Fiveminuteswith...

Last month, Managing Partner reported on the appointment of Jeannine Rupp as director of professional and personal-life integration at Kirkpatrick & Lockhart LLP. As one of the first of its kind in the legal profession, the position reveals much about the changing attitudes in firms to their working culture. Caroline Poynton finds out more about the position and what it means for internal change and productivity.

What is the background to you taking on this role at Kirkpatrick & Lockhart (K&L)?

I was managing the recruitment, professional-development and associate-review process at K&L in New York, when I decided to go to the London School of Economics to do a Masters degree in organisational and social psychology. It was something that I had wanted to do for years and, although it was a very difficult decision to leave K&L at the time, the course was right for my long-term career development.

How did your return to K&L come about, once your degree finished?

I had no idea I’d be returning. On my last day at K&L, our chairman, Peter Kalis, suggested I stay in touch. But the things that I knew that I would be studying, such as human capital and organisational-development issues, had not been embraced in the legal industry, so I had no idea that there would be any opportunity for me to go back to K&L. I contacted Peter shortly before my time in London ended, and discovered that, in fact, Peter and the management committee had implemented many innovative programmes, including creating a chief officer of diversity. Work/life balance, or, as we’re calling it, professional and personal-life integration (PPLI) was also on the forefront of their thinking, so the timing was perfect for my return.

What did you learn from the Masters course that you have taken into your role at K&L?

The course has many similarities with an organisational development/behavioural programme, but it also has a social psychological component, which is all about how individuals in an organisation interact. This gave me amazing perspective on how to approach human capital.

What are the particular pressures that lawyers face in the current marketplace?

Obviously, there is the need to provide client services in an increasingly competitive industry. More specifically, there is now more pressure as organisations become larger nationally and internationally. There also seems to be a movement towards a more corporate model, where lawyers need to be proficient in many areas, such as business development and marketing, and not just the practice of law.

How will you respond to those pressures?

We’re hoping to develop initiatives that raise awareness and support policies and a culture that will help enable a healthy balance of responsibilities between work and personal life. We are going to go about that in three steps, although they work simultaneously and are cyclical in nature:

Gathering information – identifying, understanding and improving working practices and assumptions that have served as traditional barriers to integration in the past;
Collaboration – working with members of the organisation throughout the hierarchy;
Implementation – a long-term commitment.

What challenges do you expect to face?

I try to make opportunities to create change. Obviously, this is a very old profession, which has traditionally been slow to change. Policy is much easier to implement, but unless we have a culture that supports that policy, it will not work. It will be this cultural side that will be a little more difficult to get through, especially in terms of analysing working practices and pulling up underlying assumptions and structures that have been embraced in the legal industry.

So you expect to receive some resistance to your initiatives?

We are very aware that this is something that we may encounter. But that is why we are taking a two-pronged approach, not just looking at policy but also looking at our culture and how we think about our work.

Do you think other firms take this area seriously enough?

The work/life balance is not just a passing fashion, but a business imperative that organisations are beginning to take seriously. As far as we know though, we are the first firm to have a PPPI position, let alone at this level, that reports directly to the chairman and the management committee. I have recently heard of a few firms that have started to develop work/life balance initiatives, but it is often on a part-time basis.

Is there any concern that such initiatives might just distract lawyers from the real job of making money?

I hope not. It’s about improving the quality of working life. Obviously, other benefits include increased productivity and effectiveness, and creating a workplace that reflects today’s cultural mores, for example, its needs for diversity, equality, retention, talent attraction, job satisfaction, growth, and so on.

Jeannine Rupp is director of PPPI at Kirkpatrick & Lockhart LLP. She can be contacted at jrupp@kl.com