"Making Partner," or Things To Do While Waiting for the Dream Job and the Dream Practice!

As I sit before my computer monitor writing this short article, the window for my document is minimized so as to maximize my view of my desktop background—a view of our beloved, blue planet from two hundred miles above its surface. The stunning vista of creamy, white-blue clouds and indigo sea against a black, starless sky reminds me of the amazing richness of opportunities constantly before us…and of our regrettable inability to take advantage of all of them. Fortunately, leading full and joyful lives does not require that we take advantage of all opportunities but, rather, that we carefully choose the precious few possibilities that we can and will pursue. What a difference it will make in your law career if you seize those few opportunities and take full advantage of the doors they open!

No Such Thing as "Making Partner"

Candidates ask me all the time, "Which firms are making partners now?" I always respond, "None of them!" The dead silence is usually followed by nervous laughter. "No, really," candidates say. "I know it seems like that, but where are associates really making partners?"

At this juncture, I usually let them in on a little secret: things have changed in the practice of law since the 1950s. Here's the bottom line: there are no more firms where associates simply "make partner." Instead, associates grow up, get clients, create practices, and only then are awarded partnership status.

What this means is that attorneys must know how to create thriving practices while maintaining heavy workloads, and most firms cannot or will not expend resources to teach lawyers how to do this. They are on their own. Well, almost.

Here are some pointers that will help you develop the personal and professional clout you will need to build your own book of business.

Start Building Partner Skills Now

Associates who are ultimately invited to join their firms' partnerships are not created equally, yet there are several "types" of attorneys who possess skills that increase their likelihood of making partner. I once sat in on a lecture given by the chairman of a prominent law firm, in which he discussed three types of partnership-bound associates.

First, there is the "rainmaker" who spends all (or most) of his or her time networking, having lunches, meeting people, and bringing in business. Second, the "service partner" adds value to a firm by providing niche expertise in a specialized area of the law, thus meeting the needs of sophisticated clients in ways that a partner with general legal skills cannot. Finally, the "hybrid" brings good leadership skills, strong connections to the firm and within the local community, and the ability to supervise projects and associates with aplomb.

While I respect these distinctions, I see things a little more simply. The only kind of person who can make and remain a partner is a person who has developed and continues to nurture a large, quality network of friends, colleagues, experts, and clients with whom he or she is involved on a professional level. This means that a potential partner must be able to call upon the people within his or her network to meet the needs of existing clients, to refer and generate new clients, and to keep abreast of developments in his or her industry.

No matter what level of practice you may now enjoy, the levels of ability and interest you exhibit in maintaining such a network may well mean the difference between professional and remunerative success or failure.

The Core Competency of a Partner

The ability to develop successful professional relationships is one of the core competencies of a partner. Almost anyone can practice law, but only a few develop law practices. I always try to emphasize to younger lawyers that it is never too early to start the process of building a network of strong relationships. The fundamental difference between a partner and any other lawyer is leadership ability. Partners lead. That means that partners assume responsibilities, delegate tasks, and are accountable for meeting the needs of their clients. These leadership traits are not innate; they must be learned, and to be learned, they must be practiced.

The only way to become a leader is to practice leadership in a thousand small ways. Sets of small acts tend to grow, of their own accord, into larger sets of responsibilities that eventually can develop into leadership over an entire case, with a large client, or in a 3,000-member law firm.

Furthermore, leadership does not begin with a "lucky break," such as when, for instance, the senior associate on a matter calls in sick and you are named the lead attorney…or when the lead partner suddenly realizes that you are brilliant…or even if a client suddenly prefers that you take the reins. Rather, leadership begins with relationship management. In essence, every legal task can be broken down into a series of relationships that need managing. For example, an attorney must exhibit leadership in order to assign the appropriate people within a law firm to answer interrogatories, to find critical documents, to communicate key information about deals to clients, or to manage support staff and other associates in preparing filings or coordinating nationwide document collections and reviews.

Thus, to build the confidence, credibility, and leadership skills necessary to fulfill these responsibilities, attorneys must begin by cultivating as many meaningful relationships as possible. To do this, they must actually meet people.

