjoy your work. 

Unfortunately, studies also clearly show that the higher you rise in the ranks of an organization, the less likely you are to be accurately aware of your impact.  Thus, oddly enough, in any given business the CEO is probably less informed about how she and her work are perceived by her colleagues--below, across and above her-- than is the night typist.  This turn of events is often attributed to the fact that the higher up most organizations one goes, the less systematic, extensive and honest is the feedback. 

Feedback and Lawyer-Leaders

Lawyers, and certainly general counsels and firm partners, often function like the CEOs of their own small businesses, and therefore risk suffering from that same top-of-the-heap lack of awareness that other senior management executives experience.  As to the younger lawyers, while run-of-the-mill annual associate reviews are often standard, most of these reviews are still not successful in effectively giving meaningful feedback . And once those lawyers become senior managers or partners themselves, there is usually no system at all for them to get feedback-- from the associates who work for them, from other partners or senior managers or from clients. 

There are well-established ways to produce effective feedback in an organization: professional assessments of individual working styles using Myers-Briggs and other testing instruments, regular feedback-targeted personal reviews, mentoring programs that include in-depth feedback, and department, practice group or firm-wide meetings or retreats. Bottom-up (from associates) and cross (from other partners or colleagues) reviews are recent additions to the array of law firm/law department feedback systems that try to provide senior lawyers with that critical awareness.  Other tools are practice group, partnership and client surveys, particularly if the surveys are followed up with face-to-face discussions. 

Unfortunately, giving and receiving written and person-to-person feedback strikes many lawyers as bordering on, if not squarely in, the realm of useless touchy/feely psycho-babble. Yet it is a skill that should come easily to lawyers.  Rigorous analysis and clear communication, particularly in identifying issues and crafting resolutions, are the stock-in-trade of what we do.  Why then is it that lawyers so resist using these potentially powerful tools in their own practices?

Feedback and the Half-Empty Glass

The wrinkle here may well lie in other personality attributes that lawyers often possess.  First, as a group, lawyers score high on resistance to feedback-- they get defensive and don't listen, or lash out with their point-by-point answers.  Part of this response derives no doubt from years of advocacy thinking-- every point deserves a good counter-point.  The high esteem that lawyers tend to hold themselves in-- another trait that serves them well when under attack from opposing counsel-- also feeds the inability to hear "criticism." 

A further attribute that may well contribute to lawyers' disinterest in feedback is their inherent pessimism. Martin Seligman, a University of Pennsylvania psychology professor who has been a leader in the development of the field of positive psychology over the last ten years, identified lawyers, in a survey of 104 careers, as the most pessimistic.  While researchers can argue whether that attribute makes lawyers likely to be more or less accurate in their assessments of legal situations, it does make them, as a group, more resistant to "new" policies or procedures, and more likely to think that remedial steps are of dubious value. 

"Peanuts" and You:  Cashing in on a Valuable Commodity

I was recently in the student center of a large suburban high school.  In a deja vu from a "Peanuts" cartoon strip, a teenage boy sat behind a hand-written sign that said "5 cents -- I'll tell you what I think of you."  Beside the sign was a very large pile of nickels.  An enterprising kid was demonstrating what a valuable commodity honest feedback is. 

Lawyers have the skills and the opportunity to cash in on that valuable commodity.  As lawyers, we can begin our leadership effectiveness program right there:  by simply learning something about ourselves, we can start accessing a whole new array of potentially useful tools for enhancing our practices and our lives. 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

Ronda Muir, Senior Consultant, led a two and a half day retreat at the end of May for UNICEF's 22-person Armenia office to help them better serve the country's children.  She was engaged to improve teamwork, communication and conflict resolution and to assist in the office's preparation for upcoming reviews and its transitioning to potential structural and policy changes. 

Through the use of individual and team MBTI work style reports, personal conflict style assessments, emotional intelligence tests and a confidential office-wide survey, Muir assisted the team in identifying personal and office strengths and challenges and in determining strategies for improved communication, conflict management and change management.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

Ronda Muir, Senior Consultant, has been asked by UNICEF's Armenia office to lead a two and a half day retreat at the end of May to help improve teamwork, communication and conflict resolution. Through the use of individual and team MBTI reports and emotional intelligence assessments, Muir will help the team identify personal and office strengths and challenges and determine strategies for improved communication and conflict management in order to better serve the country's children.

