Why do Partners Leave Law Firms?

As an attorney recruiter, I spend my day talking with partners about their motivations to move.  Here’s a short list of the usual responses I receive when I ask them why they are open to hearing about other things:

1) People Issues. This always ranks the highest and usually stems from leadership issues in the firm.  They don’t like the people in the firm, don’t trust them, or both. They don’t feel the support  from firm leadership (which could be just perception) and don’t have the desire to get to know their colleagues better.  So they drop out of firm social events, which hurts the growth of their book even more.  If they don’t like the people they practice with, then they won’t be as apt to receive or give internal referrals.  Remember, people make decisions based on subjective perceptions, not reality.  The perception may be that the firm is cold and harsh, when people are really just busy.  That’s why it’s up to the leadership of the firm to make an effort to actively engage with all partners on a regular basis.  Leadership development provides an excellent solution for this primary motive to move.  Managing partners and other members of the core team must take an active interest in moving the firm forward, articulating the firm values/vision/mission, and above all else, showing that the work of their team makes a different.

2)They don’t believe their current firm wants to help grow their practice.   Sometimes this issue goes beyond conflicts or issues of client ownership.  I’ve heard partners complain that even political party politics gets in the way of them growing their practice.

3) They don’t believe their current firm has the capability to grow their practice.  It could be the inability to leverage work through associates, the quality of associates, or some other limitation that is built within the way the firm is structured, maybe even how it is geographically situated.  In some cases, it could be the firm’s reputation.

4) The size of the firm…it matters. Some people feel their small firm doesn’t have the brand to attract big fee clients or enough partners with whom they can cross-pollenate  the growth of their practices. Others feel isolated and just another small cog in the very large wheel of the amlaw100 and that their work as an individual gets overshadowed by a single rainmaker.

What are the danger signs and early indicators of a difficult partner?

According to Joel Rose, management consultant to law firms, the following are the early warning signs of someone who could possibly cause heartburn and heartache in the office:

• Works too few hours, rendering time spent on clients as unproductive.

• Does not produce adequate revenue, although a hard worker.

• Hoards work due to inability or unwillingness to delegate.

• Readily assigns work, but does not follow-up or provide direction to other attorneys or staff.

• Holds the firm hostage by threatening to leave if things aren’t done “my way.”

• Accepts work that does not generate adequate revenue.

• Has experienced a reduction in, or elimination of, work due to external causes, i.e., loss of client due to merger or acquisition, deregulation, higher interest rates, etc.

• Devotes a disproportionate amount of time to pro bono, bar association, or personal business activities.

• Displays an unwillingness to communicate with other partners on business or substantive matters.

• Will not trust other partners to handle client work.

• Shows an unwillingness to permit others to handle matters in a different fashion.

• Was admitted to partnership and is unable to perform at the partner level.

• Lives beyond personal means and the economics of the office.

• Defends feelings of insecurity by taking every comment and criticism as a personal affront.

• Undervalues work performed and repeatedly discounts or writes-down fees and costs of services.

• Exhibits an excessive fear of losing clients, consequently committing the office to unrealistic timetables, deadlines, or fee estimates.

• Possesses unrealistic economic objectives for the office and for him- or herself.

• Does not recognize personal shortcomings.

• Lacks the ability to adjust to working with others.

• Is a senior member of the office with significantly higher earnings, but less than desired contribution to office profits.

• “Over-lawyers” client work due to lack of adequate volume.

• Manipulates the system by recording substantial fee-producing or billable hours, and then writes off many of these hours prior to billing the client.

• Simply does not work hard enough.

• Will not “cross-sell” or refer work to others within the office.

• With misapplied frugality, will not approve the expenditure of funds for essential items or services.

• Refuses to train associates and younger partners, or communicate with these attorneys, on client matters.

• Exhibits overly aggressive behavior and tends to “turn-off” other partners and clients.

• Lacks a sufficient commitment to the office’s objectives.

• Will not serve as a team member.

