Effective representation: How to be a good executive committee member

Kennedy Helm III, chair emeritus at Stites & Harbison, '¨discusses what makes an effectual executive committee member

In June 2010, Joey Smith, the long-time managing partner of Williams Mullins, published the article ‘Herding or leading?’ in Managing Partner. The article was about the behaviours that make managing partners successful, and it was premised on the notion that law firm leadership can be a sharp learning curve for new managing partners.

Joey’s article came to mind when I was recently asked to comment on the behaviours I thought were necessary to make a new member of a law firm’s management committee/executive committee successful.

Like Joey, in my 15 years as firm '¨chair, I was uniquely positioned to '¨observe the behaviours, assumptions and attitudes that close to 30 of my colleagues brought to the position.

So, for better or worse, here '¨are my observations about what '¨makes a good member of the '¨management committee.

1. Recognise that you are neither '¨a manager nor an executive

Management committees/executive committees are misnamed. In the modern law firm, members of the committee are asked neither to manage nor to serve '¨as executives.

Management functions are the province today of professional managers – chief operating officers, IT professionals, HR professionals, comptrollers and the like. The executive function of the modern law firm is the responsibility of the firm’s similarly mis-named managing partner.

The last thing a modern law firm needs is a group of five to ten elected partners deciding that it is their function to manage the law firm by attempting to give direction to the firm’s management staff, or to begin issuing policy directives as the executive leader of the firm.

2. Recognise that you are the owners’ representative

So, if you are not a manager or an executive, what are you? Simply stated, you are the elected representative(s) of the owners of the law firm. You are there to protect their interests – that is job one – and, in that capacity, your role is akin to that of members of the board of directors of a business corporation.

You do not set the agenda, you review the agenda set by the managing partner or chairman. You do not create policy in the first instance. Rather, you review, comment on and, if necessary, tweak, revise or reject policies developed by the executive team led by the managing partner.

You do not set strategy, but you provide meaningful input and review of proposed strategy initiatives. Of course, if the train is running off the tracks, or you believe the firm is heading in the wrong direction, it is your job to speak up, to make your views known and to offer constructive suggestions in a time, place and manner that does not undermine the firm’s executive leadership.

3. Recognise your constituency

The most effective management committee members recognise that their constituency is the law firm as a whole. It is not the practice group, office, gender, age '¨group or compensation level from which you came.

This is often difficult and tricky: after all, many if not most management committee members are elected, at least implicitly, because they are litigators or from a particular office, or because they represent the voice of lower-compensated partners.

But, once in office, if you want to make a difference, remember that you are not elected to the House of Representatives. If you are seen as parochial in your outlook or as carrying the flag for a particular interest group within the firm, your views will be discounted or ignored.

4. Set the example

As Joey noted in discussing the role of managing partners, lawyers expect their leaders to work hard. They also expect their leaders to abide by the policies they expect their peers to follow.

This means, in the simplest terms, '¨that you must record your time promptly, send and collect your bills, mentor associates with whom you work, show decorum and good manners to staff and others with whom you work, and otherwise set the example.

Simply put, if you do not set the example, who will?

5. Show up

Someone said 90 per cent of life is showing up. If you are going to serve on the firm’s most important committee, it is crucial that you give your attendance at its meetings the highest priority.

It is also important that you give it your full attention. Nothing (other than interrupting them) will undermine your position with your management committee peers more than arriving late, working on documents during the meeting, or '¨reading and replying to emails while others are talking.

Equally destructive to your credibility is thumbing through the agenda to see what is being considered at the meeting because you didn’t take the time to prepare for the meeting. Believe me, others will not be fooled.

6. Educate yourself

There is a lot of ignorance and mis-information about how law firms actually work. A great deal of harm has been done by well-meaning members of management imposing solutions to problems that they do not fully understand, with the result that matters are only made worse.

No one becomes a member of the management committee (or managing partner, for that matter) with an understanding of the myriad business issues that confront the modern law firm. The only way to get up to speed is to educate yourself.

First, educate yourself about your own firm. Learn about its administrative structure, the various responsibilities of the IT department, the marketing department, the HR department and the professional development department.

And, in learning what their jobs are, also learn what their jobs are not. For example, it may be up to the marketing department to provide beauty contest material, but it is up to the attorneys leading the beauty contest to instruct the marketing department about which practice areas to include, which expertise areas to highlight and so on.

Second, educate yourself about the business of practising law. Read law firm management magazines, read business management articles, attend seminars and talk to peers from other firms.

It is crucial to benchmark your firm’s current practices against those of the most successful firms with which you compete or aspire to become. It is only in this way that you can really understand what works and what doesn’t.

7. Listen to your partners

More than most business organisations, law firms are fragile institutions. They are owned by the workforce, a group of highly intelligent, highly strung and insecure professionals. Simply stated, if they decide not to get on the elevator one morning, '¨the law firm fails.

Often your partners will not take '¨their concerns to the firm’s managing partner, for a whole host of reasons, but they will bring their issues to you. You need to stop what you are doing and listen to them, whether they have concerns about '¨a new policy that will “destroy” their practice, they are bemoaning the loss '¨of a key associate, or they have a vague idea that the firm is “headed in the '¨wrong direction” or “doesn’t respect” '¨their practice.

You need to listen on a regular basis before the pressure needle begins to rise. Your role isn’t to provide answers – you are but one member of the board of directors – but rather to provide an outlet for concerns.

It is then your duty to report the concerns that you have heard to the firm’s managing partner or chairman. Of course, all of this assumes that you actually know your fellow partners and that they are comfortable with talking to you. If not, you need to get out of your office and get to know them. There is no substitute for '¨face time.

8. Support the group

You will be called upon to provide input on, and make decisions about, a number of issues during your tenure. For many of these issues, there will be no clear right '¨or wrong answer. You may often find '¨yourself on the side of the argument that does not prevail.

But, once the decision is made, you have a duty to support the decision in your public and private comments and behaviour, and to support the chairman or managing partner in the implementation '¨of the decision.

This doesn’t mean that you need to be a rubber stamp for management. You have a duty to:

• make your views known in an appropriate manner within the confines of the management committee’s meetings or directly to the firm’s managing partner; '¨

• vigorously question proposed courses of action; and '¨

• follow rule number one: represent the interests of the owners of the firm.

But, once the decision is made, you must be willing to move on. After all, there will be another, equally or more important issue, at the next meeting.

khelmiii@stites.com