Challenging behaviour now culturally acceptable in law firms

Law firms accept behaviours which corporates do not

It has become culturally acceptable for law firm partners to challenge the authority of senior partners in ways that would not be tolerated in the corporate sector, new research has shown.

“Partners are professionally trained as lawyers to be challenging in an effective way,” says Ian Jeffery, managing partner at Lewis Silkin.

“As co-owners of the business, alongside anyone in the managing partner role, sometimes they do wish to exercise those skills and, even if they can be about relatively small things, it’s symbolic of the fact that at the end of the day it is a partnership.”

“My own experience has been a happy one in that those kind of challenges are occasional and the partners here are supportive and trusting of the management team,” adds Jeffery, who is on Managing Partner’s editorial board.

The joint study on decision-making in professional service firms in the UK and Canada was carried out over 16 years by the Novak Druce Centre for Professional Service Firms, based at Oxford University’s Saïd Business School, and the University of Alberta’s business school.

It has revealed that partners, as co-owners of their firms, feel entitled to go as far as vetoing management proposals, even if they are strategically beneficial to the firm as a whole.

Partners also tend to use arguments centred on protecting long-standing client relationships, service levels and professionalism as an effective means to derail unpopular initiatives, even when none are in danger of being compromised, says the study.

“It is surprising that decisions get made or enacted at all,” says Professor Tim Morris, who is co-heading the research.

“When you consider all the factors at play, particularly the diffusion of power within PSFs, the firms could potentially be paralysed and their strategic progress undermined, especially in the largest firms where there are hundreds of partners,” Morris adds.

The research has highlighted that managing partners are vital in tackling the inherent tensions and building consensus among partners, although their authority is essentially negotiated with the partnership as a whole.

“Many of them are led by particularly effective leaders who are skilled monitors of the political atmosphere within the firm, broker agreements across factions and build the necessary consensus,” says Morris.

“Like good politicians, these leaders are strong negotiators, often with a flair for rhetoric and a reputation – especially internally – for integrity. These attributes are critical for their success in a uniquely challenging organisational setting,” Morris continues.

But David Pester, managing partner of TLT, says these attributes are vital for MPs in building consensus. “I think it would be foolish not to engage people in their hearts and minds about what you’re trying to achieve, in the end it’s all about motivation and delivery.”

Managing partners also need a breadth of business skills in areas such as finance and marketing, but these aren’t always easily developed through mainstream legal practice, suggests Jeffery. “The need for consensus building and operating as one of a number of partners is what, at the end of the day, gives leadership of a law firm a more unique twist,” he says.

According to the research, while some firms are taking a more corporate approach to management, peer control and self-monitoring under the traditional partnership model still prevail.

Pester says that, within TLT, he has the delegated authority to run the business and implement strategy. “As far as possible we empower staff to make decisions in line with our overall strategy. However, if there’s a disagreement or there needs to be a resolution of conflict, then I’m the ultimate arbiter of that, except for very few limited circumstances where I would have to go back to the full equity partnership.”

“Ultimately, everyone in this decision-making matrix has a part to play in saying how the business delivers its service. If you get disconnect, you get an inconsistency of approach at best; at worst, you’ll get disengagement, and the firm won’t work. So it’s really important to ensure that everyone is regularly informed of what’s going on,” says Pester.

For more details on the study, see Handbook of Decision Making, eds Paul C Nutt and David C Wilson, 2010.