Law People

Who is the Best and Brightest?

rmuir@robinrolferesources.com (Ronda Muir) — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 13:31:13 -0500

The Grant Study is an extraordinary longitudinal study undertaken in the late 1930s to shed light on "the urgent question of how to live well." As participants, a group of 268 (male) Harvard College sophomores, including John F. Kennedy and Ben Bradlee, were chosen for showing particular promise.

An article interestingly entitled "What Makes Us Happy?" in the June 2009 issue of the Atlantic explores what we might learn from 72 years of following that gifted group.

The biggest surprise may be how unreliable those evaluations at a formative age turned out to be for purposes of predicting future success and happiness. Or perhaps, that in spite of those evaluations, how inevitable stumbling is.

As David Brooks, in his May 11, 2009 editorial "They Had It Made" in The New York Times relates: "Their lives played out in ways that would defy any imagination save Dostoevsky's. A third of the men would suffer at least one bout of mental illness. Alcoholism would be a running plague. The most mundane personalities often produced the most solid success."

Almost as interesting as the study is the man who has been overseeing it for more than four decades, George Vaillant. Vaillant doesn't hesitate to arrive at a familiar yet profound conclusion: relationships are the key to happiness.

Yet the difficulty of putting that dictum into practice is evident in Vaillant's own life. At work, he has proved to be a valued colleague and mentor. On the personal front, things are much more challenging. His father committed suicide, which his mother never acknowledged, his three marriages all ended in divorce and his children describe their home as being a "civil war" and their father as having a problem with intimacy.

There are some other interesting takeaways from the study, which Brooks points out. All the men tended to cope better as they aged. Those who suffered from depression by age 50 were much more likely to die by age 63. Those with close sibling relationships proved much healthier in old age than those without them.

What is not clear is why these particular young men were chosen to participate in the study in the first place. All we really know about them is that their admission to Harvard College at that time meant they were at least reasonably bright and probably the sons of influential and wealthy families. And that someone at Harvard College had a high opinion of them.

Of course, in the 1930s they didn't have access to the bundle of assessments available to us in the 21st century. The "science" of head size and phrenology (the study of bumps on the head) had had its heyday during the prior century. The concept of an assessable intelligence quotient had only recently been introduced; the Wechsler Intelligence Scale would appear a few years later.

What did the Grant Study originators think success in "living well" meant? And what did they think it took to accomplish that? In other words, what specific attributes were they looking for? Might the many different paths that the participants eventually took reflect a lack of a clear vision on the part of the originators as to their concept either of success or its antecedents?

Perhaps Brooks' note that "the most mundane personalities often produced the most solid success" informed another editorial, "In Praise of Dullness," that appeared a week later. There he cited a recent study that seems to point to "relentless and somewhat mind-numbing commitment to incremental efficiency gains" as the critical attribute of successful CEOs. Even if that correlation is in fact relevant (see the comments on Richard Edelman's "Dull Advice," which question its relevance as a broad-based indicator), it seems unlikely that it was young men with that attribute whom the Grant Study originators sought to identify.

Knowing what you are looking for in any selection process is critical. Organizations around the world use sophisticated assessments to choose candidates for employment and advancement based on the competencies, attributes and traits that they have found predict success in their organizations.

Yet we recruiters of legal talent often don't know what we are looking for. At a roundtable two weeks ago on legal hiring, David Van Zandt, Dean of Northwestern University School of Law, entreated law firms to develop a better model for selecting their summer associates. "I've long advocated that firms really need to look at their data... and identify the characteristics that they're looking for in their candidates," Van Zandt said. Now, "you just go out and throw a wide net and pull people in."

In fact, as we've suggested (see our entry "The Outliers of Law--Embracing Heresy "), the single attribute--high class standing--that firms do look for may be the one that could well be jettisoned--or at least modified--with little impact on the quality of legal services.

What the Grant Study does show is that predicting the future course of even a bright young person with a shiny veneer of promise can be difficult. And that regardless of their credentials or intelligence, many are likely to fall to the various vicissitudes of man--mental illness, addiction, relationship breakdown.

So then, what can one do to be happy?

Valiant knows: "Happiness is love, full stop."

Now it's just a matter of implementation.

Spotting and Repairing Critical Talent Breakdowns

rmuir@robinrolferesources.com (Ronda Muir) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 14:55:14 -0500

In the current stressful marketplace, the rate of lawyers' incidence of impairment has been ratcheting up from high (see, for example, our September 5, 2008 entry "The Depression Demon Coming Out of the Legal Closet") to even higher. Firms suffer losses in productivity, morale and recruitment because of impaired lawyers, and also risk client desertions, losses to their reputations and malpractice liability. Let us draw from our extensive experience in this area to help you spot and support critical talent confronting personal distress. We can assist on an individual-by-individual basis or by helping you set up a confidential, effective program attuned to your goals and budget.

The Outliers of Law--Embracing Heresy

rmuir@robinrolferesources.com (Ronda Muir) — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 12:11:58 -0500

Malcolm Gladwell's latest book Outliers, the Story of Success argues that what accounts for success is often not what we expect. High IQs or a prodigious ability in computers or exceptional musical talent is not sufficient to explain Nobel Prize winners and Bill Gates and the Beatles. While a certain level of intelligence, skill or talent may be a necessary ingredient for success, it is not sufficient. Luck, opportunity, hard work, support and training all play important roles. Raw ability--intelligence or talent--is only a threshold. When faced with a class of clever boys, as Gladwell repeatedly points out, knowing one boy's IQ is of little help in determining his standing among the group. Extensive research validating that attitude has led psychologist Barry Schwartz (full disclosure: he was my psych professor at Swarthmore) to suggest that elite schools could give up their complex admissions process and simply hold a lottery for everyone above a certain threshold of eligibility--the "good enough candidates"--without producing a loss in their graduates' accomplishments.

