Building a genuinely trusting, collaborative, integrated culture—where
one does not exist—is among the tallest of orders that a firm
can face.  Since control over clients is such a key source of
power, client-hogging and the individualistic behavior it encourages
are temptations difficult to avoid.  But this is, as we know,
a short-term perspective, and not one aligned with the firm’s best
interests over time if it wishes to be a collegial environment sincerely
welcoming of professional development and offering clients "best
of breed" practitioners across all specialties.

The difficulty, of course, is getting from here to there.

One highly plausible response (which I borrow from the estimable
Michael Mills of Davis-Polk) is:  "Don’t waste your time!  If
your firm’s not collaborative, you cannot fix it.  Go somewhere
else." 

Of course, that is precisely what all too many people do when they
find themselves in a hostile, constricting environment of mutually
independent partner "silo’s;" they leave.  This has
predictable malignant effects on client service, as they experience
turnover, new and unfamiliar faces who are newly unfamiliar with
the client’s history and issues, time-consuming, expensive, and
resented learning curves, negative karma (yes, I believe it does
exist—positive
and negative both) from lawyers who feel marginalized at their own
firm, and [complete the spiral of negativity here]. 

An intervention is called for.

But by hypothesis, those with power have gravitated towards this
dysfunctional behavior; in practical, hard-headed terms, what can
be done?  This
piece recommends what’s effectively an end-run.  Use
the clients’ perceptions of the firm, determined
by surveys and openly discussed internally, to motivate change.  I
have said before, apropos such topics as moving beyond
the billable hour, that firms will resist change until clients
visit it upon them, and I believe the same observation is apt here.

One must still, of course:

• share the clients’ perceptions across all levels of the firm,
  not just partners or not just lawyers;
• recruit powerful and credible evangelists to lead the charge;
• believe, have
  faith, and persevere that change is possible;
• follow up; and
• reinforce the effort through publicizing small victories.

But the end result, as characterized by one who’d been through this,
is as simple and powerful as can be:  "satisfied clients and
motivated lawyers."  Sounds worth the journey to me.