The business platitude - the future is now - seems to dominate the law firm mindset.
Law.com observes that during this COVID-19 recession, law firms are veering away from long-term planning.
Therefore, their manpower policies entail what Law.com phrases as "eating their young."
Winston & Strawn had laid off 10% of associates.
The Major Lindsay & Africa survey found that equity partners are squeezing out profits at the expense of nonequity partners, females and professionals of color.
And, some firms seem to be neglecting associate development. Part of that, though, may be a result of operating remotely. Associates can no longer just pop their heads into the partners' offices to ask a question.
This focus on exploiting every bit of current opportunity versus a preoccupation with succession planning is one kind of business model.
It's not new. And it may become a best practice since volatility and uncertainty may have become embedded in the global and U.S. economy.
During the late 1970s and early 1980s, Corporate America got hit hard by international competition. No longer was it Top Dog.
To survive, Chrysler, for example, bypassed its succession planning and parachuted in an outsider Lee Iacocca.
In the early 1990s, upstart competitors such as Microsoft and Apple threatened IBM. It pivoted out of its traditional policies including lifetime employment and brought in outsider Lou Gerstner Jr.
And all that systematic succession planning nurtured by the late Jack Welch at GE - smirk smirk. His decisions in that generated the downward trajectory which continues into 2020.
Maintaining a strong bench of brandname talent in the now seems to be the proven-out success formula for leading a law firm during aberrant conditions. That's exactly why the lateral market, at least in some categories, is brisk. That poaching, as by Paul, Weiss from Boies Schiller, receives plenty of media attention. Such coverage enhances the brand of both the law firm and its leadership.
What's being called "eating your young" is not only a model for law firm operations, though. In the book "Disrupted," Dan Lyons describes that MO as typical in startups. He calls it "burn and turn." That is, enthusiastic youth are onboarded, work hard, and when they can't endure that any more, are replaced like outdated inventory by other too-eager youth.
However, not all is lost. Entry-level employees, both lawyers and staff, can approach the job as a short-term opportunity. Sure, some will make partner or not be laid off as technology takes over more and more administrative functions.
Most will be forced out.
The objective is to learn as much as they can, both about themselves and about the mechanics and macro aspects of the job. The mindset is to be prepared to exit. The strategy is The Hedge, that is, continuing to research how to leverage those skills and experience to other jobs or self-employment. Part of that is creating resumes and cover letters which tell that story in the language of results. "Our team achieved verdicts and settlements totaling X billions in 3 years."
A useful briefing on how much the labor market has changed and how that influences being hired and working anywhere at anything for any period of time is "What Color Is Your Parachute?" by Richard N. Bolles.
Essentially, the reality, Bolles currently hammers, is that human beings will spend their entire lifetimes searching for work - or business for their own enterprises. Those who are most resourceful in that - and not necessarily the best qualified - will be the overall winners. Intelligence, talent and even a gold-plated network are all less important than job/business search know-how.
Meanwhile organizations will burn and turn. The burden is on those being burned and turned to be totally strategic about what they have to derive from that situation for their Next. Then, move on to the next without bitterness.
Those who make it to the top will do whatever it takes to stay there. Increasingly the route up the food chain is not linear. Lateral activity is demonstrating that. For big leaps forward those lawyers had to leave where they had started out.
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