In April 2008 the Indiana University School of Law-Bloomington issued a research paper entitled "Are We Selling Results or Resumes?: The Underexplored Linkage Between Human Resource Strategies and Firm-Specific Capital" by William D. Henderson, a respected authority on lawyers and law firm management who may be in need of better title-writing skills.

Henderson describes the "Cravath system" that Cravath, Swaine & Moore developed in the early 20th century in order to distinguish its legal services: "Hire the best graduates from the best law schools; provide them with the best training, and at the end of a six-to-ten-year apprenticeship, promote the best associates to partner." Ironically, instead of distinguishing Cravath's brand, in fairly short order that system became standard industry practice, hence the run-up in associate salaries when increasing demand over the last 20 years from all those wannabe premier law firms outstripped the stagnant supply of premier graduates.

Included in the "peculiar market dynamics" that Henderson notes as a result of the widespread adoption of the Cravath model is 1) the resistance of clients to having those escalating salary costs passed on to them, resulting in their request that junior associates not work on their matters, and 2) the inability of a large proportion of firms who use this model to simply absorb pay raises that can't be passed on to clients.

So-- Voila, the current standoff between valued-centered clients.and expense-laden firms.

What does Outliers and that very long, obscurely-titled paper have to do with one another? Henderson makes the point that law firms able to deliver high quality legal services at a fixed cost are in a position to reap enormous financial rewards. How to do that? He cites empirical evidence that "within a certain range, differences in cognitive ability, such as I.Q., are uncorrelated with contributions to organizational productivity, and that among knowledge workers, organizational productivity is primarily a function of work strategies that are teachable and trainable." Those conclusions were drawn after evaluating engineers and other high-level service providers.

Henderson points out that young lawyers with slightly less elite credentials are willing to work very hard for less than elite salaries, particularly if they are being trained. These lawyers provide firms with the opportunity through knowledge management, business processes, lawyer training and teamwork to develop "firm-specific capital.--i.e., an asset whose value is unique to the firm because it cannot be removed by departing partners nor easily duplicated by competitors." That is, by engaging "good enough" lawyers and aggressively managing them using the tools that other industries employ to provide high-quality, fixed-price services, a firm can make a name for itself and profitably escape the Cravath model. Both Gladwell and Henderson point to the enormous financial success of Wachtell Lipton and Skadden Arps in the 70s, firms started by unmarketable lawyers who addressed underserved niches.

Howrey has just announced that starting this fall it will be paying first and second year associates reduced salaries in connection with a program of limited billing requirements and supercharged career development. During those years, associates will have intensive training opportunities and be seconded to clients, judges and not-for-profit organizations in order to ramp up their skills. Managing Partner Robert Ruyak "said the new approach is not a way to save the firm money. In fact, he said, it's going to cost between $3 million and $4 million to implement once training costs and the unbilled hours the associates work are thrown in."

"The way we see it though is that it's going to cost more in the beginning because we're creating something from scratch, but once we get going and we start having a group of young, experienced lawyers coming out ready to handle client matters, we're going to turn a profit much more quickly than we would under the old model."

Howrey and the few other firms who have introduced a version of this approach have not said that part of their plan is to hire "good enough" lawyers, instead of the most highly-credentialed, but the effect remains similar--they are paying less for their incoming talent on the theory that those young lawyers will be bright enough to learn the types of skills and service that the firms intend to pin their reputations on.

What's the biggest hurdle here? The hurdle that may keep some firms hesitating is the feared implication that by not paying the top entry salaries, which for decades has signaled the pecking order of firms in recruitment, firms adopting this kind of approach do not have "the best" lawyers.

Perhaps now is the time to embrace the heresy that having "good enough" lawyers is in fact good enough to be successful.

Sotomayor's Qualifications

rmuir@robinrolferesources.com (Ronda Muir) — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 19:05:00 -0500

Regardless of what you think of Sonia Sotomayor's politics, President Obama has touted his Supreme Court nominee as having two distinct qualities that he implies our judges don't always have: practicality and empathy.

What is the likelihood that any such description of her is correct? And on what basis can we make such judgments?

A look at what we know about lawyers' personal styles as shown on various assessments indicates that, indeed, lawyers are most likely to be "high concept" thinkers, or "Intuitors" according to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI). Over half of lawyers are Intuitors, while only 1/4th of the general public are. That type of thinker stands in contrast to those who are more concrete and thus better able to see practical implications--the MBTI type called "Sensors." Almost 3/4th of the general public but less than half of lawyers are Sensors. Perhaps Sotomayor's reputation for being practical arises from her being in that smaller group of more concrete lawyers.

Lawyers are also more likely than the general public to be MBTI "Thinkers" instead of "Feelers," a distinction that recognizes how people make decisions. Thinkers rely more heavily on objectivity--stepping away from the issue, while Feelers are more likely to make decisions using empathy--putting themselves into the scenario to see what it feels like. More than three-quarters of lawyers are Thinkers, while less than half of the general public is. This decision-making style is also the one MBTI type where gender plays a role--about half of men in the general population are Feelers, as are 2/3rds of women. Among lawyers, 4/5ths of male lawyers and 2/3rds of female lawyers are Thinkers. As a woman, Sotomayor has a statistically better chance of being more inclined to empathic decision making.

Armchair psychologizing obviously has its risks, but simply looking at the MBTI odds makes it likely that there is in fact a basis for thinking that practicality and empathy are in shorter supply among lawyers, and therefore among judges, than out in the rest of the world. So regardless of her various policy and political leanings, Ms. Sotomayor might in fact be able to bring those very attributes to the Supreme Court bench.

