Collaborate Or Die

Building a genuinely trusting, collaborative, integrated culture—where one does not exist—is among the tallest of orders that a firm can face.  Since control over clients is such a key source of power, client-hogging and the individualistic behavior it encourages are temptations difficult to avoid.  But this is, as we know, a short-term perspective, and not one aligned with the firm's best interests over time if it wishes to be a collegial environment sincerely welcoming of professional development and offering clients "best of breed" practitioners across all specialties.

The difficulty, of course, is getting from here to there.

One highly plausible response (which I borrow from the estimable Michael Mills of Davis-Polk) is:  "Don't waste your time!  If your firm's not collaborative, you cannot fix it.  Go somewhere else." 

Of course, that is precisely what all too many people do when they find themselves in a hostile, constricting environment of mutually independent partner "silo's;" they leave.  This has predictable malignant effects on client service, as they experience turnover, new and unfamiliar faces who are newly unfamiliar with the client's history and issues, time-consuming, expensive, and resented learning curves, negative karma (yes, I believe it does exist—positive and negative both) from lawyers who feel marginalized at their own firm, and [complete the spiral of negativity here]. 

An intervention is called for.

But by hypothesis, those with power have gravitated towards this dysfunctional behavior; in practical, hard-headed terms, what can be done?  This piece recommends what's effectively an end-run.  Use the clients' perceptions of the firm, determined by surveys and openly discussed internally, to motivate change.  I have said before, apropos such topics as moving beyond the billable hour, that firms will resist change until clients visit it upon them, and I believe the same observation is apt here.

One must still, of course:

• share the clients' perceptions across all levels of the firm, not just partners or not just lawyers;
• recruit powerful and credible evangelists to lead the charge;
• believe, have faith, and persevere that change is possible;
• follow up; and
• reinforce the effort through publicizing small victories.

But the end result, as characterized by one who'd been through this, is as simple and powerful as can be:  "satisfied clients and motivated lawyers."  Sounds worth the journey to me.