Case study: Global counsel – the ultimate sinecure?

A number of firms have recently revisited the way their lawyers’ careers are structured. Appointment to Linklaters’ role of global Counsel demands a strong business case, but also provides privileges for those with the ambition and potential for partnership.

By Jill King, HR director, Linklaters

In May this year we announced the appointment of 31 senior lawyers, from 12 countries and 13 practice areas across the global network of Linklaters, to the position of global Counsel. To many the significance of this announcement may have been lost. To others it may have appeared to be yet another attempt by a law firm to find the Holy Grail – an alternative to partnership. In fact this was a significant step in the development of our market-leadership ambitions and our global talent strategy.

It goes without saying, but is worth emphasising, that for a firm of our size and global reach we need to adapt our business model to a variety of commercial situations and markets. As well as working in mature markets in well-established areas of business, our global clients are increasingly pushing into new frontiers with complex business challenges to solve. They have the highest expectations of us in terms of service delivery, cutting-edge thinking and our ability to field teams of experts across practice and geographic boundaries in a seamless timely manner. This means that traditional business models don’t necessarily fit all circumstances. The way we organise ourselves and our teams (often on a virtual basis) have to be constantly adapted and flexed to serve markets of differing sizes and maturity in an efficient and profitable way. At the same time our ambitious, highly-talented people rightly expect that they can, and will continue, to develop their careers, learn new things, and take more responsibility as their experience grows. And for many, if not all, of course the prize of partnership remains the career goal. At times these expectations can appear difficult to reconcile, particularly in a firm like ours where, as you would expect, the bar for partnership is set at a high level.

Learning to lead

To understand how the global role of Counsel fits into our strategic thinking it is perhaps helpful to focus on the drivers for change. On the one hand we recognised it takes longer in some areas, and in some practices, for the business case for partnership to be fully realised. We also recognised that in many situations we need to support highly-leveraged partners with senior associates, who not only have the expertise and capability to share some of those leadership responsibilities traditionally undertaken exclusively by partners, but also needed recognition of their status and roles in a more formalised way – both internally within their teams, and externally with our clients. It seemed to us there was an inherent mutuality in developing senior roles with real leadership responsibilities, both for us to continue to develop our practice, and for our associates in providing another potential career-step across the firm. To be clear, we already had a number of lawyers in different offices of the firm with the title of Counsel or consultant. The opportunity we chose to seize was to revitalise this status; to clarify and reinforce the responsibilities that went with it; and most importantly, to introduce global coherence and a consistency of standards in our approach.

Coherent criteria

We therefore set about establishing the criteria that would form the basis of a business case for Counsel appointments. This inevitably involved a great deal of consultation with partners in different countries and practice areas. The first objective was to ensure that at local, regional and global levels there was consensus the emerging criteria were sufficiently rigorous. But just as importantly, the criteria needed to provide a coherent framework that could be applied consistently across the global firm – at the same time as being flexible to differing business circumstances.
This was not an easy task. Not surprisingly, it took many months of discussions to reach consensus. This was a topic on which most partners had strong – and often opposing – views, as well as different personal experiences to draw upon. The debate, however, was an important, valuable and necessary part of crystallising the concept; distilling it into a practical set of recommendations and ensuring that we had acceptance of the rationale for the new approach and the benefits it would bring.

The debate resulted in a set of recommendations to the firm’s Executive Committee (ExCom) that covered the business rationale for change; the nature of the role of Counsel and its responsibilities; proposals for the quality threshold of individuals considered for the role; and, crucially, a set of firm-wide business-case criteria. These included the need for a senior associate either to head up or co-head a practice area; and to be in an area of exceptional expertise or in a highly leveraged group or an emerging market where the business case for partnership was developing. We also introduced a business-case template for sponsoring practice groups to highlight the criteria satisfied by each case, which were then considered and agreed by one of the three global-divisional practice heads that sit on ExCom.

Alongside the development of a global set of business-case criteria, we also focused on establishing a consistently high-quality threshold for senior associates proposed for these roles – the personal case. We agreed candidates needed to have the highest levels of technical expertise as a pre-requisite, but also needed at least one other area of strength at partner level in terms of client relationships, knowledge management or people leadership. A rigorous selection process was put in place, which necessitated a partner from another practice area satisfying himself that each candidate had the requisite skills and qualities for the role and responsibilities attached to it. In London this included an interview with a partner from our partnership election committee.

Information and involvement

The more cynical may believe that the final outcome is just a new badge of seniority without real meaning, but this could not be further from the case. The specific responsibilities relating to the role – for particular client relationships; a specialist practice; know-how; or team supervision – were an integral requirement of the business case and had to be demonstrably different from the normal expectations of the role of our managing associates.

In addition, to underscore the status and importance of the role, we have introduced rewards and privileges in line with the responsibilities of Counsel and our expectations of them. This includes invitations to practice-group partner meetings, access to practice-area information previously preserved for partners, and involvement in business planning and decision making in their respective areas.

The inevitable question arises. Is Counsel an alternative career path to partnership? In fact it is neither a necessary precursor to partnership nor an alternative to it. Rather it is a meaningful role in its own right that brings benefits to the firm and how we serve our clients, as well as recognising in a consistent and real way the enormous contribution made by Counsel to the firm and to our clients. The path to partnership will very much depend on the business case for the appointment, and the need for a partnership business case to be fully developed and on individual merit. We fully expect, however, that some Counsel will to go on to partnership in time. For those that don’t, we believe the roles they play will be rewarding and developmental in themselves; will enhance their leadership skills; and provide role models for more junior lawyers to aspire to.

Jill King is HR director at Linklaters. She can be contacted at: jill.king@linklaters.com