Practice Group Management: What's Not to Like?

If you think practice group management is a fad that will run its course, you should read this piece by Patrick McKenna.  [Patrick is a well-known expert on strategy and practice management and, among other things, co-author with David Maister of "First Among Equals," a commendable book about managing highly sophisticated professional service firms.]

What's to like about practice group management?  To paraphrase the thoughts of a group of partners (at an un-named firm):  Practice groups

• provide us a critical mass in the marketplace;
• foster training and development of associates and partners alike;
• permit us to develop standard methodologies, thus improving profitability;
• make us more attractive in the market for recruits and laterals; and
• help us develop a genuinely distinctive intellectual advantage in our area of expertise.

More pointedly, practice group management addresses the two single most important challenges to your firm's long-term strategic prospects:  (1)  From the supply side, it increases your attractiveness to recruits by promising a "home" of like-minded practitioners working together off an economically sturdy base; and (2) from the demand side, it answers the question at the forefront of most clients' minds:  What really makes your firm different from your peer group?

It may be a truism to say that attracting new talent and retaining existing talent are both essential for your firm's future, but this statistic got my attention: According to McKenna, an LA firm calculated that losing a "junior" partner cost each remaining partner $23,000 over the next year.  I'll let McKenna describe how he clarified the source of the problem:

All of this prompted me in a discussion with one managing partner to pose the question; "Tell me, do you sense that you are losing your best young talent from those groups that you would consider your best organized, or from those groups that are slightly dysfunctional?" This particular managing partner paused for all of two seconds, looked at me and said; "You know, I think you’re on to something there!"

If it's the case that finely-tuned practice groups are so effective, the interesting question then becomes how to achieve their sustainable development and growth. The question is not so much whether organization by practice group is a wise managerial stratagem, but whether your firm can pull it off. And here, McKenna leaves no doubt, leadership from the managing partner is indispensable: It is his "attention, dedication, and commitment" that will make or break the effort. For starters, do something all lawyers like to think they're good at doing: Communicate. And then communicate some more and some more, even beyond the point where you're tired of it. Why?

Because first, people will not hear, then they will not understand, and then they will not believe.  If you stop emphasizing the point too early, people will conclude you were never serious.   But it takes your commitment, and your follow-through.  Are you ready?