Is not having the title ‘partner’ holding you back?

It is an argument often made by aspiring partners: if only they had the title of partner, then they would be able to do the things partners do. Not having the title of partner is the thing that is really holding them back.

There is truth to this. Law firms are hierarchical no matter how flat structured they attempt to be; you tend to get influence, credibility, and status with the title. And there will always be clients that really want the safety and security of having a partner on their matter, regardless of how competent the senior lawyer is.

If you are heading towards partnership, the challenge with this argument is that every aspirant can make this claim, and every current partner can say you have to do it without the title to get the title. So, at the very least, as an argument, it doesn’t have much currency, and at best, it’s not exactly the most compelling argument as to why you should be made a partner.

How do you be a partner without the title? Here are a few things to consider:

Act like a partner

It is often said about leadership, particularly in pithy LinkedIn posts, that you don’t need a title to be a leader. And this is true to an extent — try making CEO-like decisions as an intern. Quibbles aside, the point here is that leadership is largely about leading yourself and the influence you have on others, and that is irrespective of what your title might be or how much authority you have.

Similar sentiments can be applied to the title of partner. If you look past the title of partner and look at the key things expected of a partner, there is no doubt you can have these in place without the title.

You could ask yourself: when is it, exactly, that you feel not having the title is holding you back?

Is it with clients? Is it getting buy-in from partners for a BD activity? Getting prospective clients to engage with you? Is it simply not being listened to in meetings, or having trouble getting juniors to delegate to?

Once you have identified this, then put in a strategy to overcome the hurdle. Take one aspect, identify a key action item that you could do, and start working on it.

It can be useful to go back to basics, back to the fundamentals. To act like a partner without the title is to act on the fundamentals of a good practice. And, arguably, you also need to look and sound like a partner.

No, that does not mean throwing diversity out the window; it’s just recognition that being a business owner means you need to concern yourself with the issues of a business owner and be able to talk about this in what is considered a credible manner.

Make other partners’ lives easier

In his book 48 Laws of Power, Robert Greene argues that rule number one is: Never outshine the master.

You can use this rule to gain influence without the title. Rather than thinking you need to outshine the existing partners, you could work to make their lives easier.

So where not having the title is inhibitive, look for ways to engage not only your supervising partner but also other partners. Business development is a good opportunity for this. Where you need “partner-pull” to get the engagement of a prospective client, do the groundwork and make it easy for other partners. Take responsibility.

This is particularly the case with new client work, or with clients who are happy to work with you but really want a partner in the room, or at least partner oversight. See this as a challenge or a problem to solve.

Show the client you have the competency and commerciality to make the big decisions but that you involve a partner for reassurance. How you do this is important. This is about your language and approach. You are being collaborative, not hiding behind the decisions of a partner.

One of the concerns I’ve heard expressed by partner aspirants is that if they engage and involve other partners in BD etc., be collaborative, the partners will take the clients for themselves, and they’ll never get the credit.

This is always the risk with collaboration, and your approach will depend on the culture in your firm and the policy around client relationships. To a large extent, this is about being wise and adopting the right mindset.

Obviously, if a partner is just using you with no level of appreciation or reciprocity, then you need to focus your attention elsewhere. But equally, what mindset do you want to adopt? One of fear and insecurity around people taking your clients, or an abundance mindset, having the confidence that even if a few clients don’t become yours in the short term, when you are a partner, you will be able to build and maintain strong long-term client relationships?

Cutting to the chase of partnership

It is easy to get caught up in the machinations of trying to become a partner and the challenges that this presents. And it can be a sort of purgatory when you are doing many of the things a partner would do but do not have the title, or the remuneration.

The general sentiment I hear, however, from newly appointed partners is, not that it is more of the same, but rather it’s like starting all over again.

The key, then, is to go back to basics, build a practice that is profitable, and do this in a way that is sustainable. Nothing is more compelling than a strong business case that has all the key elements that would make partnership successful.

What Is Your Partnership Conversation Strategy?

At some point, if you want to be a partner, then you need to have a conversation about your partnership prospects.

Ideally, the partnership conversation is instigated by a senior decision maker at your firm who taps you on the shoulder and tells you that you are on the slate, has his or her backing and the support of the partnership. Your business case is largely written for you and your supervising partner will pass on to you a reasonable stable of clients to provide a nice base for the first years of partnership.

