I’m talking of course about partnership. Where else outside the professions is this regarded as a good way of doing business? It certainly won’t be the model used by the new entrants into the legal market. Even where firms have moved to LLP status, many of them have simply replicated the partnership arrangements they already had within the new wrapper.
I am particularly concerned about the kind of partnership agreement that I encounter regularly, namely one in which once you’ve made it to equity status (and often even at salaried partnership level) you’re in for life, or as long as you want to be, and only getting caught with your hand in the till or doing something that embarrasses the firm puts you at risk of expulsion. You can therefore obstruct policy or agree with it as long as it doesn’t affect you, and your position remains inviolable. Policy is debated at length and even where decisions are reached, they are just as likely to be debated again at the next partners’ meeting, or are not followed through.
Firms that have executive committees to shape and implement strategy on behalf of all partners often find themselves consulting so much with their fellow partners that the dynamic nature of the strategy team is dissipated.
These are truly the ‘alternative’ business structures, alternative in the sense of being eccentric. They are not fit to compete with the companies that will be entering the market, and every firm should take a long hard look at themselves and ask if their organisation is really set up for the practice of law in the modern world.
Martin Langan
Martin Langan is a former practising solicitor and equity partner in private practice. He is now a legal IT and operations strategic consultant, with particular emphasis on workflow development and business process mapping and change. He is the founder of Legal Workflow Limited.
Firms that have executive committees to shape and implement strategy on behalf of all partners often find themselves consulting so much with their fellow partners that the dynamic nature of the strategy team is dissipated.
These are truly the ‘alternative’ business structures, alternative in the sense of being eccentric. They are not fit to compete with the companies that will be entering the market, and every firm should take a long hard look at themselves and ask if their organisation is really set up for the practice of law in the modern world.
Martin Langan
Martin Langan is a former practising solicitor and equity partner in private practice. He is now a legal IT and operations strategic consultant, with particular emphasis on workflow development and business process mapping and change. He is the founder of Legal Workflow Limited.
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