Get Out There, Meet People, and Make Friends

Networking is just a fancy way of describing the process of intentionally making friends. Every lawyer in the country should be a member of at least three organizations and should contribute to each of them. It is often the case that the most effective, highest-functioning attorneys are those who are members of scores of organizations that they have joined over the courses of their careers.

For starters, however, any professional—and every lawyer—should join one organization within each of the following genres: professional, service-oriented, and fraternal or social. At the most basic level, every lawyer should be closely involved with some sort of professional organization of lawyers dedicated to furthering the practice of law. This might be a subcommittee within a state bar association, the American Bar Association, the Association of Trial Lawyers of America, or even your local Barristers Club. There is no substitute for meeting and interacting with new lawyers in settings devoted to their respective practices. Successful lawyers have hundreds of colleagues who are essentially professional acquaintances with whom they have developed familiarity. Although meeting people and getting to know colleagues is incredibly easy to do, many lawyers dread it. It doesn't have to be painful. Go out and meet someone new today!

For the Socially Challenged: A Step-by-Step Guide to Creating Your Network

Here is a step-by-step primer for developing a network of professional colleagues that even a partner would envy:

1. Join the "[fill in the blank]" club.

2. Actually go to a meeting.

3. Say, "Hello, how are you?" to five people. Be brave. Try to initiate some small talk. (For example, ask questions such as "Where do you practice?" or "What is your most interesting case right now?")

4. Give a business card to each person you talk to. Ask for a business card from each of them, or write their names and phone numbers down on one of your own cards and hang on to it!

5. Once you get home or back to the office, enter their names in your Outlook folder (or some other location), and set up a reminder to call each person back in one week to follow up and say how much you enjoyed meeting him or her.

6. Actually call each person back.

7. Make it a practice to call each person on your list of contacts once every three months.

8. Follow where this leads you.

There. That wasn't so hard! These are simple but invaluable steps. Every lawyer has some basic social skills, or he or she would not have survived the first year of legal practice. Begin naturally—but begin—and see where these proto-relationships take you. The point is that, just like in sales, there are only so many solid opportunities per "X" number of contacts. The only way to "get lucky" is to make sure that you make lots of attempts to build and maintain your personal network. Not every person is going to become a client, but the greater the number of personal contacts you maintain, the greater the resulting synergy between their accumulated sums of interactions, relationships, and experiences and your own.

Bringing It All Together

Once you have started down the path of generating a network of diverse professionals, you will be surprised at how it starts to take on a life of its own. Telling one colleague about an amusing vignette may lead him or her to do a small favor for you, such as sending over a client as a referral. Over time, that client or that colleague may lead you to significant business opportunities. All the while, you should be continuing to grow these and other relationships.

The key point to remember is that becoming a responsible leader depends on your ability to manage relationships. In every interaction, follow through with whatever you promise to do. If you offer to provide a reference, provide it! If you agree to get the name of someone who can serve as an expert, do it—and promptly! Demonstrating this kind of courtesy builds reputations and relationships—one small, solid step at a time. I absolutely guarantee that if you follow these practices, you will eventually succeed. You don't have to be perfect all the time. You just need to be reasonably careful, reasonably reliable, and reasonably friendly, and you will be ahead of the majority of the pack.

Conclusion

The world is full of opportunities, but we cannot take advantage of them all; we can only capitalize on a few. To the extent that you can internalize this powerful principle, you will find that the world—and, in particular, your own practice—is as full of opportunities as a path strewn with gems. The key is to determine which gems to pick up, carry, and ultimately safeguard…because you cannot take them all. If you follow this path, you may find that your biggest challenges lie not in finding opportunities, but in having sufficiently large pockets!

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No Need for "Mentors": Summon Your Posse! (and turn the "in posse" to "in esse")

Here is a quick test of your generational "orientation": When you think of a "posse," does your mind conjure up the image of 20 to 30 ranchers, all armed and eager to perform their civic duty while rounding up horse thieves? Or do you get the vision of eight or so of one's closest friends all wearing terribly expensive clothes designed to look like Goodwill cast-offs, while listening to impossibly loud music with lyrics that require copious expletive deletions?