• Lacks professionalism within, and outside of, the office thereby damaging the office’s image and reputation.

• Will not share authority or control with others.

• Will not participate in office-approved activities, i.e., practice development, etc.

Rose gives several common sense solutions that firms of any size can implement to resolve the issue or to at least minimize the external damaged caused by a problem partner.  To read Rose’s full article, click this link:  http://www.joelarose.com/articles/difficult_partner.html .  His website is www.joelrose.com.

My son and I visited a book store this week in Asheville, NC, and in this article I will keep the name of that store anonymous. Let’s just refer to it as Starnes and Robles.

The upstairs children’s section has a vast selection of every children’s book imaginable. It’s truly a place of wonder for children, except for the new display of horror books at the entrance. Just immediately to the right of the entrance to the children’s section are two prominent displays of books. One is the Velveteen Rabbit. The other is a horror book whose cover has a little girl in a pretty little white party dress. Her blood-stained hands are neatly folded in her lap, and the contrast of the white dress, her hair in pig tails, and her blood-stained mouth certainly captured my attention. I couldn’t believe that they would put this book display next to a children’s book section. Perhaps it was a book for the macabre teen, but either way it conflicted with the brand they were trying to build for the children’s book section.

Every phrase you say with a prospect or an existing client

will either enhance or conflict with your brand. Every message you leave, every commitment you keep or don’t keep, and even every seemingly insignificant promise such as “I’ll email you the document this afternoon.” If it doesn’t get sent out that afternoon because you were too busy, then this tiny little inaction conveys a signal to your prospect that you don’t keep commitments and it conflicts with the brand of competence that you are trying to build.

As the trend shifts away from regional focus to practice groups in how legal teams are managed, it is important to clarify the roles and goals of the office managing partners and the practice group leaders, especially when they may be on a parallel path.  Law firm management consultant Patrick J. McKenna offers sound ideas in how to define these roles.  Click HERE for his white paper.

Several years ago I was consulting to the founding partner of a professional services firm in New York City. The firm built an established presence in its niche for at least two decades, and had a sizable team of employees well into the hundreds, but it was struggling in both employee morale and retention. During my initial session with my client, I asked him what he felt his purpose or mission was for his firm. “To provide an income to me and the other shareholders.” I asked him if he felt that mission inspired his employees. “Probably not. But it’s not their job to worry about that. It’s their job to get back to work and do their jobs.”

I think we found the reason for the morale and retention problem, I thought to myself.

This client wasn’t the most open-minded individual I’ve ever come across, but finally through several sessions I was able to get him to see how morale, retention, and even operational performance were directly tied to the emotions the employees felt about the impact of their work. If they felt that the only reason they came to work everyday was to fill the pockets of a few rich older guys, then they would eventually quit and go to work at a place that offered more meaning.

My client soon learned that his employees didn’t come to work for everyday for him. They came to work for themselves. We looked at how he offered long term value to his clients, and re-focused the mission of the firm to offer value to others and articulated that among the team.

In the legal world, a managing partner needs to ask similar questions: What is the mission or purpose of our firm? Why do we exist? To practice law, they might say. Well, any law firm can practice law. If that’s all you can see that your firm does the you need to look a little bit further down the road at the impact of what you do, and then search for the meaning behind that. How does your law practice make the lives of others better? How does it make a difference in the lives of those whom you serve?

Kevin Fitzgerald, the managing partner of Troutman Sanders’ office in Washington, DC, says that he leads his office with an approach of building an environment where attorneys become the key trusted advisor to their clients. Through their expertise and counsel, they become indispensable resources for their clients. Because he bridges this gap and articulates that among his colleagues, it infiltrates the culture of the firm and helps to create meaning and purpose in the practice of law. In building this type of practice, Fitzgerald encourages his team to spend non-billable hours to build agenda-free relationships with clients so the relationship is enhanced and authentic and the client is served through that relationship.

