Stealth Discrimination: A model for choosing and managing your leaders
If you find yourself responsible for the leadership of a law firm of a significant size, then you need no convincing to realize that you have far too little time to accomplish even a small portion of your objectives. In many cases, you still carry a client load that most mere mortals would find overwhelming. […]
Talent Retention: A Big Conundrum
With the rise of the new East, emerging economies of Asia are undergoing a tremendous transformation. With the continued inflow of foreign direct investment and major policy changes, businesses are flocking to capture the opportunities presented by increased customer base. This is intensifying the competition for talent and leadership – a trend that is cutting […]
Helping Partners Jump Hurdles
Just about every law firm strategic plan requires some degree of business development planning and activities. For three reasons, however, lawyers often find the related areas of marketing and business development difficult hurdles to jump. THE PROBLEMS Doing what we have always done For decades, lawyers have been able to restrict their marketing strategies and […]
Tailored Talent Supervision
While working with counsel at a top global firm recently, I asked them: “What is your best tip for supervising associates?” I received some terrific ideas, but one that stood out was this from a transactional lawyer: “I ask them what they need from me.” This counsel had turned the normal supervision wisdom upside down. […]
Career Planning for Managing Partners
Law firms often debate the advantages and disadvantages of professional managers as opposed to traditional lawyer managing partners. Each comes with different attributes and experience. The professional manager is sometimes viewed as just a hired hand and needs time to learn the business of law, but has management knowhow. The managing partner has credibility and […]
Tall Poppy Syndrome and Origination Credit
Law firms talk a good game about sophisticated management but often, just when a firm reaches the verge of running like a business, its culture gets in the way. Case in point is business origination: should it be measured, how should it be measured and what do we do with the data? Almost 25% of […]
Should Lawyers Retire?
When the managing partner of a law firm was asked about what he feels regarding the retirement age of partners, he responded that “Lawyers never retire, they just drop dead!” This candid statement sums up the thought which most lawyers go through with the onset of their gray hair. While the issue of retirement is […]
Appraisals Revisited
Published in: Professional HR, September/October 2006. This article is reprinted with kind permission from the original publishers. © 2006, Nick Jarrett-Kerr Most professional-services firms claim to have appraisal systems, but the trouble is that very few of them are effective, particularly at partner level. Implementation is the main headache; “It’s a nightmare getting the partners […]
Creating and Rewarding Profitable Performance
The Links Between the Success of the Firm and Individual Partner Contribution and Reward Published in: Kerma Partners Quarterly 2007, Issue 3. This article is reprinted with kind permission from the original publishers. © 2007, Nick Jarrett-Kerr The issues of partner performance and rewards are rising on law firm agendas. Law firm leaders talk a […]
Valuing and Judging Partners – Beyond the Elephant Test!
We tend to make informal value judgements all the time about our partners and potential partners. Questions like “Do I like him?”, “Do I respect her?”, “What is she good at?” all require emotional or, at least, unstructured responses. In recent times, these somewhat informal judgements have become more formalised as they often establish the […]