Muir a Panelist at ALAS General Meeting

rmuir@robinrolferesources.com (Ronda Muir) — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 17:22:12 -0500

Ronda Muir will be a featured panelist at the annual general meeting of the Attorneys' Liability Assurance Society (ALAS) in Quebec City, Quebec to be held June 25-26. ALAS is the premier provider of professional liability insurance for large law firms in the United States, currently insuring 237 firms. Muir will discuss lawyer personality, firm culture and other aspects that impact risk particularly in the context of mergers and lateral hires. Over 250 loss management and managing partners are expected to attend.

Muir's Article on Lawyer Impairment Republished

rmuir@robinrolferesources.com (Ronda Muir) — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 15:39:40 -0500

Muir's September 5, 2008 entry on "The Depression Demon Coming Out of the Legal Closet" has been published in the Spring2009 newsletter of Virginia's Lawyers Helping Lawyers, a 20-year old non-stock corporation endorsed by the Virginia State Bar, The Virginia Bar Association, the Virginia Trial Lawyers Association and the Virginia Board of Bar Examiners.

What We Can Learn from the HOGS

rmuir@robinrolferesources.com (Ronda Muir) — Thu, 21 May 2009 18:54:16 -0500

"In times of drastic change, it is the learners who will inherit the earth. The learned will be perfectly positioned for a world that no longer exists." Swarthmore College's 2009 Lax Conference's keynote speaker Richard Teerlink started his presentation with this quote from Eric Hoffer.

Teerlink led Harley-Davidson's fabled turnaround, fueled in part by his belief that people are the most important resource in any company. Teerlink was CFO, CEO, and Chairman of the Board of Harley-Davidson during the time it went from the stepchild of a public company to private ownership by 13 managers carrying $40 million of debt to its reemergence as a public darling again.

How did they do it? At the time of HD's privatization, the Japanese dominated the motorcycle industry, and HD's board had to make some tough decisions: they laid off 40% of the workforce--all at once, Teerlink points out, so that fear would not weaken the remaining group; cut compensation of the rest of the employees; killed an expensive new development project; reduced their dealer network; asked suppliers for reductions; eliminated all the Senior Vice-Presidents so that responsibility would be pushed down further in the ranks, with more direct reporting to top management and fewer silos; and collaborated with employees, dealers and customers to enhance the HOG experience.

Teerlink says that as with all major shakeups HD made some dumb decisions but learned to reverse course quickly. An advertising campaign was launched that honestly acknowledged past weaknesses and promised owners a different experience. And the company delivered.

Teerlink emphasized to HD employees that they were not selling machinery, but an emotional experience, one that offered entertainment and a community. Thus the HOGS--Harley Owners Group--was born, with networking, social events and riding support (fly and ride, for example) offered nationwide.

The premise that "people are an organization's only sustainable competitive advantage" drove Teerlink's transformation of HD. His book, "More Than a Motorcycle: The Leadership Journey of Harley-Davidson," chronicles how he brought that premise into reality.

At a time when law firms are facing some of the most challenging marketing conditions of all time, we might do well to learn a few things from the people who brought us the HOGS.

Muir Participating in CCM Audio Conference on Associate Compensation

rmuir@robinrolferesources.com (Ronda Muir) — Mon, 18 May 2009 11:44:56 -0500

Ronda Muir is participating in an audio conference on Thursday, June 11, at 2pm presented by CCM on the topic of Retooling Associate Pay: Key Strategies to Adapt to the New Economy. To register, go to http://www.c4cm.com/lawfirm/associatecompensation.htm.

Seafaring through the Recession of 2009

rmuir@robinrolferesources.com (Ronda Muir) — Thu, 14 May 2009 15:04:25 -0500

In the April 20, 2009 issue of The New Yorker, James Surowiecki recalls that during the Depression (the one in the 1930s) Kellogg and Post, but primarily Post, dominated the cereal market. In response to uncertainty, Post reined in expenses and cut back on advertising. Kellogg, on the other hand, doubled its marketing budget. “By 1933, even as the economy cratered, Kellogg’s profits had risen almost thirty percent and it had become what it remains today: the industry’s dominant player.”

During hard times, Surowiecki points out, most businesses act like Post in order to preserve what they have. “But there’s a trade-off: numerous studies have shown that companies that keep spending on acquisition, advertising, and R. & D. during recessions do significantly better than those which make big cuts.” They also maintain those gains well into recovery. “[R]ecessions create more opportunity for challengers, not less.”

Why do most businesses insist, then, on pulling back? Surowiecki suggests the uncertainty that so dominates recessions makes any business outcome calculations unlikely to be reliable. Unable to gauge risk, managers forego the gamble.

Certainly there are managers who risk “sinking the boat” by boldly forging ahead, but there are others who “miss the boat” by failing to do so.

Three Degrees of Influence

rmuir@robinrolferesources.com (Ronda Muir) — Thu, 07 May 2009 15:14:24 -0500

How far does your influence reach? The February 2009 Harvard Business Review reported research by Nicholas Christakis and James Fowler indicating that while all kinds of behavior and attitudes spread through social engagement, with each additional degree of separation a person's influence progressively diminishes. Those beyond three degrees of separation no longer exert influence. For example, a person is 14% likelier to be happy if his or her friends are happy, 10% likelier if the friends' friends are happy, and 5% likelier if the friends of those friends' friends are happy. By the fourth degree of separation, there is no longer any increase.

What this means in the organizational setting is that firm-wide buy-in--necessary for effectuating change, sustaining a culture and steering a strategic path, among other things--requires that the message permeate the organization to a greater extent than we might have earlier thought necessary.

In smaller firms, top management has to personally and effectively persuade at least one-fourth of the firm, on the assumption that the personal involvement of that quarter with those around them will effectively influence the others. In the biggest firms, management must carefully calculate where the spheres of influence are and reach into those various groups to recruit ambassadors who will then bring the message to those within each circle, so as to eventually impact the whole firm.