More often the partnership conversation can feel more like dating than a business decision, with the firm often being the party playing hard to get.

There are more partnership aspirants than positions available and as a result, it is very competitive. Up until this point promotion can tend to be linear, it’s largely dependent on years of experience. Not so when it comes to partnership—what exactly you need to do to make partner can be much harder to pinpoint. Not only does it differ from firm to firm, but it may also differ from candidate to candidate.

You may or may not have to instigate the conversation, and it may be more of a series of conversations, and it can come in many forms. Whatever your situation, it seems sensible to take a strategic approach to this.

If your next step is partnership and you need to have that conversation, here are a few things that might be useful to consider.

Do You Really Want to Be a Partner? 

If you are uncertain as to whether partnership is the right option for you, you may want to be selective about who you tell about your doubts.

Sharing your uncertainty with your supervising partner might not be the best move strategically, because even if you do decide this is the right option for you, you want them to be completely convinced about your hunger for the role, not wondering if you really want this.

If you are exploring several career options other than partnership, one way to make sure you come across as confident in your decision is to explore each option as if it’s your only option. This is arguably the best way to come to a decision anyway, but also ensures you don’t come across as uncertain.

Are You Prepared for the Outcome of the Conversation? 

It may be that one conversation will not give you the clarity you need. It’s more likely a series of conversations with a number of people, and you may not feel like you are actually in the running for partner until you are actually in the partnership process itself.

That said, there are any numerous outcomes and possible nuances.

First, there is “Yes, we would like you to become a partner, you will be on the slate this year.” This is the ideal. It provides you with clarity and you can move towards the next steps of shaping and honing your business case, and work towards building some momentum behind your partnership tilt.

Second, “Yes, but not this year. Or: Yes, but not sure when.” This is favorable but introduces some ambiguity and uncertainty. Here feedback can be very useful. The nature and tone of the feedback can provide you with important information.

Third, “No. We just don’t see you as a partner here.” You don’t want to hear this, but it does give you clarity. In the long run, if this is the reality then you are better off knowing this as early as possible because you can then make the best decision for your career.

Finally, there is: “No, not this year. Or not right now. Or you just need to…” A lot of the conversations will contain some version of this, or an aspect of ambiguity or elusiveness. You can be cynical about this, and sometimes that is very healthy because prolonging the process can be advantageous to the firm—they keep you working hard with the hint of a possibility of partnership, the proverbial carrot.

But a more circumspect view is that there are many factors at play that you don’t get to see, particularly in an international firm where the number of candidates can be determined by a range of factors—commercial, strategic (your practice area is not currently a strategic focus), geographic (your region isn’t doing so well), or even the personal influence of senior partners.

The follow-up to this conversation is to discover what is within your control and do something about it.

When to Have the Partnership Conversation

Obviously, you have this conversation when you are ready. But it will help if you do some discovery first, and this requires an understanding of both the formal and informal partnership processes.

The formal process should be easily attained from Human Resources or Learning & Development, and it’s best to have some idea of your business case. Business cases tend to be a work-in-progress document but starting them can get the conversation of partnership moving more quickly. Often, it’s not until a business case is in writing that you’ll get some serious feedback.

Many large firms will have a pre-partnership course for senior lawyers, so you want to make sure you have this under your belt and have met any other internal requirements.

The informal structures can be more elusive, things like how much self-originated work is expected, does your business case fit in with the strategic direction for the firm, internationally, locally, within your practice? Who needs to support your case? Who else is on the slate? Who needs to know you and what you do?

With Whom Should You Have the Conversation?

Clearly, your practice head or supervising partner will need to support your case, so they are probably the first port of call. It may also be necessary to canvas views more broadly, with key decision-makers. But you can be strategic about this.

What is your first step? A gentle conversation exploring your career options, or simply telling them you want to be a partner and asking when can we make this happen? How you approach this depends on your personality, your relationship with your supervising partner and your bargaining power—how compelling your business case is.

Profitable work is the key to law firms. If you are doing this in a sustainable fashion, you will be very well placed. If not, then the more subjective elements come into play.

