Having trouble reading this newsletter? Click here to see it in your browser.
You are receiving this newsletter because you signed up from our web site. Click here to unsubscribe.

October 2007 Newsletter

Welcome to your second Firm Beliefs newsletter, informing you about the world of professional services, the world of Firm Beliefs and the world that some of our clients/readers live in. Feel free to email us with any ideas or thoughts about content.

Brave new world?

The Law Society is hosting an awards ceremony on 25th October 2007 - The Law Society Excellence Awards - for being more than just 'good technical lawyers'. The Society is recognising those who think about what is needed if we are to serve our clients well in the 21st century. Some may argue that such awards are long overdue from the representatives of our profession. We however prefer to applaud them for trying to engender a passion for business amongst those they represent.

In particular, there is an award for 'Innovation'.

In other professions and industries, innovation is an almost over-used and over-hyped word - in our profession, we only now seem to be realising the power of 'introducing something new' into how we conduct our businesses. Innovation means different things to different firms. Defining an 'innovative' firm is difficult; as is defining a person who thinks 'innovatively'. What is clear is that there are individuals entering our profession who look at what the client's world is doing, look at what lawyers could do for clients to help them harness the opportunity of that world, and then think about the best way of achieving that. And we have to face the fact, as a profession, that what we have been doing up until now rarely does enable our clients to harness the opportunities facing them today and tomorrow... Furthermore, those individuals best able to do that are not always the ones at the top of the firm's tree...

More on the Law Society Excellence Awards 2007.

Firm Elite event 20th September

What do the following have in common: Turbervilles, Rooks Rider, Clifford Chance, Brand Remedy, Managing Partner magazine, Norton Rose, Mizuho Bank and Firm Beliefs? Some of their employees and partners all met for drinks and dinner at the Royal Overseas League. The range of experiences and skills meant that lawyer, professional manager, editor and business owner each had something to contribute, to disagree about, to discuss, to challenge... All ages were present too (but we shan't reveal too much about the spectrum of those!).

Firm Elite events are for those who are passionate about business - regardless of profession, skills, experience or role in the organisation - and that was certainly shown by all of those present (helped no doubt by the beverages...). Do you often go out for dinner and meet people who are just there because they feel they ought to be, and with whom discussion seems such a chore? Firm Elite events are not like that. Conversation is wide-ranging, full of humour, and never dull.

We had to operate a waiting list for this one and we will have to do the same for the ones next year. Click here for details of future events: www.firmbeliefs.co.uk/firmelite.php

A huge thank you to Richard Brent, editor of Managing Partner, for being our main guest and for so persuasively extolling the virtues of keeping up to speed with new thinking and new developments in our profession by reading Managing Partner. Richard has also been a guest-blogger on our site: www.firmbeliefs.co.uk/blog.php?id=17

Managing Partner can be viewed on-line if you are a subscriber on: www.mpmagazine.com.

Traumatic times for new managers

According to some CIPD research, making the transition to a management role comes second (behind divorce) in the list of traumatic life events. (CIPD Research Insight, Investigation Leadership Transitions).

We tend to underestimate the transition to managing partner within our profession. In very few cases do we allow managing partners to give up fee-earning in order to manage the firm. And in too many firms, the managing partner is either 'the best of a bad lot' or 'the one least likely to rock the boat'! To be a managing partner is to be a manager - who needs skills sets which are rarely deliberately gathered as they move up from trainee to junior solicitor, to junior partner etc. Whilst they need to keep a handle on fee-earning work, so that they are never removed from the impact of some of their decisions on both clients and staff, they also need to be allowed the time to hone existing skills and develop new ones.

Interestingly, nearly half of the leaders interviewed seek out external support (skills developers, mentors etc), 32% say they go to their colleagues but only 2% go to HR.

As with many research reports, they never go further and say why! Why do only 2% of new managers look for support from HR? In the legal profession, HR has a bad press - they are either 'tears and tissues' people or 'procedures and manuals' people. Occasionally, we come across 'strategic business partnering' people and if you have one of them in your firm, you need to keep them! Those of our clients who are most successful in terms of how they serve their clients and staff are those firms who have a tight-knit strategic support team for managing partners. In those firms, it is the Finance, HR, IT and Marketing directors who provide the most effective support for new Managing Partners.

Whilst we at Firm Beliefs are more than happy to support our individual clients, many of whom are managing partners or heads of large departments, in developing new skills, we have to ask ourselves as a profession why such individuals feel the need to move outside of their firms for such support - even where it is available in-house for the rest of the partners and staff in the firm? The pressures on managing partners to be seen to be in control, knowledgeable and able means that they are not allowed to 'ask a stupid question' or make a mistake when undertaking skills development programmes within their own organisations. At least that is what they tell us. In our experience, therefore, we recognise much of what was found in the CIPD report.

If you are a new managing partner or a new head of department, why not join others in your position and benefit from our 1:1 programmes? www.firmbeliefs.co.uk/training.php. Discretion, and the invitation to make mistakes and ask silly questions during programmes, guaranteed!

Where are you?

We have been approached by a number of firms over past months for help in locating 'the right person for the right job'. We are not recruitment consultants but are always happy to make the right connections for our clients and contacts where we can. It continues to be difficult to attract lawyers with 'commercial nouse', 'the ability to graft until the client is happy', 'who are passionate about the fact they are working for a business and not just a profession'. So over the next few newsletters we will be introducing you to firms, via this newsletter, who are looking for those people - who may even be looking just for you! If you like the sound of them, you are welcome and encouraged to contact them direct. We shall also be highlighting, thanks to contributions from some of our clients who have found the right firm, how they achieved that.

Firm Beliefs news

Sally returns to work at the end of October. Sara, Branko and everybody else are hugely relieved as they have sadly lacked the ability to be as efficient as she is in running the business! Welcome back, Sally.