Particularly given the recent growth in firm size and increase in tiers, relying on the simple top-down approach means that the management committee may not reach far enough across or down to effectively enlist everyone. The result can be alienated groups--young associates, non-equity partners, even senior partners--who haven't gotten the word and make firm goals doubly hard, if not impossible, to reach.

This research, like others, emphasizes the importance of personal relationships in cementing the cohesion of a firm, regardless of its strategic direction. While not all firms can afford a managing partner who devotes full-time to firm management and individual relationships, those firms who can't should carefully ascertain that managers and their surrogates are engaging all components of the firm.

Building Teams that Work

rmuir@robinrolferesources.com (Ronda Muir) — Fri, 01 May 2009 19:29:17 -0500

Collaboration in the form of teamwork may be the 21st Century's technology, in that it promises strides in greater productivity--but only when done well. It can also veer from chaos to constipation. David Maister's famous article Are Law Firms Manageable? questions whether lawyers can make the transition from "a managerial approach based on partner autonomy to new approaches that can create a well-coordinated set of team players." Well, can we?

After seeing double digit increases in firms that have implemented team systems--management, marketing, industry and client teams--and an increase in work satisfaction among team members, an initial question many interested law firms have is how to go about setting up and managing teams. Luckily, research provides some guidance that can help firms successfully achieve productive teamwork. The following is a summary of Muir's presentation on effective teamwork at Swarthmore College's 2009 Lax Conference.

In 1965 Bruce Tuckman, an organizational psychologist, established modern team theory, refined most recently by Dr. Susan Wheelan, professor of Psychological Studies and Faculty Director of the Training and Development Center at Temple University.

The stages of teamwork, according to these models, are 1) forming, 2) storming, 3) norming, and 4) performing. The forming stage, even among lawyers, can be marked by tentative and polite accommodation. Unsure of their roles and the leader's competence, team participants need the leader to be clear, directive and highly structured during this first stage. This is not the time for a consensual "Well, what do you think we should do?" approach. Also, if you have the luxury of choosing team members, choosing those who are different from each other in their attitudes and skills and who are able to articulate and, when appropriate, stick by their opinions produces the best mix for a team. See our entry Promoting an Effective Board or Management Group for additional discussion of what attributes to look for in team members and how to promote their best contribution.

During the second, storming stage, the politeness wears thin and team members, particularly lawyers, will test the leader and stake out their positions with each other to determine what their authority and parameters will be. Conflict is often a result. This is a positive development. Handled well, the team will learn from experience that it is safe to engage in conflict, and that issues can be settled without lasting acrimony or division, even if it requires agreeing to disagree. This is the basis on which trust and respect is established. Leaders are often criticized during this stage (and sometimes asked to step down) as much because of their role as because of their personal attributes or performance. Leaders who can keep from reacting defensively will avoid exacerbating and prolonging this stage, which, being awkward and uncomfortable, helps propel the group to resolve their differences and move forward into the next stage. Leaders should emphasize during this stage the importance of keeping debate, which is useful, focused on the issues and not the personalities involved.

During the third, norming stage, based on the higher level of trust achieved during the 2nd stage, the group's goals are revised and a division of labor, with clear roles, is determined. The problem in law firms is that often lawyers don't make it out of stage 2. Tenacious about protecting their authority and unwilling to trust those in a leadership role or those to whom work must be delegated, these lawyers can keep the team locked in unnecessary meetings and conflict, which may feel to them more like sport than discomfort. Yet it is only in stage 3 that delegation becomes effective and the individuals are freed up to do their part of the team's work.

Stage 4 is performing, which is the highly productive stage that teams are made for. At this point, if members are added or removed, or the goals or delegation changes significantly, the team may regress back to an earlier stage and have to work its way through the process again.

Goals that are most amenable to team accomplishment are ones that require collective action, i.e. those which no one person could accomplish on his/her own, and that are meaningful, even inspiring. The most effective teams have an emotional commitment to the goal, so framing goals as being in the individual team members' interests is vital.

Team goals should be specific, measurable and attainable, with a real deadline that allows the team's work to culminate in a completed project. Ongoing timeframes make it difficult to maintain team motivation and momentum.

Ideally, team members spend about 75% of the team time on accomplishing their tasks and 25% on participating in the team process, i.e. attending status meetings, maintaining group relations and performing housekeeping tasks. Procedure can be important. For example, lawyers are largely introverts who need time to formulate their opinions, so distributing an agenda in advance of a meeting and not requiring decisions to be made at the meeting allows them to both prepare for discussion and come to a reasoned conclusion afterward.

OK everyone, team up!

Running From the Law

rmuir@robinrolferesources.com (Ronda Muir) — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 08:57:48 -0500

In the final tranche of a triad of bad news over the last few weeks, two recent reports--one about associates and another about partners--point out how, despite the current abysmal employment market, there are still lawyers of various stripes who, given the chance, would choose to jump overboard rather than hang on to their position.

In a recent New York Times article, it was reported that Skadden Arps had offered all of its 1300 associates worldwide the option of taking a year off for one-third pay, with no pro-bono obligation. One hundred twenty-five associates opted in, a number that a partner was quoted as describing as "in excess of our expectations."

The Lawyer reported April 14 that CMS Cameron McKenna, a large English firm, in a makeover termed a "Magic Roundabout" because of its spiral design [the English are into monikers: Linklaters calls its remake "New World" and Clifford Chance has settled on the term "size and shape review"], offered all of its 160+ equity partners the opportunity to move to non-equity status. Sixteen partners stepped forward, more than managing partner Duncan Weston said he had expected.

There is no denying that much is changing in the structuring of firms on both sides of the pond, and these two firms are among those riding that wave. The interesting note in both of these reports is that management remains surprised at the number of lawyers who, in spite of perilous times, would rather step away or down than stay at the helm. Unfortunately, it speaks to the still prevalent but now less obvious dissatisfaction that was manifest in the massive attrition rates of only 18 months ago.

