The UK’s The Lawyer has a weekly poll, which as typically
befits such "reader candy" items is usually trivial or gossipy, but
this one got my attention:
"Last week we asked: The Lawyer revealed this week
the
resignation of White & Case’s London head on the basis that
"a significant fee-earning role and managing the London
office were incompatible". Should managing roles be left to
non-lawyers?
"Yes 64%
"No 36%"
Unscientific, of course, but if roughly two of three already endorse
the notion of a professional layer of management, mightn’t an enlightened
campaign to persuade the rest be in order? Starting from the
premise that rainmakers are best left to doing what they do best?
Moreover,
the qualities that make for the crème de la crème of
the legal profession – extraordinary thoroughness, a focus on spotting
all the issues, exhaustive research, a high degree of risk aversion, an
utter inability to risk being wrong – are pretty much a short catalog
of all the qualities a successful businessperson will not embody.
Alternatively, one can take the DLA Piper route and recognize that
if lawyers are to manage, they could benefit from immersion in some
Harvard Business School executive education. A current
article discussing
just this initiative—for which DLA is sincerely
to be commended—repeats the erroneous assertion that this is
a first. Actually, Reed Smith struck a similar deal with
the Wharton School nearly
a year ago. While noting that law firm management is increasingly
professionalized, the writer makes this odd observation:
"Management skills are not just about analysing spreadsheets.
As with any business, running a law firm is about people skills first
and foremost. Which means getting the best out of a highly talented
workforce. That is the biggest challenge for any law firm leader,
and some business schools with regular intakes of relatively aggressive,
egocentric investment banker types forget that."
Pardon me? Since when are the leaders of the AmLaw 100 shrinking
violets, and since when do investment bankers have a lock on the "aggressive,
egocentric" personality type?
All in all, a confirmation of what I’ve been writing about now for
more than awhile:
Driven by the size and complexity of today’s multinational firms, management
at a senior level is more than a full-time job, and we can use all the
help we can get.
