Articles Posted in Talent

Carol Bartz, CEO of Yahoo!, writes in the Economist, The World in 2010 at 128, about leadership in the information-overload age, Bartz observes that “hi-Po’s” have traditionally meant standout employees “who could climb the next rung of the management ladder.” The honor now should go to “those employees who, though perhaps not the best managers, have the ability to digest and interpret information for others.” She sees them as “thought leaders.” More jargon, I say.

Lawyers inside a company may not be all that terrific as managers of people, but they had better excel at digesting facts and interpreting them in a legal framework. Legal teams should be full of this kind of high potentials (See my post of July 29, 2007: high potentials with 10 references.).

Nearly all large legal departments find themselves with a single lawyer in one or more locations. Int’l In-House Counsel J., Vol 2, Summer 2009 at 1301, doesn’t mince words: “For those who will be the only lawyer on site at a location, seniority is a must.” It takes experience and grit to survive as an outpost. “Attempting to operate independently with anything less than seven to ten years experience in a relevant field is essentially doomed to fail.”

You have been warned! No solo whipper-snappers (See my post of Sept. 9, 2009: departments with only a single lawyer with 7 references and 1 metapost.)!

An interesting article in the Harvard Bus. Rev., Vol. 87, Dec. 2009 at 48, 55 extols the virtues of moderate conflicts among senior managers. A general counsel would do well to consider how to spark healthy disagreements among the lawyers and others who form the senior legal team (See my post of July 16, 2009: training on conflict management.). One exercise outlined in the article can be eye-opening.

Invite a couple of trusted outsiders, with experience in team dynamics, to observe your staff group in action as it debates a contentious issue, “taking detailed notes about who said what, when it was said, how long a particular conversation took, what the group’s reaction was, and so on.” The sidebar says that the observers stop when they have enough material and openly discuss it among themselves in front of the group! They discuss norms, roles, informal influence techniques (peer pressure, for example, or group think). They give examples and do not judge anyone.

This is daring, but I can well imagine the dynamics can improve, the transgressions called out, the lurkers made aware, the bullies reprimanded, and much more (See my post of Jan. 17, 2006: passive-aggressive behavior.).

Bristol-Myers Squibb, winner of a 2009 Employers of Choice commendation from Diversity & the Bar, Vol. 11, Nov./Dec. 2009 at 16, operates a ten-week summer internship program for minority law students. This past summer the program allowed eight of them to experience working in the legal department. The program has grown steadily over the ten years it has existed (See my post of March 19, 2009: interns from law school with 6 references.).

Among other activities, the interns participate in “lunch and learn” sessions and meet with the general counsel at the end of the internship to give a summary presentation of their work.

Hildebrandt, a unit of Thomson Reuters, shared some data on cost control strategies from its 2009 Law Department Survey. “Over the past several years, in-house attorneys have been receiving an annual 6-8% median increase in total cash compensation.” The recession has ended that streak.

I don’t write much on this blog about compensation because I have learned that there is not much demand for consulting in that area. General counsel (and HR) want some comparative benchmarking data on salaries and bonuses, but in the end there is not a whole lot of wiggle room for consulting (See my post of Aug. 21, 2008: compensation elements with 19 references.).

Still, the point of the survey noted above is that in 2009 and 2010, many in-house lawyers may feel more grateful for a job than entitled to a raise.

An economic model developed by NERA for the ACC and adjusted by Balanomics for research described in the ACC Docket, Nov. 2009 at 102-3, uses an estimate of what law firms spend to find and attract new associates. That estimate puts talent acquisition costs of law firms for “1st year associate recruiting costs” at a staggering $400,000.

Similarly, whatever time and money law firms pour into newly graduated associates after they join, whether the training comes from organized CLE or on-the-job learning, benefits the legal department that eventually lures them away, but without any cost. Let’s pick some numbers out the air: one week of formal training each year at 40 hours times a billing rate of $200 ($8,000) plus $2,000 each to attend two CLE conferences ($4,000), plus 10 hours of partner time to train at $500 an hour ($5,000) plus some firm overhead to arrange and track all this training ($3,000). Each year on those assumptions, an associate costs the firm $20,000 for training.

Legal departments that pick off associates after they have practiced a few years avoid that initial huge investment.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of posts on this blog refer to general counsel. Most use the term “general counsel” to stand in for the entire legal department, only a few pertain specifically to characteristic traits of person as an individual or the position. I have gathered XX metaposts that have to do with general counsel. See what I mean by the following metaposts:

Who reports to the general counsel (See my post of May 29, 2009: direct reports to the general counsel with 12 references.).

What role do values play for a general counsel (See my post of Sept. 23, 2009: values with 11 references since May 2008 metapost.).

For most in-house counsel, how the general counsel can clear a career path for them is a conundrum. According to Cheryl Solomon, general counsel of the Gucci Group, if a lawyer has primary responsibility for a major business unit it can be easier to get promoted to the next level of compensation banding, gain more perquisites, and even a higher title — assuming the business grows. Solomon called that “organic growth potential” (See my post of Dec. 9, 2008: single points of contact with 6 references.).

Career paths are harder, however, for specialty lawyers, such as litigation heads or directors of compliance, who may get great experience but there is nothing similar to organic growth that allows them to advance meaningfully, unless the overall organization grows sufficiently to warrant a larger legal team. So, according to Solomon, “You need to help them find continued ways to grow and develop” (See my post of May 5, 2008: specialty lawyers with 30 references.).

Solomon also acknowledged the tension of a general counsel between liking her people but wanting them to find their full potential. It is a fact of life that if you’ve hired the right people, eventually some will get bored, feel stunted, and leave, unless you can find meaningful ways to allow them to develop professionally (See my post of March 8, 2009: attrition in law departments, with 16 references and one metapost.).

Your law department had to lay off a lawyer or two. Is that the end of it? No.

A long-term study of employees at Boeing over a decade of deep downsizing found that “survivors can suffer just as much, if not more, than colleagues who get laid off.” As explained in Business Week, Nov. 2, 2009 at 65, the survivors felt guilty, continued to worry that the hatchet might still fall, complained about loss of institutional knowledge, shouldered heavier burdens, and became emotionally numb and disengaged. General counsel should be sensitive to the ongoing trauma even for those who keep their jobs.

Mergers also lead to RIFs (reductions in force) and the same psychological phenomena can occur. Among Boeing’s thousands of employees, “depression scores were nearly twice as great for those who stayed with Boeing vs. those who left. The laid-off were less likely to binge drink, often slept better, and had fewer chronic health problems.”

“We can make the distinction between leadership and management conceptually, but in practice I don’t think we should.” An excellent point for general counsel, made by management guru Henry Mintzberg in MIT Sloan Mgt. Rev., Vol. 51, Fall 2009 at 12. He points out that setting grand strategies is often bested by interesting strategies that emerge as managers deal with smaller decisions day to day. He believes the hundreds of decisions made every day by someone who directs a team are under-rated by academics and consultants. The two talents of managing and leading are as intertwined as thinking and acting (See my post of June 11, 2008: leadership with 32 references.).

General counsel certainly ought to think about things on a larger scale, motivate the troops, and make decisions about priorities on a larger scale, but what they do every day makes an equal huge difference in the effectiveness of the department. As Mintzberg says, “Management without leadership is disheartening or discouraging; leadership without management is disconnected.”