When things get back to normal (yeah, right) and probably even before then, firms still have to tackle the issue of how to attract and keep the loyalty of their talent--since that is what in the end makes for a successful law firm. In spite of, and perhaps also particularly in the midst of, the rush to distribute pink-slips, let's not let that particularly item fall off our "to-do" list.

Life Without Lawyers: Taking It on the Chin

rmuir@robinrolferesources.com (Ronda Muir) — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 08:47:05 -0500

A well-known investment banker confided recently that lawyers are partly to blame for the financial meltdown. Why, apart from wanting to deflect the responsibility to someone other than bankers?

The reasoning was that, particularly with the advent of Sarbanes-Oxley, lawyers have become such an integral part of the business process that their bias toward risk-aversion has seeped into the bones of corporate decision-making, making those decisions technically compliant but shortsighted from a policy and business standpoint. Life without lawyers, or at least life with fewer lawyers, according to this highly-respected viewpoint, would improve business and the economy.

Covington & Burling partner Philip Howard arrives at a similar conclusion for somewhat different reasons. He contends in his new book "Life Without Lawyers" that a fear of litigation has stricken many of America's industries, including both health care and education, paralyzing doctors and teachers, among others. "It's as if everyone has a little lawyer on their shoulder whispering in their ear all day long," he says. Howard argues that the economic crisis presents a needed opportunity to overhaul the legal system. With an activist president and a Congress controlled by Democrats, he sees major structural changes on the horizon.

"An essential component to making anything work that's broken is rebuilding the legal infrastructure," Howard says. It's harder to change the rules in times of prosperity, he says, but the challenging times ahead could initiate just such a reset.

A recent series of front-page New York Times articles reports that worker-compensation programs, designed to fairly and efficiently compensate workers for workplace injuries, is neither: bureaucratic gridlock and expense have resulted in a high-cost system for employers that is slow and inefficient in compensating deserving employees. Who is to blame for these problems? Lawyers. Both those working inside these programs and those on the outside who made a "fair and efficient" alternate system necessary in the first place.

Finally, if you are not already doubled over from guilt, a Talk of the Town entry by Jane Mayer in the April 13, 2009 issue of The New Yorker recounts the research of English barrister Philippe Sands into the activities of the six Bush Administration officials, including William J. Haynes II, former Pentagon general counsel, who are being sued this week in Spain for the torture of Spanish citizens at Abu Ghraib. Sands' conclusion: "I've got a particular bugbear about lawyers. If not for lawyers, none of these abuses would have ever occurred."

So there you have it. Not only are our finances in disarray but our reputations and future prospects are sinking faster than a rock.

There is no doubt that data shows that lawyers are more risk-averse, analytical, pessimistic, short-sighted and zero-sum out-to-win-oriented than their business contemporaries/clients. Those same attributes often are what makes them good lawyers--able to see and remedy highly technical compliance and other problems that others cannot and win verdicts for their clients in a zero-sum justice system. But, as with all good things, there are also downsides.

One challenge that lawyers are going to have in the new age dawning is to refashion in a major way at least the perception and probably also the reality of their impact on business and the economy. The (very) old perception of lawyers as trusted advisors has given way to something closer to that of self-interested leeches who manage to rain on everyone's parade while siphoning off a percentage of GNP.

As always, it is the balance that is key. Lawyers can genuinely assert expertise in a number of areas that business people need and lack. And lawyers should be compensated for that expertise. And certainly lawyers are obligated to take stands to protect their clients and to avoid allegations against themselves of malpractice or furthering crime. However, maintaining respect for the business process, even when it differs from how lawyers would do it, structuring your practice (and your fees) so that reaching the goals the client sets is the driving force, remaining cognizant of the lawyer's role of delivering services rather than achieving dominance-- these are changes of attitudes easier advocated than done.

How to accomplish those changes is not found in any class any of us took in law school. A careful look at each firm's practice, its values and its strategic plan--and how those influence client service and associate and leadership development on the ground, rather than just in classrooms--is a critical first step to finding the appropriate balance.

Are You Kind or Competent?

rmuir@robinrolferesources.com (Ronda Muir) — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 21:37:56 -0500

An article by psychologist Amy J.C.Cuddy in the February 2009 issue of the Harvard Business Review reports that we make fast assessments of people on two bases: their intentions and their competence. And more importantly, we assume one is related to the other. This response is evolutionarily linked, she argues, to the advantage of quickly determining whether an unknown person 1) is friendly or hostile and 2) can follow through on their threats or promises.

Unfortunately our assessments are often marred by biases that produce faulty judgments. For example, we have a bias towards the elderly as being incompetent but non-threatening.

In the business world jungle, these instant assessments can carry long-term consequences, particularly if they are inaccurate because of poor perception skills (a common problem area for lawyers) or individual biases. Inaccurate assessments can lead managers to trust untrustworthy associates or undervalue potentially important people. They can also undermine efforts to build effective teams and retain valuable employees.

Which One Are You?

For our work with lawyers, the more important finding of the research is that people see "warmth" and "competence" as inversely related: a surfeit of one ("She's SO nice") is believed to imply a deficit in the other ("She probably can't stand up to a board"). For example, employees who are consistently perceived as "warmer" are also viewed as less competent, with the practical result that employees who are mothers are often demonstrably underpaid and under-promoted.

While lawyers as a group are not usually at risk for being rated high on the warmth scale, leaders who know the importance of interpersonal relationships, and particularly women, often struggle with portraying to clients and colleagues the "right mix" of warmth and competence, fearing, just as the research tends to show, that too much of the former undercuts the perception of the latter.

