A 4th of July Meditation

With the release this week of The American Lawyer's "A-List," we revisit the perennial debate about the value of pro bono work and diversity.  Why?  The "A-List" methodology is to start with the AmLaw 200 and rank them on the metrics of revenue per lawyer, associate satisfaction, pro bono, and diversity.  Firms are scored for their rankings "inverted," as it were (so that the #1 firm in RPL gets 200 points), and the composite score, with RPL and pro bono rankings doubled, determines the firm's standing.  Of the 200 AmLaw firms, the top 10%, 20 firms, make the so-called "A-List."

I won't go into whether I subscribe to the methodology of the A-List, or to its PC-squared values—nor will I ask you to laud or denounce it—but I'll take the occasion of its annual publication to pose a different question:  Are law firm leaders contributing significantly to the public discourse?

I ask because McKinsey recently published "CEOs as public leaders," a survey of US business executives.   If its findings contain a lesson for our profession, as I believe they do, we have our work cut out for us.  Here are the top-line results:

• Half of respondents believe they and their peers should play a leadership role in publicly shaping debate on topics such as education, health care, and foreign policy, yet only one-seventh consider themselves to be actually playing that role.
• Among the few who do play a leading role, most by far are from private companies and say their motivation is primarily personal.
• Highly correlated with participation in the public sphere is a strong network of peers with a similar interest.
• The primary barrier to being more involved is a lack of time.
• When asked how involved business executives actually are in addressing public issues:
  • 35% say they play no role at all
  • 59% take the cop-out answer and describe the role as "some, in efforts to address public issues, but not a leadership role"
  • and only 6% say most play a leadership role.
• The disconnect between what executives think their public role should be, and what they actually do themselves, is even more telling. Here are the figures for the question, what role do you think most executives should play vs. what statement best describes your role:
• No role:  6% should, 27% me
• Some role:  51% should, 59% me
• Leadership role:  44% should, 14% me.
• Finally, in terms of enablers and barriers to engagement, the top three enablers were:
  • A strong network of peers with a shared interest in public issues (51%)
  • Comprehensive set of facts and understanding (50%)
  • Relationships with people who could have an impact (43%)
• And the top three barriers were:
  Lack of time (71%)
  • Fear of negative publicity (25%)
  • Short term financial pressures (23%)

Where does this leave us?

If we're at all like business executives, we're falling sadly short of our aspirations in contributing to informed public discourse about issues we know something about.  We have bully pulpits—we really do, just ask your communications people about getting an Op-Ed placed under your byline—but we're largely mute.

What might those issues that "we know something about" be?  Start with some small concepts like liberty, justice, equal rights, and the rule of law.  Invite your partners to contribute their expertise on topics du jour.   For example (and I remind you again, that "Adam Smith, Esq." is relentlessly nonpartisan and nonideological, at least in the political realm):

• Was President Bush's commutation of Scooter Libby's sentence justified?  Why or why not, and by what precedent?
• What should we do about Guantanamo?
• Was the Supreme Court's recent Tellabs decision changing the pleading standards for securities class action suits well or ill-advised?
• ...and you get the picture.

With all due respect for pro bono and diversity efforts, those initiatives may set fine examples and they unquestionably change the lives of individuals lucky enough to be personal beneficiaries of both efforts.  But we can do more.

We can contribute to the public discourse on issues that affect our firms, our headquarter cities, or simply the well-being of our nation.   We can talk about matters important to our firms or matters important to the nation as we conceive it.  (In the McKinsey survey, for example, the quality of education and of health care were seen as socially important but not critical to the CEO's businesses, whereas the impact of federal regulations and the price and availability of energy were seen as parochial critical to the business.)

If you believe the Google Zeitgeist, Britney Spears is the #1 topic Americans care about.    I leave it to you whether the level of our public discourse has reached an all-time low, but we can either bemoan and denounce it, or participate and elevate it. 

We have a voice, we are by and large articulate, rational, and can explain our opinions on issues large and small with particular rhetorical and intellectual force.  Let's use the platform.  Let's not, as McKinsey's survey of business executives revealed, aspire to more than we realize.

To paraphrase:  "We have a democracy, if we can keep it."

Happy 4th of July.