Management in law firms often struggle with the implementation of agreed strategies. After an elaborate review that led to a much celebrated declaration of the firm’s future direction, the demands of everyday business on most professionals put the new strategies on the backburner. It is back to business as usual.

Arguably the most successful approach to aligning a business’s activities to its strategy and vision is the Balanced Scorecard (BSC), developed by Robert Kaplan and David Norton in the 1990’s. More than 75% of multinational businesses are said to be employing the BSC in some form. The large auditing and accounting firms were among the first PSFs in the late 90’s to employ the BSC; a good number of law firms followed since then and a number of learnings can be derived from their experience.

What fun! The perfect client service firm! Is it possible?

Individuals in private practice have said, “I know there is a better way to serve clients — a better way to practice. If I had the courage, I’d start my own firm and it would be different.” Law firms have started greenfield operations — practice groups with entirely new business models with mixed success — primarily because these new business models are overlaid with old accounting models and old reward systems.

An article like this presents the writer and the reader with both the opportunity to reflect, as well as the opportunity to dream about the art of the possible.

Stepping up to this challenge there is “so much to do, so little time.” What sort of leader would be in place? How would future leaders be developed and retained? How could we deliver service profitably in ways valued by clients? How would we use technology to collaborate and to anticipate clients’ needs? What about culture — how could we create the desired culture and then build the components toward that desired end state? How would we differentiate this perfect firm from its competitors, in the eyes of both talent and clients, for whom we all compete?

Anyone involved in law firm management should be able to answer the ultimate question: “What’s the purpose of your job?” During the last ten years, finding the right answer grew more complex as law firms became incredibly busy, mushroomed in size and turned into what some perceived as “factories” or “sweatshops.” Sometime in that hectic age, firms may have lost their answer for what management’s job actually is. Many firms declared their sole ambition to be maximum partner profits and told management to figure out how to get there.

Isn’t it time we stepped back for a moment and remind ourselves of the purpose of management?

The fundamental function of any organism or organization is to increase its ability to survive in the future. If we are hungry, injured or in danger, our biological autopilot kicks in to ensure that we maximize our chances of survival. An organization does not have a biological autopilot; it has management.

A firm’s chances of survival in the future are entirely dependent on its ability to satisfy clients. If, one year from now, a firm is able to make more clients more satisfied, it increases its chances of survival. It is management’s sole purpose to put the firm in a position to accomplish just that.

Less than a decade into the new century, it is silly to try to predict too much. Who could have predicted the rest of the twentieth century accurately, in 1906? Given vectors at play, though, there is little doubt that the next decade (never mind the next century) is going to move Africa to a very different place than the dismal picture associated with the continent in the twentieth century.

With this move will come increased opportunities for selling sophisticated legal services.

It is more than a decade since the end of apartheid and Africa’s most brutal civil wars. Governance structures like the Pan-African Parliament, the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) and the African Peer Review Mechanism

(APRM) are in place and having an impact. It is true that some regional conflicts persist and certain African countries continue to occupy the bottom of global corruption perception surveys. It is equally true, though, that significant potential exists. The past five years have been a bonanza for suppliers of telecommunications equipment in Africa (especially mobile phone technology), and for financiers and service providers. Most of the investment in this area has not come from Europe and America, though, but the Middle East. There are more mobile than fixed-line phones in Africa, with growth still far exceeding developed markets.

Reading about the carnage that occurred earlier this year (see: This Might Hurt a Bit, Corporate Counsel, December 2005) as Pfizer Inc. reduced its list of 103 outside product liability counsel to about 20 firms reminded us of an incident that occurred some months back. In the process of providing strategic counsel to the Planning Committee of a national firm with over a dozen offices, we found ourselves in a discussion on how providing exceptional client service was a meaningful way of differentiating any law firm. Curiously, it was not too difficult to observe more than a few eyes roll.

Imagine this scenario. You are in a room with twelve of what one might label power partners, as each of these individuals controls a book of business that is easily in excess of $6 million. The body language is screaming out to please not engage us all in one more protracted discussion on the merits of providing good client service, as we’ve heard it all, too many times already. Meanwhile, the actual discussion is quietly attempting to console all involved that the firm is already doing everything possible to ensure that clients get the best service of any law firm, anywhere.

Now, I don’t know where the motivation came from, but as we were listening to this unfold, we were quickly scrambling to construct a number of quick questions to test a hypothesis.

