Twenty-plus years of working at law firms and with lawyers and you learn a few things about the practice of law, client service, and legal operations in general. I frequently read and hear about leaders in corporate legal departments who want a law firm partner working on their legal problems.
Is this necessary when you can get the same or better legal counsel for half the cost?
Don’t misunderstand, GCs don’t want a 23-year-old first-year fresh out of law school as their lead attorney either. But there are plenty of legal minds to go around, many of which have matured within lawyers who are not partners.
There’s been some talk about the demise of the old-school law firm partner model. Sara Randazzo’s recent article in the Wall Street Journal made a splash when she wrote that the emergence of two-tier partnership structures at law firms sounds the death knell for life-time partnership at law firms. ATL’s Joe Patrice and David Lat recently wrote critically of non-equity partner structures, too.
I say, it probably doesn’t matter anyway.
I had a boss who argued to me that titles just don’t mean much. The thought was “who cares what we call the position; titles are free.” That may or may not be true, since clearly advantages are afforded to those who hold loftier titles. But when it comes to actually delivering legal services, does the lawyer’s title matter? My experience is that it does not.
A partnership is merely a way of setting up a business. In the end, law firms provide professional services and it shouldn’t matter whether the lawyer performing the work is a “real” partner, special counsel, or an associate. Frankly, most corporate legal leaders I talk to look at law firms as just another vendor.
The better question I think is why law firm partnerships thrive at all? Few firms actually function as partnerships, least of all the behemoth-sized firms. Practice areas, even in smaller firms, are siloed and function as separate little fiefdoms. Some firms are so large, it has been observed, that the so-called “partners” do not even know each other. If it weren’t for shared administrative services such as accounting, marketing, and the like, I’m not sure many firms would qualify as a going concern.
Anyone who has ever worked at a law firm figures out fairly quickly that most lawyers are terrible businesspeople. Smart firms leave the administration and operations to people with that experience.
So, where does this leave us? What does it mean to be a partner in a law firm today?
Honestly, the only discernable difference between partners and other lawyers at a firm is tenure and compensation. Some partners are good at generating business, but all lawyers are encouraged to develop new business. And sure, tenure generally means experience, and with experience comes a certain level of knowledge and skill, but given that it now takes like 10 years to become a partner, does anyone think the knowledge gap between the seventh-year associate or counsel and the partner is that far apart?
And the fact is that the attributes of being a partner have no correlation to how good one is at understanding complex litigation or transactional issues. Compensation means you’re successful financially, not necessarily that you’re any good. Prestige doesn’t mean a thing if you cannot execute.
No, what makes a lawyer valuable as outside counsel is their understanding of the client’s business, the client’s legal needs, and exposure to risk. Navigating and mitigating those needs, particularly in the face of contentious or complicated litigation or complex transactional issues, are what’s valued. Collaboration, creative problem solving, and great client service — these are the value points that corporate legal leaders seek. And you don’t need to be a partner to meet these needs.
In fact, arguably, some partners today are not as well-suited to manage modern litigation, eDiscovery, information governance, and cybersecurity issues. As the practice of law becomes more complex and the legal industry — hopefully — continues to evolve, it seems to me that young, technology-oriented lawyers are going to be positioned best to solve client business problems.
The hundreds of lawyers I’ve worked with over the course of my law firm career, many of whom I trained as first-years, are more than capable of working on and resolving complex legal issues. So, next time outside counsel’s invoice arrives, look at the partner’s hourly rate. The next call should be to a senior associate who probably bills at half that rate.
Mike Quartararo
Mike Quartararo is the managing director of eDPM Advisory Services, a consulting firm providing e-discovery, project management and legal technology advisory and training services to the legal industry. He is also the author of the 2016 book Project Management in Electronic Discovery. Mike has many years of experience delivering e-discovery, project management, and legal technology solutions to law firms and Fortune 500 corporations across the globe and is widely considered an expert on project management, e-discovery and legal matter management. You can reach him via email at mquartararo@edpmadvisory.com. Follow him on Twitter @edpmadvisory.