It would be to your infinite surprise, perhaps, that I would like to talk about the second image, and not just because it is more in keeping with the current zeitgeist. Rather, it is because I want to tell you something about professional development and career goals that is better served by thinking "collaboratively," rather than "hierarchically."


More about that in a minute.

Posse Comitatus

The younger generation may throw the term "posse" around, and perhaps most who do are unaware that this is Latin, not English. Regardless, the venerable OED and even Black's Law Dictionary let us know that the 19th-Century image is more correct. A "posse comitatus" (sometimes just "posse") is the population of a county over the age of 15 that a sheriff may summon to his assistance in cases of keeping the peace or in pursuing and arresting felons. (See Williams v. State, 253 Ark. 973, 490 SW2d 117, 121). Regardless, I want to focus your attention on another Latin usage of "posse"; and that is the phrase "in posse," which is not to be confused with "in esse." Something is "in posse" when it may possibly be; something is "in esse" when it actually is. I want to draw the analogy between gathering a "posse" around you and thereby turning your career plans from "the possible" to "the actual," or "in posse" to "in esse."

You Need a Posse

Alright. Enough about Latin and competing images. Why should we worry about what a posse is? Quite simply, because you could really use one. It is always handy to have an armed force around you when looking to arrest scoundrels. It is also comforting to have one's friends around when suffering from extreme ennui. More to the point, a posse can also come in handy when you are trying to get somewhere in your career. Simply stated, you can go further if you have a group of individuals around that are in relationship with you for the sole purpose of helping you meet your personal career goals.

All of us are involved in all sorts of relationships. Some of these are reciprocal (or are supposed to be). For example, your relationship with your spouse or significant other is (or is supposed to be!) a reciprocal one; you each give to the other in a roughly equal way. Further, your casual friendships and acquaintances are largely reciprocal; you each bring something to the table. Usually, one person is not giving more to the relationship than the other. Both enjoy each other's company, and both impose on each other from time to time. But that's not the way the posse works. Instead, the posse should be composed of people who are willing, for whatever reason, to help you further your personal and/or professional goals. The point is not that you help each other, but that they are helping you. They give; you receive.

Gathering Your Posse

Where do these people come from? You would be surprised. For one thing, most people who have achieved some sort of personal or professional success in their lives are naturally predisposed to sharing the wealth of their experiences with others. I would posit that there are far more potential posse partners out there than individuals ready to take advantage of them. If you go through your day with the attitude of looking for relationships that could be of benefit to you, you will find them: in your extended family, at work, at clubs you belong to, at sectarian organizations you are affiliated with-all over the place. Open your eyes, be interested in talking to others for the mere sake of making contact, and you will find people willing to share their expertise and perspective with you.

Of course, you can get professional help as well. A professional or personal "coach," therapist, clergyperson, and even your recruiter (!) are all candidates for inclusion in your posse. The point is to add to your list of goals in your professional plan (have you written one yet?) the gradual inclusion of individuals in your posse who are willing to help you when you need it.

A New Paradigm

You are not looking for "mentors." Yes, I know that it is a popular word, and I seem to recall a n
number of television commercials extolling the virtues of being one. But what is a mentor anyway? In point of fact, there is not much consensus on what the word actually means. The classically educated among you may recall that Mentor was originally a proper name: Odysseus' old drinking buddy, who was left in charge of the Ithican king's household while he was away being the hero and fighting the Trojan War. You may also recall that Mentor wasn't much of a "mentor." He allowed Odysseus' house to be overrun by suitors to his not-yet-widow Penelope; neither is there any evidence in the text that he cared one whit for Odysseus' son Telemachus. In fact, it was good old Pallas Athene disguised as Mentor that gave Telemachus timely advice. Moreover, for 2700 years, no one used the term "mentor" at all. It did not become a common noun until the late 17th Century, when a French mystic and educator to kings, Francois de Salignac de la Mothe-Fenelon, wrote a sequel of sorts to the Odyssey (Les Adventures de Telemaque). It was there in Salignac's fiction that Mentor became a "mentor" to Telemachus-and from there that the word entered into our vocabulary.

