A Resolution for the New Year (in Law Firm Leadership…)

It’s the start of a new year…

Do you know what your lawyers are thinking?

What a silly question, right? Of course we know! We just finished another (pretty) good year and our partners mostly earned what we told them to expect. And besides, everyone at the holiday party was in a festive mood and told us how much they like working at the firm. So, all is good, right? Maybe. But do you really know what your lawyers are thinking? How do you know? How many of your partners, much less your other lawyers, have you had a real conversation with during the last year? After all, the firm is getting bigger and more spread out. And since Covid, we really do see each other less than we used to, even in our own offices. We feel like we have a good handle on things, but do we really?

Before the holidays, my partner Mike Short talked about Building Confidence for a Successful 2025 and Beyond. Great advice, of course, but can you really do that if you don’t know what’s on the minds of your partners, associates and other colleagues? Some law firm leaders clearly do, but many more could do far better. As firm leaders, we’ve done a better job of communicating with our partners (Transparency!), but most of that has been one-way. Telling them stuff. Listening, after all, takes time, and time is clearly our most precious resource. We sell it by the hour, for goodness’ sake! But what might be out there that would affect our thinking about the health of the firm, if we were to know about it?

Well, consider some possibilities:

• Do we have partners, particularly among our more senior lawyers, who are having serious family issues? Maybe a seriously ill spouse or child, or estrangement from years of neglecting their families, or their spouses? Could they be reevaluating their commitment to the full-time practice years before we might have thought?
• Are any of your biggest contributors, though happy with their compensation, tired of ‘leaving money on the table’ not, in their minds, to reward younger up and coming stars, but rather to subsidize those whose contributions don’t measure up?
• In a similar vein, do you have critical people who, while loving the firm, are concerned that the firm’s resources are not keeping up with their clients’ needs, and worried that leadership is not pushing the firm’s strategy hard enough?
• Are any of our colleagues facing unexpected or unknown financial challenges which might force them to consider options even when we are paying them well?
• How about early stages of significant substance abuse issues?
• Are our critical younger partners and senior associates who are in the early stages of parenthood stressed to the breaking point by the twin challenges of balancing family and work commitments, and maybe considering alternatives?
• Do we have any idea what these new Gen Z lawyers really want? They are SO hard to understand, after all…
• What about our diverse lawyers? We can’t seem to keep them but every time one leaves, they just tell us they couldn’t resist this major offer they got, so nothing is wrong on that front and there is nothing else we could have done, right?

Your firm could be doing well and have a generally positive environment, but underneath all of that could be lurking a wide range of individual and perhaps even a few systemic challenges. Maybe none of these are fatal individually, but all of them (and others) could create a drag on the firm’s growth, erode the firm’s cultural cohesion and confidence, and of course, cost money. Is it possible that these unknown challenges collectively are the fundamental reason why so many firms’ ability to grow without merger is limited, at best?  For every lateral we hire, we lose someone we hoped to retain. Could we have done better? Maybe.

So, we urge all law firm leaders to make at least one major resolution for 2025: Do whatever you can to make sure you know what’s on your people’s minds. Your firm might be too large for you to sit down with everyone personally, but you must figure out how to connect.

Consider some of these ideas:

• Have at least one (preferably three) sit down meal(s) with one of your partners every week. Take the time to listen to them (resist the urge to spend the time telling them what’s happening!). Make sure you know what’s going on in their lives. And don’t limit these meals to Partners in your home office.
• Which raises the next point – if you lead a multi-office firm, get to every office regularly. Yes, this is a huge time suck, but an unavoidable one if you really want to know your people. Move the Executive Committee meetings around while you are at it and require the members to attend in person.
• Make the time to talk individually with the younger lawyers. Add them into the one-on-one discussion routine as well. And maybe take a group of them to dinner at least once a month. Ask questions and listen to them.
• Make it clear to your PGL’s and office Partners-in-Charge that they are responsible for really connecting with each lawyer in their practice or office. They should be having one-on-one conversations with everyone, regularly. And you should train them to be sensitive to identifying people who need help or support before their issues become crises. If you have people in these positions who don’t have this aptitude, or won’t make the time, change out the leaders.
• Join the meetings of the Associates Committee periodically with a specific agenda goal of identifying challenges.
• When an issue does arise, make sure the firm provides the support needed for the affected lawyer. When the challenge is on the personal front, help them address and get through whatever it is, without having to reconsider their professional life.
• Conduct stay-interviews and confidential, focused internal surveys of various groups to provide early warning flags whenever you can.

If you are already doing things like this, do more. If you aren’t yet, start now. It’s never too late. And then back up this initial effort with effective mechanisms to do something about the issues identified. What types of things?

Well, consider:

• Strengthening or adopting confidential EAP plans to assure your people can get a range of personal support assistance when they need it. Most mid-to-large firms probably have them, but many smaller firms have not gotten that far.
• Assuring your compensation process recognizes the difference between Partners struggling with specific challenges and those who are just ‘underperforming.’ Make sure personal challenges don’t become financial ones (for the lawyer).
• Following up. Check back with the people needing support and make sure things are improving.
• Making culture, employee/team welfare, and mental health a critical component of the firm’s strategy and leadership focus. Spend more time working with your Executive Committee on improving these areas and less on discussing the plusses and minuses of alternative printer purchases (leave that to your admin team!)

There are, of course, far more options and opportunities to do better across the board. The point here is not to focus on one particular action step but rather to focus holistically, as leaders, on knowing and supporting your people. Each leader’s style should influence their specific approach, but the key is to make really connecting with your people your New Year’s resolution for 2025. You will not save everyone or prevent all undesired departures, but you might improve the ratios and cut down on losses. You might even prevent unseen issues from blowing up to create a major firm crisis. And you will do your people who need it lasting good, maybe even helping them keep – or get – their lives on track. It’s long been said in this industry that “our most important assets walk out the door every day” (at least before Covid). The more important thing is to assure they want to come back!

We at LawVision wish all of you a very happy New Year, and our best wishes and ongoing support for a successful 2025.

Joe Altonji is a Co-Founding Principal of LawVision and has spent more than 30 years consulting to law firms around the world. He can be reach at 847.867.2220 or jaltonji@lawvision.com.