Articles Posted in Talent

The New York Times (May 15, 2005 at BU5) ran an article about SOX and compliance. It quoted an editor of Compliance Week: “The big story is that Sarbanes-Oxley has shifted the power center at public companies by homogenizing the roles of the general counsel and the compliance officer.”

Homogenized milk doesn’t separate into cream and milk, but the roles of general counsel – providing legal advice – and the chief compliance officer – assuring procedures meet legal requirements – remain fairly separate. [See my post of March 26, 2005 on two-tiers of staff.] If you combine promoting business (law) and enforcing regulations (compliance), do you create a no-fat department – watered down and less effectual in both roles?

The German word schadenfreude, the split feelings of laughing when you see someone slip on a banana peel but then bad for laughing, may describe what general counsel feel when one of their stars is proclaimed by a magazine as a future general counsel. You burst with pride, then you feel bad because the publicity means you are more likely to lose that talented lawyer.

Sure, everyone talks about breeding leaders and we praise General Electric’s law department for spawning so many general counsel, but if our turn comes to expose talent, it has its schadenfreude.

Here is an example, from a legal group in Altria, of raising the capabilities of lawyers (CounseltoCounsel, May 2005 at pg. 11). First, the group developed a skills and competency profile for each lawyer position. The profile captured the needed skills in four categories and ranked the competency level the incumbent needed in each for the position.

Second, every lawyer assessed him- or herself. Third, the department’s leaders identified where the team and individuals needed to improve. Next, the leadership developed a plan to fill the skill gaps using internal coaches, external training, and other on-the-job, cross-functional opportunities.” Lastly, Altria’s Asian law department incorporated the skills steps into each lawyer’s development program.

Several years ago I attended the Harvard Business School program, Leading Professional Services Firms. Of the 50+ attendees, about 20 were partners at law firms, all of whom were British-based firms. It was a mind-expanding week, expensive but full of perspectives, examples, and provocative ideas about managing professionals.

A program of this caliber helps groom corporate counselors for more responsibility. It goes beyond CLE credits to the realm of leadership.

Managers of effective corporate legal groups take time to evaluate their lawyers.  To some degree, inevitably, evaluations compare the performance of a particular lawyer to the performances of that lawyer’s peers.  What’s unusual, however, is to explicitly rank all the lawyers against each other.  (An article in 28 Legal Times 31 explains variations on this practice and the law suits it has caused.)

Forced rankings of in-house lawyers rarely happen because it is a bad idea. It requires that some lawyers be classified as poor performers; it falters or fails in small practice areas – especially if a quota system obtains; it relies on managers being critical rather than building on strengths; it creates divisiveness among managers and lawyers; it hurts morale; and it blurs intangible and incommensurable distinctions between lawyers.

The legal search firm of Seltzer Fontaine Beckwith has upended some of the prevailing perceptions about in-house quality of work life compared to law firm life.  First, fewer hours worked has lost its in-house advantage as headcount constraints clash with increasing workloads.  Second, no pressure to develop business finds its match in the over-riding pressure of keeping the single corporate client happy. 

More job stability, the third myth, becomes laughable with the pace of mergers, dispositions, and reorganizations.  And the fourth myth, the ability to move to the business side, “happens often enough to keep the dream alive, but it is not very likely.”  [Or, likely to succeed; see my post of April 18, 2005 .]  More on the myths at www.sfbsearch.com/hottips/myths_of_inhouse_practice.html

This encouraging datum came from Susan Daicoff ’s article, “Lawyer, Know Thyself,” dated October 13, 1999.  I have quoted the summary, for which the citation was Chiu, 1998 at 533, referencing M. C. Fisk, “A measure of satisfaction,” Nat’l L.J. S2, S9-12 (May 28, 1990).

Fifteen years have passed since the summarized research.  My impressions since then suggest that in-house levels of satisfaction may have declined, in some objective way, as in-house employment has become more demanding, but not in a relative way, compared to lawyers in private practice, government agencies, or other forms of practice.

In November 1998, the Eastman Kodak legal department in Western Europe, having then ten lawyers in four countries, introduced a new structure.  A three-page summary of the changes included such measures as creating “horizontal” teams by the six E-K business units, rather than continuing with national lawyers handling national legal work across business units.   Additionally, the combined department agreed a single European budget, decided to charge time back to clients (once the accounting system permitted tracking time), and committed to provide additional client training and information.

What caught my eye, however, was one statement:  “We now insist that all of our lawyers have or are actively learning a second language.  Any new lawyers taken on will have to be truly European lawyers, either qualified in or with experience in more than one jurisdiction…”  The bi-lingual goal makes complete sense, as does the desire to eschew expats from the US.  Most legal groups in Europe could consider adopting the same requirements.

In late 2003, the average age of the lawyers in the Bombardier law department was, according to its general counsel, 35.  Speaking at a Canadian conference, the general counsel seemed proud of that average.

I can’t come to a conclusion.  Perhaps, given age discrimination laws, I should not even touch this subject, but it got me thinking. 

If the average lawyer graduates law school at 25, then the Bombardier lawyers – were they

US

At a conference in late 2003, the General Counsel of Manulife, a Canadian financial services company then with 125 lawyers, estimated that one or two of his lawyers transfer each year to a non-lawyer role on the business side.

His offer to them was to hold their position for three months, while they decided whether the switch made sense to them and to their new group.  Candidly, he admitted that the law department might lose some of its best and brightest.  Despite the level of the departing, he estimated that “the failure rate is probably one-third to one-half of the émigré lawyers.  I took that to mean that a good portion of the lawyers either did not like their choice or did not succeed in the new position.

Even if that is a typical, poor track record, I support good lawyers exploring career options outside the law department.