I do not discount the idea of "mentoring" merely because it has spurious etymological roots. Rather, I discount the concept of mentoring because it carries with it an insidious paternalism. The mentor is "older and wiser" and "imparts wisdom" to a "younger, less experienced" mentee. This wouldn't be so bad, but we tend to think of the person needing the mentor as being "underprivileged" or "disadvantaged" in some way. Worse perhaps, we tend to think of a one-on-one relationship. In that model, the perceptions and predispositions of the mentor invariably have a disproportionately large effect on his (again paternalism!) subject. If you don't believe me, take a look at the glossy flyers that law firms are putting out about their diversity programs. I have seen many that show a kindly, white-haired male partner sitting down with a young minority attorney. The partner looks sage and wise; the associate, young and eager. Bah! I do not like that image, nor do I think it is a useful one. Rather, what all of us need, at every stage of our careers, is a group of people that we can rely on to listen to our problems, be a sounding board, and perhaps share with us some war stories. The relationship, while set up to be of benefit to you without strings, should be collaborative. The point is that you are eliciting comments from a number of people that you trust and putting it all together to come up with good decisions. You are not in the relationship to be spoon-fed by one well-meaning "elder." You are building a network of trusted advisors that enjoy being a part of a team-your team.

Just Do It

Some practical advice. First of all, you don't have to use the word "posse," and no one has to know they are in it. All that is required is that you identify individuals you believe worthy to help you out and gradually develop a relationship with them. Coffee, lunch, phone calls, emails. If you pay attention to the process, it will be organic. There is no concrete checklist to this process; you have to feel your way through. Next, remember to maintain the right attitude. You are not trying to set up codependent relationships, you are not looking for the father or big sister you never had. No, you are instead asking a new sort of question in your career path. Instead of asking "how" (How do I get this deposition handled? How to I write this brief? How do I serve a guy in Kurdistan?), you need to ask "who" (Who can send me in the right direction? Who has the contacts or experience I can draw upon?). By the way, I stole that last bit from a member of my posse (a professional coach).

So, start putting your plan into action. Think about the idea of a posse. Write "find posse members" down on your professional plan. Start thinking of the people you already turn to (if any) or those you already know that you really should call. "The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." Well, a posse can help you scout out the terrain so you don't spend days going the wrong direction.

In Esse

The posse, as I alluded to at the outset, is all about the "in posse," the possible. Having plans, getting advice, and making checklists are all about the possibilities you see for yourself in your career path. In the final analysis, you are building up a big store of potentialities ("in posse") to begin to realize success in your life. You want to move from the possible to the actual, the real, "in esse." The trick is, however, that you really have to spend 95% of your time working on process (the plan, the posse, the checklist) to begin to realize success. If you focus on the end result exclusively, you will either miss the boat, or get in the wrong one.

You may think that it is unrealistic to find successful people (however you define them) willing to take time out to talk to you. A reasonable concern, but an unfounded one. One of the busiest people of all time, our 16th president, enjoyed helping others. You may recall that Abraham Lincoln had a few things on his mind: the breakup of the nation, a heinous war, and incompetent generals. Yet, he had this to say: "I feel-though the tax on my time is heavy-that no hours of my day are better employed than those which thus bring me again within the direct contact and atmosphere of the average of our whole people." Finally, and you knew this was coming, those potential posse members out there-and Lincoln was one-also realized that serving in such a role was of benefit of them as well, if not directly. Lincoln went on to say about his habit of meeting with various and sundry citizens seeking audience, "I have but little time to read the papers, and gather public opinion that way . . .the effect as a whole, is renovating and invigorating to my perceptions of responsibility and duty." Thus, you find out at some point that your posse members find the relationship very rewarding. You never know, you too may decide that coming to someone else's 'rescue' is just the sort of challenge you are looking for.

