Circling in the wings around almost any discussion of management and leadership issues in law firms, sometimes touted as a virtue above all others and sometimes only alluded to with caution, as one would might a wraith, is the issue of a firm’s “culture.”
A few observations about culture in Law Land:
- Firms and their lawyers invoke “culture” on the order of, I’d guess, 10—100 times more often than is customary in any other for-profit industry I know of. We are positively obsessed by it.
- It is always and everywhere: (a) highly distinctive to our firm; (b) collaborative; (c) collegial; (d) a key reason clients hire us; and (e) a key reason people work here.
- You think I’m kidding about “collaborative” and “collegial?” A Google search on “law firm culture collaborative collegial” returns 7,220,000 results.
- When asked to describe the firm’s culture in terminology that’s not functionally interchangeable with that of every Tom, Dick, and Harry law firm, we are struck mute.
Nevertheless, far be it from me to deny that there is something, after all, to the notion of a firm’s “culture.” I choose to believe two things about it, however.
First, your firm’s culture is just about the very last thing a client would cite when explaining how they chose to work with you (or not). The reason is simple enough: Clients choose law firms, and lawyers, based on perceived value and benefits to them, and your firm’s culture is completely irrelevant on that score to clients. Yes, there are characteristics we may reflexively lump under “culture” which provide tangible client benefits, but they actually have nothing to do with culture at all. Clients care about:
- Whether they’re hiring a bunch of really nice people they enjoy spending a lot of time with to work through a matter in close coordination, or whether they’re hiring nasty, alpha predators to teach somebody a lesson. (There are degrees in between, but you get my drift.) This is not culture: This is personality type and disposition.
- For matters that cross practice areas and/or geographies, whether your firm’s partners cooperate readily internally and play nicely among yourselves, so that the best lawyer at your firm for that exact matter gets the actual assignment and it’s not hoarded by the solitary partner who signs the bills—if it’s that type of matter. This is not culture: This is usually determined by compensation structure and incentives.
- Alternatively, for matters where a name brand hired gun is what the client is looking for, that they can hire that pistol-packing individual and have them and them only run the matter. This is not culture: See above.
Finally, a very simple thought experiment: When was the last time you heard a corporation cite its “culture” as a reason to patronize its products or services? Have you ever heard, say, Procter & Gamble or Ikea, or for that matter BMW or Giorgio Armani, use that as part of their pitch? Preposterous, and rightly so. Clients, my dear, just don’t give a damn.
Still.
We need to be able to talk about “culture” in sharper, more pointed, and more trenchant ways. Because it does matter. It matters to the ultimate question facing any organization: Its very survival.
Silicon Valley VC/startups talk about culture just as much, maybe (I know this is hard to believe) even more. But at least some people in the Valley are starting to finally realize that “they would fit in our culture” usually means “they have the same background, and the same blind spots, as me”. I suspect most law firms use it the same way…
I would argue that clients are actually very good at assessing what a firm’s real culture is. Two of the points you list (personality type/disposition and incentives/compensation) are the most significant factors determining culture. The descriptions firms use on their websites are almost always aspirational, sometimes fantastical, and rarely at one with reality.
The problem that firms face (and they have this in common with many other organisations) is that changing culture often depends on changing aspects of the firm’s structure or deep-seated behavioural expectations at all staffing levels. It can be done, but most attempts result in lipsticked pigs.
I wonder if you’re assuming too much when you appeal to the survival of the firm. There are two key differences between law firms and the corporations from which you draw many of your analogies. (1) In large corporations, senior management is often different from ownership. In law firms, ownership and management are one in the same. (2) There is no obvious / definite end date for the owners’ ownership of corporations, and therefore there is more incentive to ensure the long-term welfare of the corporation. But in law firms, senior partners are due to retire in a few years and don’t have any obvious financial interest in the long-term welfare of the corporation. I think this is why so many firms are ignoring things that are taken for granted on this site, such as growth is dead, lateral partner hires don’t build good firms, firms have no sustainable culture, etc.