Once You Have the Conversation You Can Take the Next Steps

Whatever the outcome of this conversation, or conversations, it provides you with information on which you can make an astute commercial decision. Ideally, you get the clarity you need and can move forward with the support you need to make partner.

If not, then you have a choice: You can stay and wait to see how it pans out, working on any feedback you get. Or, you can leave. Ultimately, the choice is yours.

DM me if you'd like to discuss your partnership prospects. www.stuartjbarnett.com

This article first appeared at Law.com, International.

Not sure about becoming a partner? Test your assumptions

When it comes to partnership, and indeed life, it all seems so much simpler if you know what you want. With a clear sense that partnership is for you, you can go about taking the necessary steps towards achieving it.

Of course, it’s rarely that simple, but it’s probably simpler than not knowing if you want partnership. Because then you find yourself in a sort of law firm purgatory and, while you might be ticking off some of the things you need to do to get to partner, your career can become a bit directionless.

Not only can you find yourself drifting, but the message you are sending your firm and its decision-makers can be less than ideal. Uncertainty or indecisiveness can come across as a lack of confidence, or a simply lack of interest and drive.

And partnership isn’t generally something you can drift into. You have to want it. And the firm needs to know you want it, in addition to having the metrics in place.

If you are unsure about whether you want partnership, and you are bumping up against partnership as the next career step, here are a few things to consider to help find some clarity.

Aligning what you want with partnership

Your goals, desires, and values will not always fully align with your firm’s. Even a full equity partner may find there isn’t complete alignment — arguably, they may even want more money for less work!

The key here is to work out what you value, what you want from your work and what your goals are, and then take a hard look at what the firm expects from partners.

To do this, you need to ask yourself (or have someone else, like a coach or mentor, ask you) some probing questions about what you like about your work, about what parts of the job you enjoy, about what makes you feel like you are adding value etc.

You can then compare this to what the firm expects of partners on a day-by-day basis. Looking at the substance of partnership and seeing if that aligns. If there isn’t full alignment, then you can see what you might have to do to make it align and whether that is something you are comfortable doing.

If you can’t make it align, then this can be a good indicator that a partnership isn’t for you.

You probably need to get out of your head

The classic situation if you are unsure when thinking through an option like partnership is to find yourself going around in circles. That is, you can highlight all the pros and then equally match them with the cons and find yourself right back where you started.

The solution is to simply test your assumptions. I like to refer to this as discovery. You need more information to make a better decision.

The best way to do this is to explore them a little further by talking to other people. In talking to someone else, you get to hear yourself out loud, and this in itself can be enlightening.

The art is to try not to become too focused on reaching a decision; instead, aim to be curious about the possibilities. Curiosity enables you to explore and consider, providing the opportunity for new perspectives.

Becoming too focused on the decision can be like editing a piece of work before it is written. You need to go through the process before you can reach the outcome of a decision.

Movement here is vital. In fact, movement is probably the number one thing I’m looking to help a client with, regardless of the situation. Any move forward, no matter how small, is progress. This is the groundwork for a shift in perspective.

Talk to people you admire or who model what you like

One of the issues that come up regularly for my clients is work/life balance as a con of partnership. What this means for you is very particular to your individual circumstances, but it can be useful to identify partners, either at your firm or elsewhere, who seem to be managing partnership in a way that you’d like to and see if you can line them up for a chat.

You can also take this approach with other concerns you may have, including staying in your current position. Who else in your firm hasn’t taken the partnership route, and what does that position look like? Is it something that is appealing to you?

Think about what influence you could have as a partner

Law firms are still largely hierarchical, and this means the further up the chain you go, the more influence you can have. That’s not an absolute rule, but being a partner does mean you can have more influence.

Sure, as a junior partner, you might not be able to enact massive change, but you will have a say and can have a bigger impact on the things you value, whether that’s work culture, which clients the firm should target, and the focus of business development etc.

You get to be part of the solution. It may be that some law firms are conservative and slow to change, but to change even a little requires people to want that change and do something about it. As a partner, you get to have more of an impact on the culture.

Think about what partnership might mean for your team

It may also be useful to think about what the impact partnership might have on the people you work with. Many of the partners I work with talk about what they value highly: supporting the career of their team members and ultimately helping some of them to partnership.

