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Delegation as a Partnership SkillAuthor: Simon Taylor - Lexpert (September 2005 at p. 119)Some twenty years ago a few of the younger partners of the firm in which I was a partner asked whether we should have a “Partnership School”. They felt that too many technically good senior associates lacked a complete understanding of the qualities needed to become partners. The school was to correct this. The idea was squashed by one of the senior partners who said “If they don’t know what is required of them, then they don’t have what is required to become a partner.” There is much truth in this statement. Any individual who genuinely cannot work out the skills set of partnership, clearly does not have those skills. And yet, knowing the skills set is not the same thing as knowing how to apply those skills on a daily basis. Today, when I am consulted by firms with sustainability issues, a common trait of such firms is the failure of too many partners in fulfilling their role. They know intellectually what needs to be done, but fail on a practical basis to apply that knowledge. A partner in a law firm is a part owner of the firm (if an equity partner), a manager of part of the firm’s business, and a fee-earner in that business. Partners have access to month end financial information. In theory, they should understand the profitability issues their firm faces. In reality, too many partners still believe that provided they hit their billable hours targets, they are automatically profitable. In many firms, when billable hours targets either do not change on accession to the partnership, or only change by a minimal amount, the drag on profitability increases. As a general proposition, profitability increases when a partner changes from being a fee-earner into a work generator for other fee-earners. On becoming a partner, a significant change of emphasis should take place. Of course the individual is technically good -- they would not have made partner otherwise. The emphasis, however, should now change to transferring those technical skills to junior members of the team. Effective delegation is a time consuming activity. Whatever the reasons for delegating may be, “It’s quicker to delegate than do the work myself” should not be one of them. Some partners have difficulty in delegating because they themselves were not properly delegated to when they were young lawyers. A yellow Post-it note saying “please deal with immediately” does not constitute effective delegation. Yet when partners better understand the process of delegating, the way in which they delegate becomes more effective and the lawyers to whom they delegate produce higher quality work. Quite apart from the financial effect of good leverage, one of the most important benefits of effective delegation is freeing up time for the partner. That time needs to be spent on bringing in business. There is a certain logic to all of this. It is difficult to delegate if you have insufficient work on your desk. Yet when a partner finds him or herself in this predicament, many experience a strong temptation to hang on to what little work they have. This course of action, however, is unlikely to produce a greater flow of work, and therefore the work famine continues. If, instead, they delegate the work down and get out and develop their practice, the issue of insufficient work will be overcome. None of this is rocket science. I have yet to meet a partner who does not understand this point. I have, unfortunately met too many partners who struggle when it comes to doing anything about them. The problem is not just confined to those going through a quiet patch. Indeed, busy fee earning partners present more of a challenge, because although they accept the business imperative of implementing their firm’s business development strategy, client work always comes first. Too frequently, implementation is only attempted in lulls between client work. A busy partner therefore falls into the trap of believing they do not really need to implement the business development strategy (unlike many of their colleagues) because they are currently too busy. They are therefore lulled into a sense of complacency. However, unless they continue to develop their client base, at some stage the phone will stop ringing. There are obvious differences between hanging on to work from existing clients and finding new clients. All successful lawyers need to do both. No matter how strong a particular client relationship may be, things change. People move or lose jobs. Client organizations merge or acquire others. Few lawyers make the most of the professional contacts they have acquired over the years. Many believe that successful marketers need extrovert, if not brash, personalities. The whole process fills them with dread. However, others thrive on the cocktail party circuit and find it difficult to understand why some of their colleagues do not. The fact is that there are many ways in which a lawyer can develop his or her practice. I have yet to meet an individual who, once they understood the variety of ways available to them, did not find one which came naturally and at which, with a bit of practice, they thrived. Understanding the theory is one thing. The key is to actually do it and do it on a daily basis. Twenty minutes of business development activity a day, every day, will produce far better results than half a day every few months. Unfortunately, for many partners, to get into the habit of twenty minutes a day for business development activity requires a major shift in emphasis. Technically good lawyers with outstanding billable hours find it difficult to understand that they are also unprofitable partners in their firm. Even when this is understood, doing something about it challenges many partners. Such partners need to change their attitude, assumptions and priorities. Few are able to achieve this without external assistance, especially in diagnosing systemic problems in workflow and in customizing business development plans that work. Without these changes, the drag on profitability is unlikely to be corrected and sustainability is compromised. |
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