We said to the group (and dare you to try this at home, with your own partners, at your very next meeting), “Humor us for a moment please. Think about a client that you serve that is among your most prestigious; the client that gives you a degree of notoriety within the firm and then, obviously because of their importance to you and to the firm, a client who you likely have the very best relationship with. We’re going to pose a series of questions, and on a piece of paper which you may keep secret, please give yourself one point for each of the questions that you can answer in the affirmative. Here are your questions:”

In recent times, these somewhat informal judgments have become more formalized as they often establish the basis for partner recruitment, promotion and reward. After all, there ought to be a better way of identifying the ideal partner beyond the “ELEPHANT TEST” — a creature which is hard to describe, but instantly recognizable when spotted.

But, in their efforts to make such assessments more open, transparent and clear, law firms are finding that instead of offering comfort and clarity, formalized assessment processes can fuel fear, uncertainty and even paranoia. In addition, the introduction of defined performance criteria and methodologies can be laborious and tedious to introduce and administer.

After all, nobody likes being judged or assessed and lawyers — despite (or maybe because of) their familiarity with the judicial process — are no exception to this. I frequently found in my days as a Managing Partner that any attempt to point to a shortcoming or area for improvement in a partner was frequently met by a request for hard evidence to support my view of the partner concerned. Nevertheless, in all discussions about partner value and performance, at various stages views have to be taken as to how each partner is doing in relation to other partners. This imperative is not confined to discussions about promotion, profit sharing, remuneration and compensation, but has become an essential part of law firms’ internal risk and quality management; it is vital to know whether all lawyers are meeting standards.

In this context, law firm leaders have at last moved their focus beyond financial and technical performance; they have realized the importance of developing (and recognizing the value of) management and leadership skills in their partners. This recognition is somewhat patchy and inconsistent and there is often a mismatch between what law firms say they value in their Partners (in terms of behaviors, skills and competencies) and what they reward (often by recognizing and rewarding billing efforts mainly or exclusively). The problem (of how partners are valued) is compounded by the difficulty of judging soft areas of performance (such as people management and holistic client care) as compared with the relative ease of measuring the billable hour and its conversion into cash.

A CATALYST FOR MANAGING PARTNERS WHO ASPIRE TO MOVE THEIR FIRMS FORWARDManaging Partners: Why is it that your intelligent (no, make that “super intelligent”) lawyers seem to react to your change initiatives like you were asking them to drink a tankard of poison, even when they know full well that the brilliant changes you are proposing would be beneficial to them individually and collectively? When we get Managing Partners from various firms together, many of them want to commiserate with each other about the impossible task they have in managing the unmanageable — I suppose my Edge International co-founder, Patrick McKenna, and I did not cure that perception when we named one of our books Herding Cats. Some Managing Partners with whom I have had the pleasure of working are exceptions to that rule and what follows is what I think I have learned from them over these many years.

Here are the seven immutable laws of creating change in your firm. I guarantee that if you respect these rules, you will get the cooperation you need to effect the changes that will catapult your firm forward.

1   AS MANAGING PARTNER, PROPOSE IMPERFECT CHANGE INITIATIVES

YES, I said IMPERFECT and when you saw that word a feeling of anxiety overcame you and you were tempted to react as a lawyer and not as a change-agent for your firm. Let me be clear. As a lawyer, your job is to do “the right things, perfectly.” That calls for unflawed effectiveness and efficiency. You probably hope your surgeon, if you ever need one, practices to the same standard. But face reality — as the manager of your firm, you do not have the luxury of doing only “the right things” because nobody, including you, knows what the “the right things” are except in hindsight — and hindsight is too late.

As a result, most good firms are paralyzed by the tedious, never-ending and totally ineffectual process of divining the perfect strategy accompanied by the perfect tactics. These firms are ships tied so firmly to the pier that no matter how well steered, they go absolutely nowhere. In fact, their biggest claim to fame is that they hit no icebergs — few ships do from the pier. Such firms may do “industry-average” well, but they are not going to consistently break out of the pack. Temporary successes come from individual initiatives that the firm is likely unaware of and therefore does not impede with excessive policies and standardization.

In strategy, you must make the best decisions you can with what you know and what you can speculate about. I am not against a little market research — in fact, I advocate it — but I am against the notion that you can know enough to comfortably make strategic decisions with the confidence that you are most certainly right.