There is an interesting article on the Lawyer website today. It draws on interviews with a number of senior lawyers about the past and future of legal practice. The whole thing is worth reading, but I want to comment here on some of the remarks about partnership as the organisational norm for law firms.
When asked “Is partnership the right model for a 21st century legal services provider?”, most (but not all) of the panel responded positively. It was clear that for them, the mode of ownership was causally linked to quality of client service.
Here are some examples.
Chris Saul, senior partner, Slaughter and May:
I do think that the partnership model is the right model for a 21st century legal services provider.
It brings with it the essential coincidence between ownership and management. That means that all of the owners (the partners) are driven to manage the business and the practice in a responsible, thoughtful, progressive and creative way. Once you divorce ownership from management, problems can arise.
I think that clients very much appreciate the partnership approach. They like the fact that each partner is an owner and is thus naturally motivated to provide the best possible service to the client but in a way that means the full resources of the firm are used in support of the service.
Tim Eyles, managing partner, Taylor Wessing:
I actually like the partnership model. It creates a sense of ownership. That in turn creates glue internally and externally; it engages a team spirit in delivering what’s still a very personal service. We should hesitate before dismissing the partnership model, given the nature of the services that we provide.
If it’s accepted that clients want their lawyers to be in effect their business partners and business advisers, the partnership model is flexible and it engages people, which is hard to replicate in a corporate structure where it’s more pyramidic.
John Schorah, managing partner, Weightmans:
[I]t would be misguided to think the partnership model has no role in the 21 century legal services provider. Partnership can be a really empowering tool and if every partner in a legal services provider did his or her job well, and that empowerment is a big part of that, you will have a really successful legal services provider.
Simon Davies, managing partner, Linklaters:
A hypothetical ‘blank sheet of paper/perfect model’ law firm today comes with no guarantee of long-term success tomorrow. Every operating model needs adapting sooner or later and that’s where the real challenge lies.
Such a law firm might do worse than to build an operation that keeps this need for flexibility front of mind and choose an organisational model that is equipped to respond quickly.
I firmly believe that lockstep firms have a real advantage when it comes to implementing lasting change, largely because of the shared ‘team’ objectives that are inherent to that model.
David Patient, managing partner elect, Travers Smith:
For the time being, yes, I think so, although I am sure we will see different types of legal services providers in the future. I am not convinced, however, that in the short term they will compete for the type of work we do at Travers Smith. A law firm partnership should be built on trust, respect and friendship – ours is, and it’s a key component of our culture and our ability to provide the highest quality service to clients.
Later in the article, the panel is very supportive of the work done by their business services people, which started me wondering why partnership is seen as necessary for lawyers to provide good client service, but (in most firms) not so for their colleagues in other areas. Richard Masters (head of client operations, Pinsent Masons) put it most clearly:
Top quality client service is at the heart of the law firm proposition. It’s not possible to deliver that without really top quality business support, be that IT, facilities or knowledge. Unless business services are respected and integrated as a key part of the overall service solution, they cannot provide the quality of support service that’s needed.
In his recent detailed analysis of the top-level firms in New York and London, Bruce MacEwen showed that those firms appeared to be converging on a partnership comprising about 20% of total lawyers. If that figure is replicated across the sector, it is inevitable that four of every five lawyers working with clients are not partners (although many of those will aspire to become partners, of course, and that may affect their outlook). In reality, the figure may be greater than this — the responsibilities of ownership and management may leave less time for partners to attend to client work than their non-partner colleagues. I’d be interested in knowing whether clients really get better service from the lawyers who don’t own the firm. And of course, virtually none of the business services professionals who contribute to client service will even be eligible for partnership.
I am also intrigued by the idea that ownership (or promise of ownership) generates a more client-focused culture. My experience of working with a range of marketing, IT, finance and other professionals has been that they can be client-focused as any partner. And I have seen partners put their perception of the firm’s interests ahead of those of their clients, to the firm’s ultimate detriment.
I think some of the comments above are actually very context-sensitive. Slaughter and May is not a typical law firm, and it is easy to imagine that its partnership motivates its lawyers to perform in a very different way from others. Just because a model works well in one place, we can’t expect it to translate well everywhere else — other factors will play a critical role.
Coincidentally, today I also read a post by Charles Green on the balance between individual and organisational responsibility for trust and integrity. He is clear that there needs to be personal responsibility as well as institutional support.
A proper view of trust and integrity in business would squarely locate accountability on individuals. The penalties for violating rules should be in the range of 3X the ill-gotten gains, not 1X or less. Auditors may or may not be considered accountable for integrity and trust, but they shouldn’t think they can address these issues solely through risk assessment, monitoring and communications – not unless they address whether or not managers are clearly accountable (cf the recent GM mess), and whether or not the sanctions imposed on them for misbehavior are absolutely clear (e.g. swift termination for ethics violations, period).
One of the problems with partnerships is that (depending on the terms of the partnership deed) it can often be hard to ensure that accountability for poor partner behaviour is as swift and public as Charles Green suggests it needs to be. The behaviour generated by a partnership culture is not necessarily all positive.
I can see why firms cleaving to the traditional partnership model need to justify that choice, but the tone of some of the views expressed in the Lawyer article concern me. They almost suggest that any client choosing to work with a firm that is not organised as a partnership will get a poorer service as a consequence. In reality, my suspicion is that service culture is independent of organisational choice. As more different types of professionals become involved in supporting clients, I hope those clients will judge the quality of that work on what actually happens, rather than the way the business is owned.
Mark Gould... 