There is some trepidation in telling lawyers not to be too warm--certainly there are those who would argue there is little risk there. Yet, particularly at a time when, rightfully, the legal world is exhorted to value and praise and build relationships, knowing how to do that practically without impairing the legal product produced, either in actuality or in the perception, is important.

Our advice has long been to bifurcate these two parts of leadership: warmth is important and should be directed toward individuals, while critical analysis should be directed toward issues, not people.

Whether with clients or colleagues, inquire about the kids, rib them about their diet and praise them for their recent efforts, but when you review the business product, do not stint on hard analysis. In both conflict resolution and decision-making research, similar findings make it clear that too pervasive an effort to build cohesion can overwhelm the validity and productivity of the underlying endeavor. The hard but important work of critical give-and-take can be mortally blunted by attempts to be "nice."

In order to improve our judgments and others' perceptions of us, Cuddy suggests that we also spend time working to reeducate ourselves and our employees away from the savannah influence: don't be too quick to make judgments in these two areas, and do not assume that kindness and competence are mutually exclusive.

We're Not Getting Smarter Either?

rmuir@robinrolferesources.com (Ronda Muir) — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 17:55:25 -0500

In another blow to our already wilting sense of competence, the UK reports that according to research from the Centre for Market and Public Organisation, lawyers surveyed there who were born in 1970 (now climbing the legal ranks) have lower IQs than lawyers assessed in 1958 (and now either in very senior management or already out the door). Lawyers in the older group scored 11% better than the average, while the younger group were just 8% more intelligent.

The comparison to the average fell for most other vocations as well, with an average drop of 1%. Doctors, teachers, bankers and stock brokers all moved closer to average intelligence, while artists, engineers, scientists and journalists became more intelligent compared to average IQ scores, the research found.

One pauses over the long-term evolutionary implications.

Than again, surely there's a way to view this trend chauvinistically. These results are only for the UK, right? Without any official comparable data in the US, we can comfortably surmise that we in the US retain our IQ lead over the masses. On the other hand, with all the cross-Atlantic trafficking in lawyers that has gone on lately, the Brits might argue that this is just another example of the net brain drain of allowing Yanks to work there.

In any event, we hear the murmur of senior lawyers everywhere saying "I told you so."

Muir to Participate in Swarthmore Lax Conference on Entrepreneurship

rmuir@robinrolferesources.com (Ronda Muir) — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 20:39:27 -0500

Ronda Muir will participate as a panelist and breakout leader in the Jonathan R. Lax Conference on Entrepreneurship on Sunday, March 29, 2009 at Swarthmore College in Philadelphia. The topic of the conference is "Building a Strong Enterprise: Critical Skills for Successful Entrepreneurs."

Keynote speaker Richard Teerlink led Harley-Davidson's fabled turnaround, fueled in part by his belief that people are the most important resource in any company. Muir will address "Developing High Performance Teams: understanding the dynamics and characteristics of high performance teams and the critical success factors needed to take teams from forming to performing status."

Muir to Lead Audio Conference on Leadership for the Downturn

rmuir@robinrolferesources.com (Ronda Muir) — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 09:58:05 -0500

On Thursday, March 26, at 2:00 pm EST, Ronda Muir will lead an audio conference sponsored by the Center for Competitive Management entitled "Turning Lawyers Into Leaders: How to Survive the Economic Slide." The discussion will cover who leaders are, what skills and attributes they should have in this economic climate and how to develop them. For more information and to register.

Law Schools, Applicants and Graduates on the Move: Grades, Money and Fire

rmuir@robinrolferesources.com (Ronda Muir) — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 09:35:08 -0500

In a review of law school news, applications are holding steady but expected to go up, tuition is up, letter grades are being changed to pass/fail, big law firms continued through 2008 to hire apace, law schools are having it out with the ABA over accreditation, and then there is the case of the graduate who burned his Harvard Law School diploma.

Applications. Although a few law schools, including Duke, surging 4%, and Penn, rising 6%, and the D.C. area schools mentioned below, have seen increases in the number of applications, according to communications director Wendy Margolis of the Law School Admission Council, law school applications nationally have risen by less than 1% from last year, despite the dismal state of the economy. That compares to a 17.6% increase in the national law school applicant pool in 2002 following the 2001 recession.

A bigger surge in law school applications may come next year, she says, since the economic debacle striking so late in 2008 limited the ability of many applicants to apply in time for this year’s spring decisions. However, the higher cost of law school tuition today and the limited availability of loans also may be discouraging potential applicants.

Certainly the number of students applying to D.C.-area law schools has surged as the economy sunk. George Washington University Law School’s applicant numbers are up 8%, the University of Virginia School of Law’s applicants have risen more than 10%, and Georgetown University Law Center has received 12% more applications than last year.

Andrew Cornblatt, Georgetown’s dean of admissions, says the law school pushed its deadline back a month to March 2 to accommodate last-minute applicants coping with lay-offs and other bad economic news. His office received roughly 1,000 applications on Feb. 2 and Feb. 3 combined, a sign that people were rushing to get in before the original deadline.

Tuition. Most law schools are raising tuition for the 2009-10 school year by 3% to 15%. Stanford Law School, for example, announced a 3.75% raise and Saint Louis University School of Law is raising tuition by 3%, less than its traditional annual increase of 5%.

Budget cuts in some states are forcing public law schools to debate tuition increases. In Missouri, Governor Jay Nixon has proposed no tuition increases if the legislature doesn’t cut the higher education budget.

Ellen Suni, dean of the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law, where annual tuition and fees total about $15,000 for in-state students and $29,000 for those from out-of-state, tuition went up 3.8% last year. Tuition hikes reflect increases in competitive faculty salaries and library expenses that have gone up by more than 10% each year, she says, even though the school has done some cost cutting, such as instituting a hiring freeze.

