Legal Commentary

The Missed Exit Ramp

Today, in a rare departure into citing what not to do, we have as Exhibit A a piece in the current issue of the ABA's Law Practice Magazine, "Essential Attributes of Successful Managing Partners."  And what, pray tell, are those attributes of the successful?

• Visionary
• Trustworthy
• Financially rigorous
• Optimistic
• Team-oriented
• Skilled communicator
• Cheerleader, and
• Mentor

Overall, we are further instructed, "two themes quickly emerged" when considering managing partner candidates:  First, being able to "manage the firm in a fiscally responsible way," and second, "creat[ing] an environment where people thrive and enjoy doing excellent legal work."  If you're at all like me, it's at about this point that you're saying to yourself, "...and Motherhood and apple pie."

In that case, the line forms to the left.

Shall we devote the exceedingly brief span of attention required to expose this type of thinking (and publishing!) as the vacuous nattering it is?

"Fiscally responsible?"  Indeed.  Let's hope that grade school teachers can actually read, themselves, that bricklayers know top from side, and that nurses know male from female.  Talk about table stakes....

And as for "creating the right environment," our ABA-certified author has evidently escaped even the most glancing encounter with the real world.  One may as well instruct a miler to "run faster," a linebacker to "tackle more often," or a CPA to "do the general ledger better."  Saying it produces precisely zero result:  It's all in the details and the nuance.

Of which you will find none from our author.

Am I belaboring this?  Perhaps, but I'd like to think I actually have a moral for you.  There's a lot of advice out there for managing partners, for executive committees, for practice group leaders, and the like.  I know that for all of you in positions such as those  your "firm management" hat feels quite distinct from your "practicing lawyer" hat.  But I urge you, with all the bemused rhetoric I can muster in this piece, not to leave your faculties of critical thinking at the door when you don your "firm management" hat. 

Do think critically; do examine the source; do ask yourself what the author is actually trying to say (assuming they know themselves—an occupational hazard).  Do, in other words, be the same agnostic intellectual sponge absorbing information and points of view that you are whenever you're introduced to a new matter.  And then, and only then, form your own opinions—and be prepared to re-examine them in light of new evidence.

On the other hand, you could have just skipped to our  poor author's "bio" at the bottom of the sorry little ABA LPM piece and there you would learn all  you need to know.  She describes herself as "a leadership and development consultant and coach [who] specializes in helping successful firms leverage their strengths and grow their business." 

Had I only known it were that simple. 

All this time, I may have been missing the main chance here at "Adam Smith, Esq."  Instead of reading critically, thinking analytically, and doing my level best to write cogently, all I may have needed to do was to persuade readers that I wanted to help the successful among you "leverage and grow."

Darn:  Missed that obvious exit ramp.

But don't fear:  We're just heading on down the road.

Full post as published by Adam Smith, Esq. on December 13, 2007 (boomark / email).