Questions to ask yourself before conferring equity partner status on anyone else
My colleague Ed Wesemann recently published a must-read article titled “A Five Year Survival Plan for Mid-sized Firms.” Ed’s first piece of advice to the leaders of these firms is: “stop making partners.” I think that advice is absolutely correct, and I’d like to expand on it.
Annual partner promotions are so ingrained in most law firms that they have become almost ritualistic; many firms feel they “have to” make partners on a regular basis. Breaking this habit is difficult, but it is also essential: the disciplined application of a fact-based strategy for law firm equity ownership is critical for any firm that wants to control its destiny.
Here are some questions you should ask yourself before pressing the “Admit” button on an equity-partner candidate.
No one is entitled to become an equity partner. It is not a “Long Service” award. Create clear, rational, exacting standards for equity partner admission, tied to the firm’s strategy and purpose, and apply them diligently and consistently.
Jordan Furlong is a lawyer and a strategic consultant and analyst who forecasts the impact of the changing legal market on lawyers, law firms and legal organizations. Based in Ottawa, Jordan is a partner with the global consulting firm Edge International. Contact Jordan at jordan@edge-international.com, or by phone at 613-729-7171, or visit his blog at www.Law21.ca.
Tech Central: Email in the Workplace
The “monster” remains
Back in 2007, this column provided tips on “managing the email monster.” Surprisingly, it seems that little has changed in seven years...
Almost everyone in the business world has experienced email anxiety at some point. We are deluged daily with messages requiring our attention and response. When we leave work in the evening or (heaven forbid!) take a few days vacation, we feel the constant itch to check our messages. And we dread the flood of unchecked messages when we do return to work.
Recent studies and anecdotal evidence suggest that our mental and psychological well-being can suffer from this state of constant connectedness. Businesses have struggled to find practical solutions and compromises.
Recently, German auto maker Daimler hit the headlines when it implemented a new policy giving its employees the right to have all email messages rerouted, or even deleted automatically, when they take vacation. While the “out of office autoreply” may not be a new concept, Daimler’s policy is somewhat unique for giving employees the opportunity to opt not to have messages enter their inboxes at all during the desired period. Not only do they avoid receiving messages while away, they also avoid the stress of returning to an overflowing inbox.
This new policy expands on a trend among European companies to reduce email strain for their employees, including encouraging managers and employees to stop emailing each other after business hours.
It remains to be seen whether these trends will gain traction among North American businesses, where many workers take pride in being “reachable” almost on a 24-hour-a-day basis.
Email disclaimers
But when we do in fact read our email, what to do with those pesky email disclaimer clauses?
An email thread with multiple contributors and multiple replies can quickly become a cumbersome visual mess, with various disclaimers repeated throughout, and stretching over many “pages.” The actual writers’ text – the whole purpose of the exchange – can become lost in the visual noise.
Many legal analysts are skeptical as to whether the presence of a disclaimer in an email message will provide any protection if the writer is sued. Most significantly, they point out that disclaimers regarding confidentiality, negligent misstatement, and other common clauses, cannot commit an email recipient unilaterally to a legal obligation. Even the Canadian government’s Library and Archives Canada “Email Management Guidelines” suggest that the inclusion of disclaimers may be advisable but “will not likely be effective in reducing liability in every situation.” (http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/government/news-events/007001-630602-e.html)
There has been little relevant jurisprudence on the matter. Given this uncertainty, most businesses and regulatory bodies generally advocate the inclusion of disclaimers out of an abundance of caution, despite the knowledge that most email readers long ago stopped even noticing them, much less actually reading – and heeding - them.
Fortunately, there are options for reducing the clutter. The days of those four or five-paragraph blobs of text are almost gone. Most disclaimers can be parsed down to a few key sentences at most. And email management software programs can help to reduce the instances of disclaimer repetition in those long discussion threads. Law firms are encouraged to take the time to assess their disclaimer policies regularly for relevance and brevity.
- Is this partner an outstanding business generator or truly exceptional manager? If the answer is no, do not promote. And hold yourself to those high standards: “promising” or “above-average” are not good enough. Equity partners should reliably bring in overflowing amounts of profitable work, or should be simply masterful at client, people or project management. Don’t settle when it comes to your ownership ranks.
- Is this a lateral candidate with a big book of business at another firm? If so, do you know how much profit this partner actually generates on all that frothy revenue? Do you know how many of those clients will stay behind when he joins your firm? Are you buying past performance or future productivity? You better have ironclad answers to these questions, because someone will be asking them of you in two years’ time.
- Do you already have under-performing partners in your ranks? Granted, the term is pejorative and often misleading. But the answer nonetheless is invariably “yes.” If so, then halt the promotion process and deal with it. Get your house in order before adding new rooms – especially if the profile of the current candidate is alarmingly similar to those of the under-performers back when they were first up for the role.
- Are we promoting this lawyer to partner because we don’t know what else to do with him? If you’re being honest, this is likely the case about half the time. Reclassifying an associate as a non-equity or equity partner doesn’t magically change who he is or erase his deficiencies. Partner promotion is a lousy alternative to openly and frankly assessing whether a lawyer provides your firm any real value beyond leveraged production.
No one is entitled to become an equity partner. It is not a “Long Service” award. Create clear, rational, exacting standards for equity partner admission, tied to the firm’s strategy and purpose, and apply them diligently and consistently.
Jordan Furlong is a lawyer and a strategic consultant and analyst who forecasts the impact of the changing legal market on lawyers, law firms and legal organizations. Based in Ottawa, Jordan is a partner with the global consulting firm Edge International. Contact Jordan at jordan@edge-international.com, or by phone at 613-729-7171, or visit his blog at www.Law21.ca.