Albany Law School announced that it is freezing tuition, currently $38,900, for the 2009-10 school year and plans to increase scholarships as well, even though annual giving is anticipated to be down by 10% for the year. Said Thomas F. Guernsey, president and dean, in "these particularly uncertain times, we want to do what we can to make it easier for students who are incurring all this debt." The school is also considering various cost-cutting measures, such as reducing the number of speakers and their travel costs, temporarily halting courses that have only a few students, and converting paper copying to electronic storage.

On the other side of the pond, three of London’s leading law schools are increasing the cost of both their Legal Practice Course and Graduate Diploma in Law by an average of 9%.

Grades. Several leading law schools are retooling their grading policies, with some making major revisions. Harvard Law School and Stanford Law School, for example, are switching to pass/fail systems, which Yale Law School has used for decades. And New York University School of Law now allows professors to give more A's. Columbia Law School says it is also reviewing its grading systems.

The changes are being made to create fairer evaluation systems and to better convey students' accomplishments to employers, educators say, although it’s hard to see how a switch from grades to pass/fail accomplishes either. Other advantages cited by the law schools are incentives to professors to conceive innovative course work, reducing grade anxiety of students and providing a fairer comparison of students.

"I think each school has to look at their culture, their own pedagogy, their own curriculum and make a decision for themselves what works best," said Michael A. Fitts, dean of the University of Pennsylvania Law School. Since 1995, the school has given traditional letter grades and sees no need to change that, Fitts said.

The University of Chicago Law School and Northwestern University School of Law said that they have no plans to change their letter grade-based systems. The University of California, Berkeley School of Law uses high honors, honors and pass designations and has no intention of changing that policy, said Stephen D. Sugarman, a professor at Berkeley. "When you have a less refined grading system, people who are employing your graduates are going to make distinctions, but they'll make them on their own grounds," he said.

Hiring. Despite the economy, the nation’s biggest law firms—the NLJ 250-- hired roughly the same percentage of graduates from the top 20 schools in 2008 (54.6%) as they did in 2007 (54.9%). And the quality of hires arguably went up: those firms also hired 5.3% more graduates than in 2007 from their favorite schools among the top 20. Columbia was at the top of the list of schools sending the highest percentage of graduates (70.5%) directly to NLJ 250 firms, and Boston University School of Law rounded out the bottom with 41.2% of graduates going to those firms. Yale Law School fell from the top 20 list for 2008 primarily because it sends so many, roughly 40%, of its graduates to clerkships.

The hiring statistics make it clear how hard it is to change direction mid-stream for big firms, which usually operate on a two-year hiring cycle and extend offers to most summer associates.

Compressed JD/MBA. Yale announced recently that it is adding a joint juris doctor and master of business administration program for completion in three academic years. The offering is in addition to the school's existing joint J.D. and MBA program that takes four years. Yale is not the first to offer a J.D. and MBA in three years: Indiana University School of Law — Indianapolis and Northwestern University School of Law also do.

Accreditation. Northwestern University is leading a charge to revamp the criteria that the American Bar Association follows to grant U.S. law schools accreditation.

Outgoing Northwestern University President Henry Bienen has sent a letter to 35 other law schools asking them to sign a statement that urges the ABA's Council on Legal Education and Admission to the Bar to stop stipulating employment terms at law schools. Bienen explained in the letter that the ABA had threatened to revoke his law school's accreditation because it did not provide tenure to its clinical faculty and law library director. The demands were ultimately dropped, but the letter contends it was "an attempted infringement on our authority to govern our institutions." With supporters on both sides, the issue is dividing the law school administration community.

Burning Your Diploma. "Jack," a self-described, anonymous, 30s-something lawyer in D.C., who graduated from Harvard Law School has caught the attention of many in the legal field. He blogs in Adventures of Voluntary Simplicity about giving up the material excess associated with corporate law for a simpler life . Last year he burnt his diploma in a YouTube display and in spite of the economic environment has announced that he intends to leave his $300,000+ legal position.

In an ABA Journal Q&A, Jack said he “realized that a great deal of my self-worth was tied to being a Harvard law grad. Burning my degree was just a way to continue this process of simplification. I still have fond memories of Harvard. But, ultimately, I want to live my life on my own terms without needing a piece of paper to justify my own worth.”

“I went to law school because I didn't know what else to do with my life. I had a vague sense that I wanted to work in the public interest field. In the end, I was seduced by the prestige of the law schools that accepted my application and by the opportunity to make a difference. And then the reality of incurring $120,000 of law school debt plus the allure of making a six-figure salary changed everything. By the time I left Harvard, I had already bought my first $1,000 suit.”

“After years of working 12-hour days, giving up countless weekends and canceling vacations at the last minute, I just had enough. I eventually realized that I was slowly losing my life, one billable hour at a time. In the end, it makes no sense to trade 90 percent of your waking hours for a chance to buy expensive clothes, be seen at fancy restaurants, and indulge in all sorts of excess. More recently, a friend of mine was diagnosed with terminal cancer. There is nothing like being made aware of your own mortality to help you focus on what truly matters: family, love and friendship.”

“I've been taking small, deliberate steps since last year to simplify all aspects of my life. Thus far, I have decluttered my house and have arranged for the sale of most of my furniture. Up next--leaving my job, selling my house and taking some time off to figure out next steps.”

Muir Discusses Downturn Management with Patent Law Firms

rmuir@robinrolferesources.com (Ronda Muir) — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 13:40:18 -0500

On Wednesday, March 25, at 12:30 pm EDST, Ronda Muir and Robin Rolfe will lead a round table discussion of "How Progressively Managed and Adaptive IP Firms Can Gain an Advantage in a Down Economy." Sponsored by the Association of Patent Law Firms (APLF) as part of its Brand of Excellence series, this program is offered at no charge and to members only. Additional information can be obtained by contacting admin@plf.org.

