In our recent publications, we have placed an emphasis on macro- and microeconomic factors that influence the legal industry, with a particular focus on their impact on small- and mid-sized law firms. With the tail-end of the Baby Boomer generation approaching retirement and Generation Z lawyers entering the workforce as recent law school graduates, we will now address the impact of these developments on generational leadership transitions in law firms across the country.
To successfully transition leadership and managerial positions in law firms to younger generations (Gen X and Millenials), it is critical to understand how the ever-evolving economic, technological, and social environment and changing personal and workplace priorities impact law firms.
To put this in context, let's review some of the most significant developments:
- Living Expense Increases: Certain living expenses have risen over the past decades. Two significant elements are housing costs, which have outpaced inflation significantly, and college tuition. These increases put pressure on employees to earn enough to cover basic expenses. As a larger share of disposable income goes towards covering these, financial security has become so much of a priority that many younger lawyers prefer income stability over risk-based compensation with a higher earning potential. It also does not help that real wages (adjusted for inflation) have not risen for decades despite a constant increase in labor productivity.
- Productivity-Improving Technologies: Law firms are also being significantly affected by increased productivity resulting from technological advancements. This includes ever-increasing data availability, new software functions that enable task automation, and enhanced communication and collaboration efficiency.
- Competition: Competition in the legal space has become more fierce due to market saturation, as well as Big Law consolidations that put additional pressure on smaller firms concerning compensation and efficiency. Differentiation is also becoming increasingly tricky, giving clients more bargaining power.
- Equality: Demand for equitable spaces has increased, requiring the legal industry to reckon with its traditionally exclusive and unbalanced membership and seriously address discrimination and marginalization of women and people of color.
On a more micro-level, the following developments have had a significant impact on law firm operations:
- More focus on work-personal life balance has shifted priorities towards more free time and a balance of tasks and duties among all employees. Identification through non-work related interests and attributes is becoming more critical for younger generations.
- The Covid Pandemic accelerated growing demands for work location flexibility, requiring firms to offer hybrid and remote options to enable more freedom of movement and more use of collaboration technology.
- There is a growing demand for stress reduction by harmonizing the responsibilities of team members and adequately evaluating the urgency and Importance of tasks.
- The growing demand for equitable workplaces requires law firms to honestly address DEI-related issues, develop ways to democratize their operations, and involve more people in how the firm is being run.
Now let's analyze the impact of these macro- and micro-level developments on law firm leadership, both in the present and moving forward.
Facilitating a Collaborative Work Environment
The first significant aspect that law firms need to address is the facilitation and management of collaborative work. For firm leaders to effectively manage today’s workforce, we suggest considering the following suggestions:
- Firm leaders must have a plan for both in-office and virtual work structures. This includes defining and publishing work location policies, implementing the right technology infrastructure, and establishing a communication protocol that allows employees to work seamlessly in an office and remotely. For more information on this topic, please review Mastering Virtual Collaboration.
- Firms should establish a culture of shared projects. Task assignments must be balanced, meaning no favoritism and putting more effort into maintaining a consistent performance level among all employees instead of focusing on over-achievers. This also includes establishing team-oriented processes facilitating teamwork through meetings, software-based collaboration, workflows, and cross-training, to strengthen the group.
- Thirdly, firm leaders should optimize, not maximize. This means balanced progress and growth to minimize unnecessary stress and friction. Firms should ensure they have the proper resources and policies before taking on a significant project or opportunity instead of figuring it out later.
Collective Ownership
The second aspect is the concept of collective ownership, which addresses structural adjustments among leadership positions. As younger generations join equity partnerships and take on management responsibilities and participate in executive decisions, it is critical to acknowledge leadership styles and characteristics that are more prominent among the more junior partners:
- Shared leadership and management responsibilities: Instead of strict hierarchies that enable partners with individualistic tendencies willing to take on most or all decision-making, we suggest establishing a group balance and stability among the equity partner group. The key idea is collective achievement through an even distribution of managerial duties and team-oriented projects.
- Risk reduction: While it is hard to pinpoint risk aversion to one or two particular factors, we have noticed that younger lawyers are less determined to become equity partners. Financial obligations and employer responsibilities are two significant contributors. While risk is unavoidable for any business, law firms can minimize the impact on individual partners. One consideration is financial optimization instead of maximization, which means setting growth goals that all partners agree on and accepting that some partners would instead share the net income among more people if it means they can balance risk and responsibilities evenly.
- Decision-making thoroughness: Strategic goals, significant purchases, growth opportunities, and organizational changes should be evaluated, discussed, and decided on consistently and comprehensively. However, this does not mean endless discussions that lead to nowhere—instead, an adequately defined management decision-making process with clear assignments and workflows for the leadership group.
- Equity: Leadership participation and representation is a topic that law firms have to put significantly more effort into. While the legal industry is progressing in hiring and establishing a more diverse workforce, it still needs a structure that accurately represents the population's makeup, especially among attorneys. Even more so, among leadership ranks, marginalized groups, including women and people of color, are nowhere close to fair participation, as equity partner ranks remain white male-dominated. This will change to an extent as said groups increase their numbers in law firms and move through the ranks. However, this by no means guarantees fair representation down the road. Not addressing these issues will lead to employee discontent and frustration if not for participation in societal progress.
Strong leadership teams should assess their exclusivity, review their historical admission protocols and decisions, prioritize improving diversity and inclusion among their ranks, and understand that a culture change is likely necessary to establish a more equitable organizational structure.
To conclude, this article summarizes some of the significant changes we observe happening in the economy and the legal space. Partners approaching retirement and those bringing in new partners might recognize some of the outlined considerations from their recent experiences working with younger generations.
We hope our observations put such experiences into context to facilitate the intergenerational collaboration necessary to maintain your law firms' continued success. If your firm is interested in ensuring its long-term viability, set up a time to talk with someone from PerformLaw now.
Read more articles about what is needed to maintain the continued success of your law firm:
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