We became a firm of solo practitioners.”– Partner Lauren J. Wachtler quoted in a 1994 New York Times article chronicling
the demise of the prominent Shea & Gould law firm, which voted itself out of
business.
“This is how old law firms die: with a crash of titanic egos, a splintering
of stubborn partners, a skittish flight of lawyers.” — Lead paragraph of a 1995
New York Times story about the collapse of the Wall Street law firm of Mudge
Rose Guthrie Alexander & Ferdon, best known as the launching pad of Richard
M. Nixon.
Drs. Stephen Bishop and Elaine Duffy are all too familiar with the above examples
of law firms imploding. They refer to them in lectures and articles, and witness
similar scenarios on the job. Bishop, president of Learning Systems International,
and Duffy, a senior consultant, are organizational psychologists based in Providence.
They advise business executives on improving productivity, building team work
and improving morale.
Providence Business News asked the pair about their work with law firms, which
account for about half of their clients.
PBN: You’ve worked with leading law firms in New England, Washington, D.C.,
and New York City. What makes these professionals seek your advice?
Duffy: From the way we see it, organizations like law firms have had to become
a bit more entrepreneurial because the business climate has changed. These are
very independent folks who now remain very technically competent but are required
to become a bit more diverse in their thinking. Even though there are many law
firms that have marketing arms and they’ve got people who are really building
business, attorneys now are just being required by the nature of the changing
climate to be more marketing focused themselves. I’ve talked to many attorneys
who have said to me “you know I don’t much like the idea of having to function
in a sales mode because that’s not what my profession up to this point has been
about.” But they’re doing it and some quite successfully.
But the profession itself creates a unique business environment I think.
Bishop: How to be a good lawyer is something they understand. How to be a complete
business person and develop their own business where there’s far more expectations
on them– particularly in mid-sized firms which are going through a lot — is
something else. These lawyers are increasingly being expected not to depend
upon marketing people but to develop their own clientele just the way consultants
in other kinds of service companies like our own are expected to develop clients
and bring business in the door. It’s possible to be a wonderful attorney and
make partner, clearly. But the way the picture’s going now with the competitiveness
in the legal field, you are expected to be a sort of rainmaker. I guess historically
firms have relied heavily on two or three crack rainmakers to feed business
across the practices and it’s not that easy any more.
PBN: What do you do differently than run-of-the-mill business consultants?
Bishop: As psychologists, we bring methodologies that other experienced business
consultants may not. It’s a systematic approach to identifying the strengths
and limitations in people, in individual jobs, in organizations, and then putting
systems together to help people learn how to make maximum use out of their abilities.
There’s a lot of talk these days of emotional intelligence, developing high
self awareness, managing your emotions so that the clash of the Titans — the
egos — doesn’t destroy diplomacy.
Duffy: Of course good consultants want to ensure the any changes that an organization
makes are going to be long lasting. But one of the things that we really take
pride in is that we’re trained to understand how to support real behavior change.
So we deliver what Steve often calls the “what.” This is what needs to be done.
But we really spend most of our time helping our clients figure out how to implement
that. The hope is — and some of our experience will tell us — that six months
down the line it lasts.
PBN: How have your clients responded to that approach?
Duffy: The consultations we do are not new to industry but somewhat new to
law firms. We need to give them time.
PBN: It sounds time-consuming, kind of like one-on-one therapy.
Duffy: What we try to do is simplify. An example: let’s say a managing partner
comes to us and says “you know I really want to create a more cohesive culture
here.” Our first job is to help him or her understand what they really mean
by that. So we break it down so that we know what actions this person wants
to be different.
Bishop: What we’re trying to do here is to change behaviors or strengthen behaviors
and get these individuals and groups to use them more. We know from studies
that it doesn’t take two years any more. The field of behavioral science has
really looked closely at this and in 8 to 10 meetings of maybe an hour – as
long as the specific goals are defined — we really can make changes. And this
is well documented.
PBN: What are the most common problems among law firms soliciting your
help?
Bishop: One is communication. One question they have is “how can we communicate
more effectively in our organizations? Can you help us define what consistent
three or four messages we want to convey? Can you help us to identify our formal
and our informal means of communication?” Formal would be e-mail, bulletin boards,
meetings, minutes to meetings. Informal might be standing around the water cooler.
(It) might even be when someone gets a promotion what message that sends to
someone who didn’t.
A second reason we’re called in is there are some outstanding attorneys —
they may be associates, they may be partners — and they’re not getting along.
And for some reason or other, diplomacy between two or three key attorneys has
become diminished. It might be they’ve had an argument. It might be that business
is not as good in one practice or another. There may be some finger pointing
going back and forth. It even might be that some of the parties are having difficulties
adjusting to a change in the firm. A brand new practice comes in and all of
a sudden now you’ve got new players on the block. Another crack corporate attorney
when you were the big fish in the pond. So how can you help these people manage
their relationships better.
Duffy: I know that in Washington attorneys are often people who have been
moved from a large city like New York to open up a satellite office with an
international focus. Now we have an attorney who now has to spend a lot of time
managing and spend very little time practicing and is accountable for P & L,
basically. And it’s such a significant career transition so much is on the line
for these people. It becomes an example of helping folks yes with communicating
effectively, functioning as leaders, managing their staff well. But it also
requires a lot of helping them manage their emotions about the transition.
PBN: When is a client’s problem not fixable?
Duffy: We come into a law firm and these people often have worked together
for many years … and there is often just a lot of history there. And if the
history has been difficult between certain individuals, that can be quite powerful.
We come in of course with great hope, great optimism. Sometimes as the consultation
moves forward you begin to recognize that perhaps this is a case where the amount
of behavior change required may not happen. You really need to know when to
give up the hope.
Bishop: I think sometimes the problem can be defined as these two people have
a communication problem. And it’s not just a communication problem. A kind of
benign diagnosis at the beginning winds up being — we learn as we go along —
a lot of bad blood. Not really fixable. I’m thinking of two cases. One in a
law firm, one not. The same problem. They really became very frustrated by a
lack of feedback from their bosses. They were getting demoralized. (The client
said) we really want this person. They’re telling me they want the person. But
when I start to ask them how recently have you told them about your expectations –
– whether they were met or not, how much you appreciated them, showed them in
tangible ways — (I) come to find out they hadn’t been told. It was too far
gone. So when you pull us in late in the day, it’s very hard to turn the tide
when feedback hasn’t been given for three years. The marketplace in the meantime
talks and says you’re wonderful. We want you. So we lose the battle in that
way.
