Leadership is all

In a week when everything is overshadowed by the fate of Speaker Martin (at the time of posting we are still waiting to hear when it is he intends to go) and after what seems an eternity of disclosures about MPs’ expenses (accompanied by an orgy of hand-wringing insincerity), yet another excellent article by Stefan Stern in today’s FT – and for leaders in law firms another pointer,

Does “real leadership” simply mean telling people what to do? Or does leadership mean building consensus, so that when you attempt to make changes your organisation advances more or less as one.

Leadership is situational. In other words, context is everything. Few business leaders find themselves facing a weekly inquisition like PMQs. But in a time of economic difficulty, businesses and organisations do look to their leaders for clarity of thought and decisive action. So which organisations will come through this period in better shape: those where there is less talk and more action, or those where agreement is sought before action is taken?

Stern writes about the recent launch of the Centre for Professional Service Firms at the Cass Business School in London, and reports the comments of Laura Empson, director of the centre : “Professionals, by and large, do not want to be led, and professionals, by and large, do not want to be leaders.”

And this is the real problem.

A bleak future

Following on from Jordan Furlong’s recent post in Law 21 (which I commented on some days ago), a snippet from Legal Risk LLP’s March Newsletter*, after a law firm risk management conference in Chicago,

The future shape of law firms

The traditional leveraged model of law firms with large numbers of associates was under attack from clients’ general counsel, one commenting that partner: associate ratios of 1:1 delivered better results than 2 or 3:1 – “the shape of the successful law firm is not a pyramid”. We know UK firms with corporate practices are increasingly under pressure to service in-house legal teams with specialist advice rather than do whole transactions – as one risk management partner put it succinctly, firms are being asked to take 10 per cent of the fees and 90 per cent of the risk.

This has been my recent experience in the UK, so what is happening that side of the Atlantic is already reflected over here.

* Legal Risk LLP’s website is http://www.legalrisk.co.uk/ . There is no hypertext link to the March Newsletter, but it is well worth reading. I rate Frank Maher really highly and he always talks sense.

More on the future of law

Another thought provoking post by Jordan Furlong in Law 21 on How to solve the legal employment problem. It makes for uneasy reading,

We’ve been bingeing on reports of law firm layoffs for a few months now, and there’s every reason to think those reports will continue through 2009. But we haven’t spent as much time looking at the big picture: there is a growing population of lawyers whose jobs are gone for good, and a larger group of lawyers whose underlying business models are fast becoming obsolete. . .

During the recession, we’re all going to learn to do more with less. Cost-saving efficiency and “good-enough” quality will be the twin standards by which purchases of all kinds will be made, including legal services. Lawyers have never needed to be efficient and they’ve always preferred an exhaustive answer to an adequate one; they’re not going to adjust easily, and some won’t adjust at all. Clients also will need their lawyers to focus more on high-value services that demand advisory skills and judgment, and less on than repetitive tasks that require boxes to be ticked off and i’s to be dotted. That’s going to be more than a business model challenge; that’s a new way for many legal professionals to view themselves and their functions, and again, some simply won’t have the wherewithal to meet the new expectations.

In particular read the take on the problem for legal education: “churning out lawyers suited for 20th century practice”.

What future?

I was more than a little depressed reading Mike Semple Piggot’s recent post in Legalweek.com’s Legal Village blog:

Law Society president Marsh talked to me about his views on how the profession would look after the recession – making a strong case in favour of firms weathering the present financial conditions better than many pundits are predicting.

Marsh, who has been through three recessions and says that he saw little difference between them, believes both City and high street firms are better positioned than in the past because of improved management and greater internal resources.

I am sure that Paul Marsh would like us all to be uplifted, and there is always the risk of talking things too far down: but his view is not quite how others see it (including me, and I reckon that I have seen as many recessions as he has). Admittedly it may be dangerous to think that because it is happening in the US it will happen here, but see Bruce MacEwen’s latest post The Human Toll in Adam Smith, Esq. In particular,

And it would be folly to predict anything other than that it will get worse before it gets better.

Change is coming

And just before I get down to the day job, if you want to read an excellent review of Richard Susskind’s “The End of Lawyers” although I would urge you to read the book itself, you will do no better than Bruce MacEwen in Adam Smith, Esq. MacEwen has the telling quote from the book,

“I predict that lawyers who are unwilling to change their working prcatices and extend their range of services will, in the coming decade, struggle to survive. Meanwhile, those who embrace new technologies and novel ways of sourcing legal work are likely to trade successfully for many years yet, even if they are not occupied with the law jobs that most law schools currently anticipate for their graduates.”