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Don't Succumb! Unlearning "Learned Helplessness" Among the Attorney Ranks

A psychologist friend of mine and I were lamenting the antics of a mutual friend. The three of us are in leadership roles in a high-minded fraternal organization. Admittedly, however, we don't always live up to our ideals of efficiency, orderliness and professionalism when it comes right down to it. At any rate, my psychologist friend bandied about the phrase "learned helplessness" in a half-joking jab at our friend, who tends to hang us up until the last minute, and in unpredictable ways. His point, I came to find out, is that our friend's overbearing and unpredictable behavior was teaching us to just "put up with it" rather than take effective action.

The Ravages of a Lack of Control

The concept intrigued me and we began to chat about the phenomenon. Apparently, in researching depression in the 70's, Dr. Martin Seligman discovered that animals do not respond well to situations they perceive as not under their control. A dog, for instance, will recover eventually from the trauma of having electric shock administered to him, if he is given an environment where he can learn that a particular action will consistently grant him a reprieve. Conversely, a dog given the same doses of shock therapy, but in an environment where no action on its part has any effect on administration of the pain of electric current, will eventually lay down passively and take repeated shocks, despite the fact that the animal (once so conditioned) was permitted to simply walk away from the trauma at any time. In short, the dog gives himself up to his fate and enters a semi-fugue, or even catatonic, state. This, in a nutshell is "learned helplessness." Under some particular controls, humans have been demonstrated to react in the same way.

Been there; done that!

Of course, all of us who have worked in law firms already know this! The legal industry has been pretty consistently immune from increased humanity in human management in the corporate world. Thus, lawyers still tend to exist in a milieu of inconsistency and incredible power imbalance where the whims of high-producing partners are catered to, no matter how counter-intuitive and destructive they may be. Indeed, many associates simply learn do keep their heads down, bill, and take what comes, "hoping" they will eventually make partner, or that things will somehow just get more humane. And we wonder where all the lawyers go!

Break Out of the Mold

The good news is that even in the canine world, many do not fit the pattern. A healthy number (but a minority) of dogs subjected to the barbaric treatment outlined above refused to give up and did not succumb to "learned helplessness." In psychological terms, these canines, and their human counterparts, did not "internalize" their trauma. Neither did they succumb to the belief that their condition was permanent. This fundamental belief that the individual indeed has control and that things do indeed change--no matter what evidence to the contrary--is a strong indicator of mental health going forward.

Take Effective Action

The moral? We always, always, always have control in our situations, no matter how bleak they can appear. And this doesn't mean just "walking away" as last resort. Rather, we can as professionals take positive steps within our firms and alongside our "tricky" partners and colleagues, to make terrible situations better. To maintain our effectiveness and our sanity, we must always react to disappointments and complex problems with the attitude of what ACTION we intend to take. Analysis is our stock and trade, but if our "logic" leads us to conclude that we have no acceptable options, we must remember the fundamental truth that we do have options, and we do have the power to act on them.

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Seize the Fire!: Lord Nelson, Passion and Radical Dedication--to Colleagues

A regular reader gave me a ring today to ask what he could do to get his own career kicked up to the next level. He likes where he is, but he opines that as an associate with a subject-matter expertise and clientele that do not lend themselves to incorporation into some global, über-Nietzschean, $1000/hour practice: does ad arguendo still have any thoughts?

Well. There is a saying that masters in a field do not so much have learning that their neophytes to not have access to, but that instead they are masters at the basics. I'll share one of those basics now: build a network.

Seize the Fire!

I am having tremendous fun listening to Adam Nicolson's "Seize the Fire", a fantastic and really ingenious look into the battle of Trafalgar and what it had to say about naval history, the English (not the British!), leadership, and genius. I'm sure I could fill a dozen posts with the insights that Nicolson brings to bear, but one will suffice: Lord Nelson was insanely commited to his network.

Nelson As Leader

Nelson built an entire career around building and sustaining trust in his subordinate commanders, and by extension with all of the men under his command. Like some sort of 19th-Century Achilles, Jack Welch and Tony Robbins rolled in to one, Nelson expected the world from those around him, but also paid scarce resources of time and energy to ensuring that the needs of these men were satisfied.