When I would consult to my corporate clients, I would always begin my consulting relationship by asking this question: “What business are you really in?” We’re in the staffing business, they might say. One client of mine, a large regional staffing company, found that their entire industry had trained their clients to purchase services purely on price. Their client prospects would purchase staffing services from those companies who charged the lowest. I helped this client to evaluate its purpose, its true value to clients, and uniqueness as a company, and use that sense of unique purpose as a tool to not just add meaning to the the work of their staff, but as a tool to impact their sales process and culture. They found that when their sales team believed in a calling to their work more than just profit margin, they became more passionate in the belief of their work and probed for more opportunities to add value in their client’s companies. The result was that they consistently won business away from cheaper competitors. The whole exercise didn’t just impact employee morale, but it transformed their sales team from price quoting to selling on value.

When you look past what you do and focus on how that benefits others, then you’ve reached a whole new level of organizational performance. If you can align the hearts and minds and energies of your team with a higher calling, a worthy purpose or mission, then you will witness with your own eyes the long term transformation of morale, performance, and retention among your team.

In the next few posts on this blog, I’m going to offer a simple and step by step model that law firms can use to improve their practices.  My series of posts will be posted each Tuesday and Thursday of each week until I run out of ideas.  Check back for updates.  If you have questions about a post I wrote, please email me at scott@attorneysearchgroup.com.

What’s missing from most law firms? Quite a bit, actually.

When I was in my mid-twenties, I started consulting to organizations on leadership development when I was still an officer in the United States Navy.  I would travel around to various Navy commands near the Norfolk area, both civilian and military, and help improve their performance by developing innovative leadership models.  On the corporate side beginning in the mid 90’s, I conducted leadership studies through both my mangement consulting and also my executive search practices.  In working directly with companies to help grow their teams,  whether it was conducting a retained search for a vice president or delivering a keynote at a corporate convention or a retreat with the board, I gave my clients a model of building blocks that, despite their simplicity, are critical for growth.

Values.  Vision.  Mission.

It’s rare to find law firms that understand that legal skills and leadership skills are two separate core competencies.  They forget that these are human beings who need to be led, and that you can push people to a point before they start asking themselves, ‘Why on earth am I here?’

As a legal recruiter, I talk with partners every day about their options.  Every once in a while, surprisingly high at about one in five, I come across a partner who admits a lack of satisfaction with his firm’s practice.  It has nothing to do with the comp plan or the bonus program or the equity share. It has everything to do with something related to leadership.

How do you solve for this problem?  It’s simple and sounds easy, but it’s not.  Leadership is something that can be learned, fortunately, so you have to take time to study it and talk about it and get together as a group and learn it and apply it together.  The concepts aren’t hard to get your arms around, you just have to do it.  And you can’t say you don’t have time.  It’s kind of like saying that you don’t have time to get to the dentist to fill the cavity. It’s painful and sometimes expensive but you sure are glad at the end of the visit.  Contrast it with the consequences of not going and all of a sudden you seem like you can find the time.

Law firms are starting to face that consequence right now.  They scratch their heads and wonder why they just lost a three-partner group to a competitor and if they knew the answer they would have tried to solve the problem earlier.  But they don’t know the answer because their focus isn’t on leadership development.

When recruiting partner level candidates, what I’ve noticed seems to be most intriguing to them is the way I present the openness of my clients’ organizations when it comes to helping others.  One client has a distinct reputation of getting subject matter experts within their office to help other partners without the first question revolving around their percentage. 

Last week I recruited a parnter whose primary motive to move was the inaccessability of his colleagues to help.  For him, the emotional context of the workplace superceded all other motivations, including compensation. 

This isn’t something you can institutionalize.  It’s either there, or it isn’t.  And it’s a descending emotion that starts at the top.  The leadership of the office must intuitively mandate the openness of the office to helping colleagues.  And they don’t mandate it through meetings or memos.  They integrate it into their culture by first acting like that themselves.

The following is an article that I wrote for my recruiter training business (www.GreatRecruiterTraining.com). The whole concept of business development transcends industries and is particularly relevant for attorneys who engage in business development activities, especially with higher level prospects.

