The brand new Blickstein Group COO Examine demonstrates continued lawyer hubris, conceitedness, and independence that impairs job satisfaction — and profitability.
The July Law Firm COO Survey gathered responses from COOs about legislation agency operations, AI adoption, compensation, and enterprise challenges. The Blickstein Group is a authorized trade analysis and consulting agency.
Two Key and Associated Factors
Two factors amongst many stood out to me as a former companion in a big legislation agency. Each factors mirror legislation agency tradition and are associated.
Level 1: COOs see legislation agency companions as the largest impediment to implementing change. In different phrases, legislation agency companions are ignoring change suggestions by their COOs.
Level 2: COOs, who if given the chance, could be extraordinarily worthwhile to a legislation agency since they’re enterprise folks, not legal professionals, and perceive enterprise points like finance, expertise, advertising, and operations. However many corporations don’t worth their COOs, don’t embody them in strategic discussions, don’t present clear strains of authority, and undercut them. COOs at these corporations are sometimes dissatisfied and susceptible to depart.
Given their understanding of enterprise and notably the enterprise of legislation corporations, proficient COOs can deliver vital worth to legislation corporations (translated, assist them make more cash). So, you’d assume legislation corporations would worth their judgment, compensate them effectively, and deal with them as C-suite companions.
Certainly, COOs who work at corporations the place they handle most if not all the administrative features, the place they report back to the managing companion, and have a significant seat on the govt committee are the happiest and most certainly to remain. Companies that don’t embody these items are lacking out and are at an apparent aggressive drawback.
Backside line, legislation corporations that resist change suggestions of their COOs and who deal with COOs as second-class residents fail to seize some great benefits of eager enterprise perception. And in at present’s aggressive authorized market, it stands to purpose that failure locations them at a short- and long-term aggressive drawback.
However Why?
Crucial query is why. Why do corporations not worth the COOs and resist what they are saying?
The simple reply is that almost all legislation corporations are nonetheless run underneath a consensus mannequin that affords companions, notably these with massive books of enterprise, appreciable independence. To say that managing legal professionals is like herding cats is an insult to the cats.
Adoption of change in legislation corporations often means not solely convincing the managing companion or govt committee, it means convincing most each companion to undertake the change. Many of those companions are extremely busy and have neither the time, expertise, nor experience to appropriately consider business-related suggestions (which is why they need to in fact depend on their COO and administrative employees.) So, they fall again and maintain doing what they’ve at all times accomplished. Change is difficult and in the event that they don’t personally imagine it’s wanted, they don’t do it.
However There may be Extra
However there’s something else which leads into why legislation corporations don’t deal with COOs as full companions in business-related resolution making. Most good folks (and companions in legislation corporations for probably the most half are good folks), when confronted with selections for which they’ve neither the time nor experience to make a legitimate judgment, depend on those that do have the time and experience to make sound suggestions.
All of us do it daily. Once we are sick, we go to the physician. Why? As a result of they do have the time and information to make a advice what to do. The identical is true for nearly any discipline.
Attorneys? Notably in terms of business-related selections, many aren’t so able to undertake and depend on the enterprise acumen of their COOs. Why? Three phrases: hubris, conceitedness, and independence.
Attorneys assume they know every thing to start with. And in terms of their enterprise, their legislation corporations during which they’re house owners, they imagine that solely they’ll make legitimate monetary selections. These “non-lawyers” who aren’t house owners ought to butt out, as I’ve previously discussed. As considered one of my companions used to say to the executive employees: “You’re employed for me. Don’t inform me what to do.” And as I stated earlier than, the power of companions to retain their independence enhances this hubris and conceitedness.
One Extra Factor…
There could also be one other issue at play as effectively: the innate stubborness and resistance to vary many legal professionals have. Brad Blickstein, CEO the Blickstein Group, calls this dread. Blickstein says, “I imagine loads of time it’s not a lot that the companions don’t respect what their COOs deliver to the desk, however relatively that they don’t need to undertake the practices they recommend. For a lot of companions, the best way they ship authorized providers and the best way they invoice for them is deeply embedded, and whereas they might agree with their specialists on an mental stage, they don’t have it in them to make the modifications.”
Because of this, COOs really feel like second-class residents and get bored with beating their heads towards the wall.
Blickstein presents a physician analogy: “I don’t ignore my physician’s recommendation to eat higher as a result of I don’t respect her. It’s not that I believe I do know higher, I simply don’t deliver myself to behave on her recommendation.”
Blickstein does agree about lawyer conceitedness, although. There are definitely loads of “conceited companions who assume solely they know the right way to run a agency.”
The Consequence?
This lack of respect for COOs reveals up in these corporations who don’t deliver COOs into the inner administration circle. The corporations who don’t even trouble to conduct common efficiency critiques or realign the place primarily based on evolving and aggressive wants. The Blickstein conclusion that these corporations don’t change till the COO leaves could also be appropriate, though I are likely to assume that these sorts of corporations aren’t susceptible to vary how they deal with these within the agency who aren’t legal professionals.
And for the corporations who do change, the disruption of creating the change and discovering a brand new COO is critical. As I’ve mentioned before, it’s significantly better to work to retain current employees and embrace change of their position than to herald someone new who has no understanding of the agency and the agency tradition.
Briefly, the explanations companions don’t embrace modifications prompt by their COOs and their minimization of the COO position are associated. It’s the identical previous lack of respect for individuals who aren’t legal professionals that we now have seen time and again.
Hubris, conceitedness, independence, and a reluctance to vary. It’s an ideal storm for poor enterprise selections. Companies that tolerate and encourage these items will probably be left behind in at present’s authorized world the place change, being nimble, and adapting to new traits are essential. Regulation corporations can’t ignore this actuality.
Stephen Embry is a lawyer, speaker, blogger, and author. He publishes TechLaw Crossroads, a weblog dedicated to the examination of the stress between know-how, the legislation, and the apply of legislation.
