This pattern is more common among law firms in Spain and Latin America than their results might suggest.

Michael Sterling is flying back to New York after two intense days with a client in Los Angeles. His practice group has been growing at 26% a year for the past three years and has doubled its rate of new client acquisition. The numbers are strong, so strong, in fact, that no one within the firm has asked him any difficult questions.

During the flight, he opens his laptop and writes down a list of strategic questions about the future of his practice. When he finishes, he realises that he had written exactly the same questions on another flight six months earlier and had never looked at them again.

As long as the results hold up, certain conversations never take place

The second partner in his group has spent years managing established clients without generating new business or developing talent, and Sterling tolerates it because the practice is performing well.

Nor do his strongest mid-level professionals have a clear sense of whether there is a genuine future for them within the firm. One of them received a bonus of USD 750,000 the previous year and described it as the worst moment of the year because it came without any indication of his progression, his role or his prospects.

The more junior professionals work hard, yet they have little interaction with partners because the system rewards business development rather than people development.

Sterling has had no time for months to think about any of this because he is simultaneously producing work, managing clients and leading the practice, and all three responsibilities combined do not fit within a fourteen-hour working day.

This pattern is more common among law firms in Spain and Latin America than their results might suggest. The managing partner who leads the firm’s most important practice, serves key clients, manages the team and sits on management committees is the engine of the firm. And indeed, they are.

Yet they are also the bottleneck preventing the firm from growing beyond what one individual can personally sustain.

The cost of that model becomes apparent when someone leaves, when a strategic client moves to another firm without any prior warning, or when the next generation is not prepared to assume responsibility because no one invested time in developing them.

Sterling senses this during that flight. Most managing partners sense it as well. The difference lies in whether that intuition leads to a genuine conversation or is simply filed away until the next flight.

Marc Gericó
Global managing partner, Gericó Associates