Two Myths to Client Development: Client Control and Relationship Selling

There is no such thing as client control.  If you think you can truly control other people, then you should try raising a child.  Or maybe borrow one from a relative for a weekend.  You’ll soon find out that you can’t be the boss of them.  No matter how much authority you exert, they are still in complete control of their own decisions and actions.

When I first started training to the industry in 2003, I questioned the foundational premise upon which our entire industry has been built:  client control and candidate control.   I was the first trainer to come out and admit that it’s all wrong:  you can’t control candidates and you can’t control clients.  If you think you can and are still trying, then you are wasting your time.  I hate to say it, but this is the primary reason why so many recruiters are not successful in our business, and why traditional recruiter training is ineffective.  If it really worked, then everyone would be a big biller by now.

I’ll never forget the last vacation timeshare presentation I attended.  They said it was going to last only ninety minutes, but instead ended up going on for what seemed like an entire afternoon.  The self-obsessed sales rep tried to coax me into making a sizable investment in yet another week of vacation that I wouldn’t have time to use.  His futile efforts of trying to control me were followed by the grand entrance of the clean cut and nicely-scented sales manager, sporting shiny Ferragamos, starched shirt, dapper silk tie, and fancy French cuffs.  Articulate and polished sales presentations based on the bedrock of an empty and selfish spirit may be technically correct in the precision of speech, but if there’s no heart, no connection, no authenticity, and no congruence, then there will be no sale.

“Why don’t I just write a check,” I said to the sales manager about fifteen minutes into his review of what I had previously and repeatedly declined.

“OH! You mean for the vacation ownership package!”

“No, for your commission.  Why don’t I just go ahead and write out a check for the amount of your commission so I can be on my way.  I just get the feeling that’s all you really care about right now.”

They finally gave me parole and I walked away with a vivid and memorable lesson on how not to sell.  If they had found out what was important to me in a vacation, or if they had asked me to describe my ideal vacation, then that would have been a good starting point for them to showcase their value based on my needs, my desires, and my wants.  They would have begun the process of showing me their value, gaining trust, and building a relationship with me.  Instead, they followed a series of trite and manipulative canned and controlling sales tricks and ended up losing a customer.

Most recruiters and sales people believe that our business is built on relationships.  That’s only partly true.  Effective selling and recruiting is based more on the transference of value more than anything.

Look at it this way.  There’s a hierarchy of decision-making that your prospect subconsciously processes when you try to bring them along the path from skeptical prospect to raving fan.

1. First, they look at your value proposition. “What’s in it for me?” they ask themselves, and it’s the question that you need to think about and plan for prior to that sales call. You have to focus on delivering clear and obvious value, whether it’s real or perceived.  A lot of well-intentioned recruiters and sale people spend more time on relationship building with prospects instead of value creation. Your prospects, especially senior level executives, look to surround themselves with smart people who can solve their problems.  They need a problem-solver and value-creator, not another friend.

2. Second, they are looking for people they trust. After they have determined that you are worth having around from a pure value perspective, the next mental box they are looking to check is whether or not they trust you.  Can they safeguard their company’s secrets with you?  Do they know that you will follow through on your promises?

3. Third, do they like you? Finally, we get to the part that’s fun and exciting.  It’s the part that contributes the least to the overall client development strategy, not the most.  Once they determine you are a trusted advisor and provider of value and solutions, then you get the right to come within the circle of trust and start building an agenda-free friendship.  This is where the business gets exciting and heartfelt, and it’s the part that most big billing recruiters relish, but only through this proper sequence of intention.

Instead of trying to control clients, you should try leading them.  Forget about Client Control.  Focus instead on Client Leadership.  Leadership is about serving those around you; it’s about taking people on a journey that ultimate leads to something that gives them a benefit.  It’s about leading them through a series of decisions that ultimately make them better for having known you and deciding to work with you.  And when you focus on this, you’ll never have to worry about having to control anyone again.