A manager of the law

There’s no mistaking the lawyer in Anthony Barling, managing partner of Finers Stephens Innocent, as his eyes twinkle when he describes solving clients’ problems. But does he have the management potential to drive forward the firm that he now describes as a business? Caroline Poynton finds out.

Anthony Barling agreed to a profile feature on one condition: that it wouldn’t all be about him. Conducting a profile interview is tough when the star character is apparently so unforthcoming, but his reluctance makes sense when you start talking to him. Despite coming across as calm and confident, as he relaxes back into his chair, he is peculiarly shy when it comes to describing his own achievements. He even breaks off on a couple of occasions to say that he feels uncomfortable talking about himself, before steering things back to the firm as a whole – its people, culture, successes, failures and challenges.

He has every reason to be proud of the firm’s success of late, with recent figures revealing a remarkable 45-per-cent increase in profits per equity partner in 2003-4. And, as he explains, success boils down to a whole range of things: “We had partners doing better, high-profile work in media and property, the corporate team really started to get on with it, and we had a really good employment and private-client department.”

Neither is his approach to management such that he would blow his own trumpet. “I’m a firm believer that it is rare for somebody to be a good manager who wants to score the goals,” he says. “Your goal scoring is creating an infrastructure and environment where people can be successful – when they are, you know you’re doing your job well.” He also seems to have little time for the charismatic leader, saying that when that edge dulls or the leader leaves, the question arises as to whether the entity can retain its strength. “If I disappear under a bus tonight, the firm should be able to carry on without me, because the strength is nothing to do with me,” he says.

Much of this sounds like the typical lawyer approach to management and leadership, that is, by consensus rather than force. Like many lawyers, Barling came to the profession as an alternative to big business. Starting out on his career, he disliked the hierarchical outlook of the corporates of the time, when an employee’s career grade could be instantly spotted from the curve of the desk or the reach of the carpet across the office floor. Times have changed, and such companies are long gone, but certain constants remain. In a partnership structure of a law firm, this is leadership by democracy and agreement. It is an approach that has kept many law firms afloat through good times and bad, but firms have also grown and many have found that sheer size has made the partnership ideal unrealistic. Ironically, it has become necessary for many to absorb the lessons of big business, where strong leadership and central management is essential to driving through profit, and where the managing partner must be given the authority to act and make decisions, even in the face of internal resistance.

In keeping with such evolution, Barling talks with pride about the transformation of Finers Stephens Innocent from a law firm into a business, but is reluctant to assume the responsibility for the change. In fact, at times his move into management appears strange. In his early career in law, he worked for many years at Hextall Erskine, where he got involved in a number of management areas. In 1994, however, when he left the firm to join Finers Stephens Innocent, he recalls the joy of being able to focus purely on law, with no management responsibilities. Even now, having once again taken on the gauntlet of management, he looks forward to returning to client work. And when he talks about practising law, his eyes light up. “I don’t think I’m ever going to tire of the problems and opportunities that clients bring in. Advising them is just real fun,” he says. “It’s difficult to describe – the challenge of coming up with a contract, working through it methodically, and securing a deal that’s crucial to the client’s business.”

There could be a sense that Barling has somehow fallen into management, not just once, but twice, with no particular yearning for it. Indeed, in his general career, he admits that he has often found himself in positions that he hasn’t planned for. For example, when in his 20s he agreed to help a homeless trust on a pro bono basis, but, in fact, ended up chairing it for years. This propensity to take things as they come makes him similarly non-committal about likely future developments at the firm. Hence, he agrees that the firm should have a good idea of where it is going, but he clearly hates ten-year plans, the bread and butter of the DLAs of this world. Putting it simply, Barling is not a man for flashy mission statements, either on a personal or firm-wide level. Rather, he seems to be the epitome of the lawyer – keeping his cards close to his chest, while he “observes what is going on, before deciding how to proceed”. The question is whether this approach is sufficient for leading a 21st century legal practice.

Much as he would like to present himself as the lawyer at heart who does nothing more than aim at creating an environment for success, there is another side to Barling. It comes across in the charming and informal manner in which he conducts the interview, as he demonstrates a keen interest in every question or comment, and manages to convey the impression that this is the most important meeting of his day.

He mentions that it was actually his wife who saw he had an aptitude for management, a conclusion she based on his instinctive and natural ability to deal with people. As a lawyer, he loves working with clients, a sentiment that gives sense to his progression into management, where dealing with people on a day-to-day level is an essential requirement. He also appreciates that he has qualities that distinguish him from lawyers. “If you’re the kind of person that has to weigh everything in the balance before making a decision, then you’re going to struggle,” he says. “If you’re also the kind of person that needs to know every last fact before acting, which is typical of many lawyers, you won’t cope.” It is an outlook that says a lot more about a person who is prepared to take on the role of leader and decision maker than he will himself admit.

Neither is Barling soft. When he took the role of managing partner in 2000, his simple goal was to significantly improve profitability. He, and a core group of partners, wanted to take the firm forwards in terms of the nature of the work, clients and people in the firm. Judged on recent figures, it’s hard to deny that the efforts have paid off, but Barling admits that it was necessary to be hardnosed. “To move things forward, we had to talk to some lovely, good lawyers who needed to change to fit the model,” he says. He also had to get all lawyers to think in a much more team-oriented manner. “There were some publications saying that we were like refugee types, which wasn’t true, but we had to look at the necessity of doing team work, so that, in simple terms, work could come into any part of the firm and be referred to any other,” he says. “We’re much closer to that now than we have been.”

Far from believing everything is about consensus, Barling maintains that the most challenging aspect of the managing-partner role is driving things forwards and having confidence that the firm is going in the right direction. “Not everyone buys into that and there can be different views. It’s not that I want to be proven right – it’s just that you have to be able to say ‘no, these are the things that will make it happen’,” he says. However, as managing partner, he has to balance this with a flexible approach, so that he can deal with unknown quantities such as valued people leaving the firm.

In recent times, the most publicised loss to the firm has been in the property department, which has lost six partners in the space of a year, a potentially serious dent in what is the firm’s highest-grossing department. Barling is reluctant to discuss the intricacies of the partners’ departure, but he refers to the rise in turnover and profits in the property department over the past year, which points to the firm’s ability under Barling to absorb such change to the benefit of the business.

While Barling must take credit for some of the successes of his team, he will, of course, hate this profile. Having requested a piece that looks at the firm as a whole, this article has done remarkably well at focusing on him as its managing partner. But, while the success of any firm is reliant on the sum of its people, on this occasion, Barling is the public face of that team, and an intriguing one at that, with his particular personality mix. Combining his innate skills as a lawyer and manager, he has so far well navigated the perils of his role, and his natural modesty must have put him in good stead for winning around the hearts and minds of his fellow partners.

In the long term, Barling will undoubtedly go back into law and, with two terms now under his belt, his management role may be coming to an end sooner rather than later. When he does stand down, however, there is little doubt that he will be handing over a stronger entity to the incoming managing partner. He will have also demonstrated that it is possible for a lawyer to become an effective manager, perhaps because of that very ability to deal with clients on a day-to-day level.

As for the firm as a whole, it may not have a complex ten-year plan in place, but Barling maintains that there is a good sense of where the team must go from here. “We need to look at ourselves very carefully to determine where we are, who our clients are, and whether we are offering them the services that they really need,” he says. It’s a simple strategy, but the signs so far suggest that it may just work.