Being a partner will offer you more opportunity, but it also places you in a position to have a bigger impact on the careers of your team. This can be a very rewarding aspect of your career.

Remember: you can’t squeeze out all risk

In the end, the decision is yours. Well, at least the decision to try and become a partner — the partnership process itself has its own machinations.

All decisions have pros and cons, but in the end, you can’t completely squeeze out all risk and uncertainty. That’s just a part of life.

The key is to make the best decisions you can by testing your assumptions and remaining curious about the possibilities.

Let’s talk about money — you probably don't have enough.

Lately, I’ve had a few money discussions; they pop up from time to time and are usually about being dissatisfied with remuneration, be it income, bonus or equity. Which makes sense, if you are happy with your remuneration, it’s probably not something you raise with your coach, writes Stuart J. Barnett.

Law firms are metric-driven, and it doesn’t take too much to work out what you might be worth to the firm — the more revenue you bring in, the better — and you don’t get the big financial rewards until you are a partner, and an equity partner at that.

Yet money is a complex topic, one which we all grapple with to various degrees, and approach it with our own perspective, mindset, hang-ups and sense of fairness.

Two things stand out from these discussions: generally, we could always do with a little more; and relativity is more important than dollar amount.

So against this backdrop, here are a few observations that might be worth considering when it comes to how you feel about your current remuneration.

Continue reading here.

What is your hybrid strategy?

At one point in the middle of lockdowns, when everyone one was pretty much working from home, we were never going back to the office. The office was dead. Law firms were highly profitable and amazingly functional with everyone working remotely, writes Stuart Barnett.

Now it seems many law firms have settled on a three-days-per-week-in-the-office policy. What might have worked when faced with a world pandemic, isn’t necessarily the best way forward when the world isn’t in various degrees of lockdown.

What the hybrid model provides is a wider variety of working practices that take into account the preferences of staff who have become accustomed to the flexibility of WFH. It’s something largely unthinkable in big law firms prior to COVID-19. Necessity is an insistent change maker.

This is not a settled debate. And one with strongly held views. Suggesting recently that your career could be impacted by an absence of human face-to-face interaction, my LinkedIn post was met with some staunch resistance. A follow-up poll revealed that 47 per cent of people said that WFH would have a negative impact on their career and 40 per cent positive, 7 per cent no change. (The other 7 per cent agreed it would give them more time to vote in polls).

Personally, I think there are some things best done in person. Online interactions can liberate you from place and travel, but the serendipity of face-to-face interactions that happen in the office is very difficult to replicate. A coffee chat is far more valuable to relationship building than a messenger chat. 

To be fair, this may be a generational thing.

Continue reading here.

Tips for your 1st year of partnership

Now that all the buzz around being appointed to the partnership has settled, the reality of being a partner in a law firm can leave you feeling a little overwhelmed, or at the least a little uncertain as to what this partnership thing is really going to look like, writes Stuart Barnett.

Ideally, it will be an organic transition that means you are largely doing what you did prior to having the title, with a bit more responsibility thrown in and a role you get to grow into over time. The reality can be a little different: everything is the same, yet different.

How you deal with this transition is a very individual thing, dependent on your firm, your practice area, and the expectations of others and your expectations of yourself.

The art, much like life, seems to be working out what you can control and what you cannot, and acting accordingly.

Continue reading here.

Building a team can be a lawyer’s most rewarding job

The task of creating and maintaining a collegiate, supportive and engaged team environment may end up being the most rewarding thing that one does as a legal professional, writes Stuart Barnett.

“Happy teams are all alike, every unhappy team is unhappy in its own way,” said Tolstoy, with more than a hint of poetic license.

Teams tend to be most noticeable in their dysfunction, not when they are running smoothly. You know that because the problems you are dealing with (or not dealing with because it is all a bit too hard) take up a disproportionate amount of your time.

You can look at this in a particularly utilitarian light: a high-performing team is the key to building and maintaining a sustainable practice. Leveraging associates can be very profitable. Therefore, you need to sort your people’s issues. You know, get better people to better serve you, so you can hit your budget and maintain this in perpetuity. After all, you have clients to serve.

Continue reading here.