Dick Tyler, managing partner of CMS Cameron McKenna (with the coolest law-firm URL I’ve yet encountered), sounds a defense of the firm’s reversion from its foray into merit-based partnership compensation to its lockstep roots, combined with an all-equity partnership system, in terms both spirited and remarkably sane.
Starting from first principles, Tyler reminds us "
that what is important in creating the best firm we can is not our reward system per se, but whether or not we have an effective and functioning system that addresses partner performance issues on behalf of our clients." What does this mean in practice?
- Lockstep enforces a high and consistent level of quality across the board; or, as Tyler puts it conversely, "A tolerant lockstep system is disastrous."
- Because the contribution of the entire firm working together is always guaranteed to be superior to that of individuals working alone, "lockstep achieves fantastic alignment between the interests of our clients and of our partners."
Most importantly, Tyler believes–and I resoundingly second–the notion that lockstep re-focuses the debate away from the frankly selfish issue of compensation for individual partners and squarely back where the founders of your firm would have insisted it belongs: On what’s best for clients.