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

In connection with the 129th annual International Tradmark Association meeting in Chicago, Ronda Muir, Senior Consultant, presented a program on Wednesday, May 2, at Robin Rolfe Resource's Women's Power Breakfast for seventy senior corporate and law firm women in intellectual property.   Her presentation focused on what makes lawyers, and women lawyers, different from other professions and how to use those differences to make good lawyers better.  This year INTA welcomed over 8,500 registrants from around the world.

 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

Give yourself the advantages that insights from sophisticated behavioral science tools and informed collaboration can produce.  Out of ideas for how to motivate your team?  Can't take another day with a difficult boss or colleague?  Strung out from too many committments and not enough time?  Looking for a meaningful way to both practice law and live your life?

Achieve improvements in your professional and personal life, including progress in leadership and management skills, work/life balance, conflict management, business development and time and resources management. 

Our experienced lawyer coaches use their expertise and assessments to give you the tools to maximize your strengths, raise your emotional intelligence and social IQ, as well as benefit your bottom-line results.  You choose the program that best suits your needs and schedule.

For further information, contact RMuir@RobinRolfeResources.com. 

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

Ronda Muir, Esq., Senior Consultant at Robin Rolfe Resources, was featured as a speaker at a conference on Risk Management for the Modern Law Firm, sponsored by ARK Group. The conference was held in Chicago on April 17 and 18, 2007. 

Muir's presentation was on the risks that arise in managing a law firm's greatest asset: its people. She pointed out the ways in which lawyers are different from all other professionals, the challenges and risks that those differences pose to management, and how to use those differences to make good lawyers better. 

Participants raved:

• "Innovative, new information!"
• "Excellent, new material of real value.  I would love even more detail and time on this topic."
• "Great presentation!" 
• "Great speaker!  Knowledgeable and forward thinking."

ARK Group also lauded Muir's participation: "Your involvement was pivotal to the success of the program… and brought a fresh perspective to the agenda."  

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link

One difference in Dewey and Orrick, and perhaps the biggest one, that may lie behind their inability to get in bed together is their management structures. Adhering to the old school, white-shoe model, Dewey management is accomplished by a rotating "good lawyer" who is engaged primarily in what (s)he wants to do and, one might argue, does best—lawyering. According to a January 22, 2007 Wall Street Journal article, Dewey Managing Partner Morton Pierce spent 3,300 hours last year on billable client work, or an average of 12.6 hours every weekday, raising the obvious question of how much time, if any, he spent on management. "Management is not my passion," Pierce admitted. 

Orrick, on the other hand, is managed by Ralph Baxter, Jr., who hasn't practiced law since 1992, and who spends his annual 3,300 hours-plus on firm-wide town-hall meetings, informational web casts, and on-site and in-person office and partner meetings, exhibiting what David Wilkins, director of Harvard Law School's Program on the Legal Profession, calls "the epitome of 21^st century law-firm leadership." 

While those in academia may have easily come to that conclusion, in the industry trenches what constitutes the best firm leadership is still very much open to debate. There are plenty of issues raised by the 3-5 year rotating model vs. the long-term model, including the impact on long-term vision and strategy and succession planning, that we won’t go into here. But the even narrower discussion about whether firms should have full-time or part-time managers, regardless of their length of tenure, can start to sound positively moral, with both sides claiming rectitude. 

The word that crops up is "professional." One of the Dewey partners supports the part-time manager concept because someone "who practices is more tuned into the professional philosophy." And if that's not clear, Cravath's managing partner, Evan Chesler, also a part-timer, points out that "the law is a profession—not merely a business." (Note the "merely.") 

Of course, managing partners who enjoy only short terms would be foolish to give up their clients and cutting edge expertise for what might be a short round in management hell. Their “professionalism” is another word for survival. On the other hand, they are right that lawyers respect no one as much as another lawyer: what managers lack in management skills they may be able to make up for with sheer lawyer-to-lawyer hubris: my book beats your book.

Continue Reading...

• Email This
• Print
• Comments
• Trackbacks
• Share Link