Flexible and Part-Time Working

Feature

posted 8 Feb 2001 in Volume 3 Issue 8

Flexible and Part-Time Working

Peter Cooke, managing partner of Theodore Goddard argues that all firms have much to gain by ensuring that they attempt to lure back the increasing number of trained lawyers who have left private practice and indeed the profession, and furthermore, that the techniques applied by the successful flexible worker can contribute to best practise elsewhere.

One of the key issues facing medium- size law firms, especially those in the City, is recruiting and retaining lawyers at all levels of the quality needed to provide the service standards that clients demand. The largest firms have a seemingly insatiable appetite for recruits, and we face the continuing challenge from the chequebooks of the US firms. We are thinking about salaries in the next round at the same time as our clients, aware of law firm profitability, are keener than ever to ensure that fees are controlled properly for many categories of work. We compete for excellent lawyers with firms prepared and able to pay much higher salaries than we do. Is it a competition in which we are doomed long-term to failure? I believe not.

So it as essential to properly differentiate ourselves in the recruitment market as it is in the market for our services. One strategy that works well for my firm is to focus on the work/life balance. It is perfectly possible to be an ambitious and effective lawyer in addition to having a home life and outside interests as well. Not only is it possible, but I believe that we should encourage this in the interests of the firm as well as its clients.

Clients do notice when the lawyer they have instructed is grey with fatigue and ready to drop. I know at least one who has moved work from one firm to another for this very reason. The long-term health of a firm as well as its partners and staff can be underpinned by ensuring that working hours are kept under proper control and that working very long hours as an end in itself is not rewarded. Lawyers, as is the case with other professionals, will not innovate to deliver more efficient client service if it is perceived that the main trigger for reward is excessive hours on the clock. Would motor manufacturers have developed computer diagnostic techniques for the cars they produce if garages could charge hourly rates for servicing and repairs?

And, of course, the law - the Working Time Regulations 1998 - seeks to control working hours by capping them at an average of 48 per week and imposing rest-breaks and weekly days off. Under the opt-out negotiated by the UK Government it is possible for employees to waive their rights, which do not in any event apply to partners (other than employed salaried partners). We took the view early on that we should not seek opt-outs, because it would be inconsistent with our overall philosophy, which is that continuously working long hours and weekends should be avoided. This does not of course mean that we do not demand commitment where it is necessary. We do, and it is given. In certain practice areas where the work is by nature transactional there are peak workloads that do require long hours - for example, our flourishing projects practice.

We know, though, that in the recruitment market many very high quality lawyers are themselves seeking a proper balance between work and their life outside work, which makes firms that share that view attractive to them. We should also recognise, as a profession, that our recruitment crisis has in part been caused by making the practice of law attractive only to those willing to grind away at the paperface (screenface perhaps) for periods of time that would make a Victorian chimney-sweeping business seem like a health farm. I know one lawyer, now a successful and highly-paid in house lawyer in a bank who was driven out of private practice by being made, immediately on qualification, to work 28 weeks non-stop (no weekends off) usually until the early hours of the morning. And, to be frank, the writing is on the wall in the universities. Private practice is not nearly as attractive to law and other graduates as it was even five years ago.

We all know, I think, how few women stay the course in comparison to the number who enter the profession as trainees. And Law Society statistics for 1999 also tell the tale. Women now make up over 35% of all solicitors with practising certificates. In 1998/99, 53% of admissions to the roll were women and there are now more women than men in the profession aged under thirty. However, proportionately more male solicitors were partners: over two thirds of women in private practice were assistant or associate solicitors. This discrepancy in status is not just because of the comparative youth of women solicitors. 85.5% of male solicitors in private practice with10-19 years of experience were partners compared with 60.5% of women with similar experience. For many who have families, the time demands eventually make it impossible to continue. So there is a large pool of quality lawyers lost to the profession, some of whom continue to work full or part-time as information or professional support lawyers or in other supporting roles. If the male/female balance in recruitment continues this talent drain will accelerate.

It should not be forgotten than many men, and increasingly, younger men, want to spend time with their families. They are now supported by the law. Parental leave rights were introduced by the Maternity and Parental Leave Regulations 1999 made under the Employment Rights Act 1996, which came into force on 15 December 1999. In broad terms, parents are now entitled to up to 13 weeks unpaid leave before a child's fifth birthday. Again this applies only to employees and not partners.