Lord Nelson and Radical Commitment to Colleagues

This was not a mere matter of logistics, tack bread and lemons (read the book). Rather, it was a monomaniacal dedication to the soul-life of these men. He appealed to their honor, their avarice and their deepest drives. In short, Nelson became the most famous sea-captain in British naval history not by dogmatism and distance (although both were present) but by dogged and undeniable dedication to a network of trusted advisers and subordinate commanders. By means of that dedication, he was able to lead, mobilize, demand and expect respect, total loyalty, and crushing victories.

It All Begins with a Thought

But it had to start, my friends, with a philosophy of valuing and a practice of implementing an ever-increasing network of contacts, confidantes and colleagues. And that work, I can tell you, can never be shortcut. It takes painstaking attention to detail and determination to keep on meeting new prospects, for investing bit-by-bit in relationships that may or may not pan out, and to continue to dedicate oneself to the realization that the value of a man or woman is not in his or her individual successes, but in the aggregate value they can bring to bear in service of some greater ideal.

Start small, dream big, implement like hell. If you want more practical tips and a step-by-step on building your network, click here.

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Do Not Drink the Kool-Aid!--A Wake-Up Call for Young Associates

There are lots of good reasons why forty-plus percent of fourth-year attorneys are in their second law firm. Personally, I've enumerated about a dozen categories of reasons that associates switch firms early in their careers, all of them reasonable. But the big three, and the ones many think are unreasonable or at least disadvantageous, are really the best reasons for leaving, and ones you should make sure don't apply to you if you are planning to stay put--especially as you allow the fourth and fifth years to roll by on your career clock. Bottom line: listen to your gut, even your flights of fancy, and especially the market. Don't "drink the Kool-Aid" by swallowing your own firm's marketing brochures. Be a careful and wary "partner" with your law firm.

Further, disregard the politically correct purveyors of "moderation" and "loyalty." These are good concepts in the abstract, but you have to know how to apply them appropriately. Let’s face it, firms certainly aren't out to get you, but they do see every single attorney (partners as well as associates) as a practice in and of itself, and someone (while hopefully integrated into the firm and "cross-selling") who is, if not expendable, then separable depending on the needs of the firm. You are an important cog, maybe, but still a cog. Realize that firms spend considerable resources determining which attorneys and groups remain within the "core competencies" of the firm (to say nothing of their respective impact on PEP at year-end). As such, you would be well-served to constantly make your own analysis of the fitness of your current firm. If one or more of the following three scenarios fits your circumstances, a switch may be what the doctor ordered: you want more money; you want to cleanse a less-than-picture-perfect early career; you have a strange itch to move that you can’t put your finger on. These reasons are not as crass and superficial as you may think--each is important on its face, but may also underlie latent analyses that you haven't taken the time to flesh out. I’ll be writing about each of these issues in the next couple of days—stay tuned!

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Zen: There's Such a Thing as Too Much of a Good Thing!

I talk to associates every day at great firms. These people are smart, successful, and even polite (thanks!). However, many also have a regrettably short-sighted view of success in their profession. Many associates at great firms will tell me that they are happy and have good work. The difficulty with that being the end-all and be-all of one’s analysis is that it is basically founded upon an excessively Zen-like perspective on time. MEANING, you may be practicing law for 20, 30, 40 or even 50 more years (yes, I’m afraid with advances in science, many of us will be working WELL into what today we call ‘old age’). Therefore, does it really MATTER that you think you have ‘good work’ right now, as a fifth-year lawyer? I’m afraid that your career deserves a little more introspection than that. At the least, think about whether your firm is positioning itself wisely in the marketplace. Please realize that your ability to serve your clients is going to depend on the quality of the NETWORK of attorneys you can bring to bear on any given problem. If your firm is not making the long-term decisions regarding compensation, rates, and other ‘bottom-line’ considerations, it may not be able to attract talent in the long term. THIS MATTERS. I've identified a few creteria that I value in the following piece debunking the myths of "firm culture". Enjoy: http://bcgsearch.com/crc/pdf/zen.pdf

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