‘You can’t appeal to people’s better natures because they don’t have one. Everyone is fundamentally selfish.’ Nihilistic as this remark from a senior corporate partner may sound, on darker days, most law firm leaders would find it hard to argue the point.
While that partner can always be relied upon for a no-holds-barred, often strongly-worded take on the worries that are really keeping law firm leaders awake at night, that is not to say the more diplomatic concerns that people express on the record are any less valid.
Long has the industry grappled with imperatives around diversity and inclusion and the mental health of staff – those things that you have to consider when running a people business. The situation has only grown more complicated with the need to work out how best to coax reluctant juniors back to the office so some semblance of normality can finally be reinstated to working lives.
Obviously there is huge tension between holding on to the all-important talent, possibly with the offer of NQ salaries in excess of £150k, while partners – especially you – lose sleep over how to maintain profitability and the medium to long-term financial health of the firm.
Indeed, chatting with senior people around the market, it is always fun to see how long it will take before the ‘softly, softly’ approach gives way to ‘can people just get the hell on with their jobs and stop whingeing about everything!’ levels of exasperation.
Elsewhere, Linda Woolley (pictured), Kingsley Napley’s managing partner of 15 years, asserts in her Life during Law interview, that a lack of decision-making on the part of leaders is possibly the most toxic thing for law firm culture. ‘If you let people behave however they like and every time there’s a difficult conversation the partners disappear and shut the door behind them, what does that say?’
This quandary is intrinsically linked with human nature and is part of the reason that law firm management doesn’t ever get any easier, despite huge strides in the professionalisation of practices and treatment of law firms as businesses.
The market is not quite at the point of resuming non-electronic meetings for good, but in the meantime if there’s anything you want to get off your chest (within reason) we have just the forum for you. Legal Business is starting a ‘Letters to the Editor’ section online.
We want to get dialogue going around developments that are shaping the industry.
We want to get dialogue going around developments that are shaping the industry, whether they be remuneration, talent retention, ESG, regulation, diversity or the dominance of the US firms in London. These are all topics LB will be revisiting with great scrutiny in the coming months, so do feel free to wade into the debate – remembering that we are a family title – at the below email address.
To end on a less cynical note, an industry friend recently sounded me out on which lawyers I was seeing in the market doing genuinely good things. For once I didn’t have to rack my brains for too long. However hardened you are to life’s realities, I defy you to read about Travers Smith’s award-winning work in domestic abuse prevention without getting something in your eye. It is a good antidote to a doom-laden vision of fundamental selfishness.