Innovation during the Downturn

rmuir@robinrolferesources.com (Ronda Muir) — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 22:10:21 -0500

Innovation may be coming to law firms the hard way—prompted by crippling economic conditions. As pointed out in our entry “Fearing Fear“ on February 9, a natural reaction to the downturn is fear, which often neurologically prompts “pencil counting,” or furiously holding on to whatever you still have. Fortunately, if you push through the fear, there is the possibility of another response, and that is creative innovation. So far there are not any major revisions to the business model, to be sure, but at least there are some spasms of change.

Law firms are notorious lemmings, hesitant to do anything everybody else isn't doing. But in this downturn firms are starting to take more individualized approaches to managing their businesses, particularly with respect to reducing their largest expense: compensation. Reducing compensation costs through across-the-board associate salary and bonus freezes, delays, or cuts, jettisoning practice groups that are not deemed profitable or imposing layoffs have been the most common steps taken. Another approach is a reduced hours work week--targeted, across-the-board, or by invitation to those who want a period of work-life balance that errs on the "life" side. Even “furlough,” a fancy corporate word for temporary unemployment, is appearing in the downturn vocabulary of law firms, with the promise of holding on to talent for when business returns.

Pillsbury, one of the firms whose layoffs were outed by Above the Law because of a partner's indiscreet cell phone conversation on a commuter train, has preempted those layoffs with a “voluntary departure plan” for lawyers who want to leave of their own accord.

But some firms are also paying new associates to arrive later, to work at public or non-profit organizations, or to be seconded to clients, a move that can cement wobbly client relationships.

Another approach is to manage compensation by changing or expanding tiers. A number of firms have de-equitized partners and quite a few are considering thinning their non-equity partner ranks by moving those attorneys into different tiers.

WilmerHale is putting more steps firm-wide on its attorney ladder. To the titles of associate, counsel and partner will be added senior associate, special counsel, senior partner (for those approaching retirement) and senior counsel (for partners practicing beyond normal retirement age). Co-managing partner Bill Perlstein hopes the move will increase flexibility and allow attorneys a greater choice for their career path. Given increasing attorney preferences, particularly among Gen Xers and Yers, for more personal control over their schedules, additional tiers, if announced and managed thoughtfully, can help create a more satisfied, productive team.

Partner compensation is often the “untouchable” at firms, but even there, change is in the offing. Chicago firm Much Shelist Denenberg has announced a temporary across-the-board 10% pay cut for all lawyers, partners as well as associates, through the end of its fiscal year. Sharing the pain can promote those firms that pride themselves on their egalitarian treatment of all lawyers.

Patton Boggs recently announced that it is replacing its “eat-what-you-kill” partner compensation system with one that also rewards cooperation and firm-wide business development, associate mentoring and training, and moving clients to the next generation of client managers. The compensation review will look back three years instead of two to give partners longer to realize on business development efforts. Under this system, a partner’s income cannot fall in any given year more than 25%. Over 90 percent of equity partners voted for the change, which managing partner Stuart Pape called an “incentive for doing things that are supportive, collaborative and productive…In bad times, a meritocratic system is absolutely the best model.”

On the other side of the pond, similar tactics, and innovation, prevail. Allen and Overy, when axing 450 attorneys and staff, announced that it was spinning off part of its practice, imposing a pay freeze and asking remaining partners to each contribute an average of about $50,000 in additional capital to the firm. That move is expected not only to boost the firm's coffers but to raise the commitment to the partnership and its success of those partners willing to put their dollars there.

Doing It Right

The way that these initiatives are both announced and carried out have a major impact on firm culture and morale. Latham & Watkins’ stunning announcement recently of layoffs of 12% of its associates was accompanied by very generous (six months compared to three months) separation payments and health insurance, as well as interim salaries for new associates who delay their entry a year. In spite of the severity of the layoffs and questions about what the firm will look like in the future, the street buzz on the firm's handling of the layoffs has been positive—“classy” is Bruce MacEwen’s assessment. Similarly, the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office rescinded offers to its incoming attorneys only after several attempts to cut costs, and, when the inevitable occurred, actively sought jobs at other DA offices for those dis-invited, hoping to preserve relationships with lawyers who they might one day want to extend offers to again.

Latham and others have also received kudos for making the cuts in one whack instead of dribbling them out, as Dechert, for example, seems intent on doing. Although the realities of the downturn may drive some firms to second and third whacks. In one of the largest cuts of this layoff season to date, Orrick sent home 12 percent of its nonpartner lawyers on Tuesday, the second cut after a November 2008 one that promised to be the one and only. Those laid off Tuesday didn't fare as well as those cut in November: they got three months' severance instead of five.

Sign of the Times or Window into the Future?

Are these fairly modest innovations we are seeing now simply a sign of these difficult times, or do they signal a growing snowball of changes that could well roll far into our future?

These changes are not in and of themselves going to make any major inroads on the broken business model that now exists, but hopefully they signal a greater willingness (ok, motivated by a gun to the head) to get out there and slog through the swamp of uncertainty until we find firmer ground.

Experimentation is what will drive innovation, and up till now law firms have been fat and sassy enough to be able to afford not to experiment. But the old "one size fits all" attitude about how firms should be run is beginning to fray. Unusually bad market conditions have freed firms to stop copying what everyone else is doing and look more carefully at and respond more creatively to who they specifically are, where they are headed and what resources and skills they need to get there.

Given the layoffs across the country, if a recovery is not in motion soon, the next issue for firms to grapple with creatively may well be the dissonance between recruitment and retention that the current structure produces. How long can firms withstand waves of painful and expensive "forced attrition" at the same time they are undertaking time-consuming and expensive recruitment and training of new incoming associates, who may well then be forced to move on in a few years?

After arrival dates, compensation, bonuses and tiers have been manipulated, we can then start facing the decisions that will direct innovation toward the very structure of our firms and the traditional lawyer life-cycles there.