Need it be like this? I don't think so. At a time when recruitment and retention of staff is key to satisfying unprecedented levels of client demand, firms that embrace the idea of flexible working for partners and fee earners will have a competitive edge in the recruitment market. Of course there are difficulties and some firms have found it impossible to make flexible arrangements work.

The need to provide client service is paramount and especially where transactional work is concerned it may not be practical to apply a consistent pattern of part-time work. Most child-care arrangements are themselves limited to a regular pattern of hours and is often not possible to alter this except at disproportionate cost both in terms of money and disturbance to the children.

So what can be done? First, firms can seriously look at flexible working, especially part-time work. And again, employment law provides a regulatory backdrop. The Part-Time Workers (Prevention of Less Favourable Treatment) Regulations 2000 came into force on 1 July 2000. They prohibit discrimination against part-timers. This is not the place to go into detail, but it is worth noting that although the 2000 Regulations do not give the right to a full-timer to opt for part-time work, these provisions coupled with the sex discrimination legislation do impose on every employer the duty to consider whether, for example a women returning from maternity leave should be afforded the opportunity to work part-time for a period if requested.

Our experience is that more senior lawyers can very effectively combine part-time work with a full fee earning contribution, especially in a role where the effectiveness of the fee earner is in managing the client relationship and delivering the service through the work of others is a key indicator of success. For example, a lawyer with strong client relationships, good IT skills, effective delegation techniques and the loyalty of more junior staff - and above all the same commitment as a full-timer - can perfectly well run a commercial property practice profitably turning over the same fees as a full-timer. This may sound a paradox: how can someone not putting all those wonderful hours in be as effective as a full-timer? Well, for one thing the truth is that having a limited amounted of time to spend at work makes a fee earner results-orientated rather than getting satisfaction out of extending the working hours. Such an individual is far more likely to find smart ways of achieving goals that don't involve a long time spent with the nose to the grindstone. I believe we should try and get all lawyers to think in this way. How can this job be done more quickly than before, achieving the same or a better result and perhaps even being able to charge the same price? You can see from the way that this is phrased that it has a rather broader application than those who choose to work part-time.

I have identified some preconditions to achievement; firstly, strong client relationships. So many lawyers I come across tell me that the only way they will keep client X is if they personally provide the service: drafting, negotiating, billing, talking to the other side, probably pouring - even making - the coffee for meetings. If they cease actually to do any of these things the client will immediately take the business elsewhere. The good lawyers at a senior level of course understand that their task is to deliver the service to the standard required at the right time. A client - and as managing partners we are also clients of accounting practices, head-hunters, and myriad other professionals - does not mind who does the work as long as it done to the standard demanded at the time required. Those whose time is limited are forced to understand this point and deliver or die. A very good business reason for not rewarding time spent.

My second condition is good IT skills. Of course these are necessary to be competitive, ensure good client service and deliver that service efficiently and effectively. Vital for the fee earner working sometimes in the office and sometime from home, for shorter hours than previously. But this applies equally to the full-time non-flexible staff.

Delegation is another skill we pay lip service to but, in my experience, so rarely do effectively. "It's no use delegating this because it is too complicated/too sensitive/will take longer to supervise." But those with limited time who manage work are the most effective delegators. The people with the biggest practices - or the effective flexible workers - know this to be true and apply what they know day in, day out. Think of the power you could unleash in your firm if you could spread the message.

My final precondition is the loyalty of more junior staff. Our most successful lawyers, pretty well without exception, know how to stay in touch with, train and motivate those who work for them. Every firm worries about turnover. It is instructive to analyse turnover by reference to individual partners or senior lawyers. You will probably find that the rates vary hugely within the firm. If everyone could be brought up to the standard of the best, retention worries would be a thing of the past. And again the successful, time strapped, flexible fee earner at a senior level understands this more than most, because the key to performance is getting this right.

So my conclusion is that all firms need to consider how they can improve their ability to tap into to the vein of available trained human resource that does not necessarily see partnership prospects and/or a 2500 hour chargeable year as the ultimate goal in life. If we can do that successfully and make the conditions right for such people to thrive then there is no reason why we should not spread the message out more broadly. The goal is a more profitable practice for the same number of fee earners. We are not seeking to create 'girlie' jobs for the few but to find ways of delivering better more productive legal services to the benefit of fee earners, clients and the firm itself.

Peter Cooke is managing partner at Theodore Goddard. He can be contacted at 150 Aldersgate Street, London, EC1A 4EJ