Opinion: The King is dead ‑ long live the King!

By Jeff Gillingham, director, SSG Legal

So your managing partner is retiring and a successor seamlessly takes over. You wish!

A succession plan must be in place for your key positions. In a small firm, the managing partner should have an identified replacement. In a larger firm various department heads should be included in your plan – and don’t forget the practice director.

It is often argued that decisions can be delayed until months, or even weeks, before the retirement of incumbents, but this does not work consistently enough to protect partners’ investment.

There are lots of reasons, common across most organisations, to have strategic succession plans – continuity, focus, stakeholder buy-in etc. However, law firms have additional complexities that add further dimensions. They have partnership tensions where owners and executives work and function together in the same operating model. They have strong cultures, which are often physically tangible as well as being cherished, encouraged, polished and talked about as if they were living and working in the next room. Also, don’t forget the sub-culture. Known in the consulting profession as the Ku-Klux-Klan, it is an underworld populated by the knockers, know-alls and kibitzers.

The problem is that culture eats strategy for breakfast. Appoint a successor who is counter-culture and you are heading towards trouble.

So is succession planning an impossible task? Not if done properly. In this era of change and pending Clementi reforms, a move towards a corporate structure will help. Empowering executives and encouraging equity holders to think like shareholders will provide a more precise management structure. Adapting and ratifying job descriptions is important. You must start planning now, involving as many people as possible. Identify required skills and experience, and look for ways to hand over responsibilities gradually.

Incidentally, while you are doing all this you should be redefining how you pay and reward these people. Perhaps the old way will not fit the new people or the new times.

You should recognise that the legal industry is changing. You need people who are going to adapt and manage change. They might not be the best lawyers or fee earners but they will be the people who have a vision for your firm so it will flourish in the new world.

Jeff Gillingham is a director of SSG Legal a consulting practice that specialises entirely in the legal market. Services include recruitment, mergers & acquisitions, organisational realignment and productivity management. He can be contacted at jeff.gillingham@ssglegal.com