*from fotosearch.com
Dear Diary:
As promised in my previous post, I was going to discuss some simple business concepts that BigLaw just doesn’t get. Sure, BigLaw seems more like a cult than a business at times, but it’s still a money making machine and it should follow the same basic business concepts like any other business (though, the longevity of the ass-backwards business model of BigLaw might stem from the fact that every other freaking BigLaw firm follows the same ass-backwards business model so people have just accepted it…until now).
Anyway, here are five major ones you’ll hear at any intro to business class (all these concepts play off of each other):
1. Get out of your routine: What got you here won’t get you there. Now, stay with me here as I know lawyers don’t really like abstract ideas. Basically this concept is that what you were good at in the past is still good and all but what you need to be good at in the present may be something different and you need to be flexible. BigLaw needs to get out of its old stodgy ways. You can’t keep hiring the same type of people, running your deals the same way, discriminating against different types of associates, and resisting change in general. You have to keep up with the times and this means re-evaluating how you run your business. This is completely intuitive. Strange how BigLaw just doesn’t get it. And you guys think you’re so damn smart.
2. Intellectual Agility: BigLaw seems to have a bad case of intellectual arthritis and it can’t seem to get the damn child proof aspirin bottle (or tequila bottle) open. Intellectual agility is more than intellectual ability, which we hear about lawyers having (mainly from other lawyers) ad naseum. It’s an earnest curiosity about what’s going on. You can’t always be concentrated inwardly, as we see with alot of BigLaw firms that have gotten too proud and think they can just keep doing what they’re doing (this ties in with #1 as well). Intellectual agility takes creativity and an honest approach to understanding the competitive terrain. But BigLaw just keeps doing what BigLaw does–yeah, there are cat fights and poaching of lawyers here and there but it’s just moving pieces from one system to another system that is exactly the same. Nobody has really taken a new approach to the system of BigLaw and it stems from lacking intellectual agility.
3. Pride Precedes the Fall: Like I mentioned above, BigLaw firms have gotten too proud. This makes you insular. You drink too much of your own whiskey and then wake up one day, hungover with puke on your wife-beater, and wonder why you’ve lost your edge. Even if you are Wachtell, you can always improve and you have a farther distance to fall (and more people who’d like to see you fall). E.g. White & Case.
It was pride that made BigLaw raise first year salary to $160K despite the protests of their clients. Why did they do it? Because they could. They’re BIGLAW afterall. They are the most sophisticated deal makers so their clients have to pay. Oh wait…no they don’t…and they aren’t. Even designer labels are suffering very badly in this economy. If you ever exclaimed, who would pay $3,000 for a clutch, you should really be asking, who would pay $160K for a bumbling, nervous wreck of a barely licensed attorney? yeah, nobody, that’s who.
Moreover, I’ve noticed alot of partners surround themselves with less than bright associates who will put their head down and do the job and bill bill bill. But what happens is that when the firm leaders start leaving, they’ve left a bunch of idiots in their stead. At first I thought it was because partners might not think the associates they’re using will stick around to make partner so they’re just focused on the short term of using high billing associates to rake in the money, but I really think it’s because partners are really proud and egotistical. They don’t want a smart associate under them. They feel threatened (even if the little monkey is totally willing to do the work without question).They don’t like surrounding themselves with smart, sharp people. And this is another reason why BigLaw is stupid.
This is also very pronounced with women partners. Most women partners work better with male associates and aren’t that interested in helping out women associates. Are they afraid a woman associate will make partner faster and easier than they did? Is it caddy competitive bullshit? Whatever it is, suck it up because you’re just cutting off your nose to spite your face and you look stupid (and ugly).
4. Homogeneity Breeds Stupidity: How better to sum this up but with a quote from Nietzsche:
“History teaches that the best preserved tribe among a people is the one in which most men have a living communal sense as a consequence of sharing their customary and indisputable principles….The danger to these strong communities founded on homogeneous individuals who have character is growing stupidity, which is gradually increased by heredity, and which, in an case, follows all stability like a shadow. It is the individuals who have fewer ties and are much more uncertain and morally weaker upon whom spiritual progress depends in such communities, they are the men who make new and manifold experiments. Innumerable men of this sort perish because of their weakness without any very visible effect, but in general, especially if they have descendants, they loosen up and from time to time inflict a wound on the stable element of the community….those who degenerate are of the highest importance wherever progress is to take place; every great progress must be preceded by a partial weakening. The strongest natures hold fast to the type; the weaker ones help to develop it further.”
We don’t want incest or homogeneity in our gene pool and we don’t want it in the business of law either. BigLaw really needs to diversify its associate pool. None of this lip service bullshit diversity horse and pony show. It really needs to make the commitment to change. It can’t just hire these diverse associates so it can check a few extra NALP or diversity survey boxes only to then purge these associates later on. It needs to integrate these associates into the System. It needs to make sure its 60 year old partners know that 1) the South lost the civil war and 2) they need to treat these diverse associates equally.
It is the minorities and the diverse (culturally, socially, life-style or personality-wise) individuals that will develop BigLaw into a better business by providing different perspectives.
5. Inside Outsider: An Inside Outsider in the business context is a manager that rose up through the corporate ladder but for some reason, hasn’t drank the koolaid and maintains an objective view of the company. You want someone who understands the company well from having started out there, is more loyal to it than a pure outsider, but is still objective that he or she can give honest feedback. This is also intuitive yet curiously elusive to BigLaw.
You don’t want a bunch of yes-men unless you’re king and even then, kings have ended up on the guillotine. One of the hardest things for managers in business to do is to face customer feedback, but they do it because it points out all the flaws and areas for improvement. BigLaw doesn’t have the luxury of being able to do the same type of comprehensive customer feedback so it should rely more heavily on its Inside Outsiders
But it’s hard to envision that any partner in BigLaw has 1) not drank the koolaid based on all the reasons BigLaw has failed above and 2) has the balls to actually speak out if he has not drank the koolaid because he’d immediately be ostracized (BigLaw’s failure of #4 above). But if BigLaw can get it together (not likely) then hopefully there may be a few Inside Outsiders that can help refine a BigLaw firm further and propel it to the forefront way ahead of its competitors.
But until BigLaw figures out the basic principles of business also applies to it, happy lay offs!
