10 Questions - Ian Jeffery: How Lewis Silkin will succeed without mergers

Ian Jeffery has spent a decade at the helm of a firm that defies standard categorisation. The top-100 UK law
firm is neither local, regional, national
nor international. It has offices in London, Oxford and Cardiff, but also does an increasing amount of international
work through its membership of two
global alliances.

The independent law firm is clear
that it intends to remain as such, and does not intend to seek a merger of any type in the coming years. Instead, it plans to secure its place in the legal market of the 2020s through a long-term strategy focused on strengthening its position in two key markets, increasing its people engagement and improving its operating model and overall financial performance.

For the firm's MBA-accredited managing partner, who is heavily focused on formulating and implementing this long-term strategy, informal meetings
with colleagues can often be the most valuable source of ideas and inspiration
for future development.

 

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Key facts

Name: Ian Jeffery

Age: 47

Position: Managing Partner

Date of appointment: January 2005

Location: London

Firm name: Lewis Silkin LLP

Firm revenues at last financial Y/E: £42m

Year-on-year change in revenues (%): 2%

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1. What have been your firm's biggest achievements over the
past three years?

Lewis Silkin has enjoyed a pleasing period of growth over recent years, including through the recessionary years after 2008. In the past three years, we have seen the strongest growth in our work for communications, media and technology clients. We have also consolidated the
very significant growth of our employment law practice over the past decade or so.

Some of this growth has been achieved through bringing in a number of lateral hire partners over the past three years, including partners in our corporate, media brands and technology, and real estate teams.

We have opened a new office in Cardiff, from which we now service some of our employment and real estate work, as well as accommodating parts of our business services functions, growing that office to around 20 people in the first two years of
its operation.

In London, we have improved the efficiency of our largest office in Chancery Lane by partnering with an external organisation to establish a serviced office centre in more than 20,000 square feet
of that building.

Outside the UK, we have continued to develop our international practice through our membership of two specialist alliances - Ius Laboris on the employment law side and the Global Advertising Lawyers Alliance on the communications side.

In order to continue building momentum around these achievements, we have updated and refreshed our business strategy and set a number of objectives to work on over the current three-year period.

At the partnership level, we have moved from a structure with two groups of partners (who we used to call senior partners and junior partners) to a unified partnership, with a single basis of profit sharing. I would add that these changes were in contemplation since well before the HMRC tax changes in April 2014, driven by the goals of greater transparency and inclusiveness across the whole partnership.

The firm has always focused on treating both its clients and its people well and in accordance with its values. We like to think that our continued growth reflects clients' views of their dealings with us and we
are pleased to have been recognised
by The Sunday Times as one of the
100 Best Companies to Work For,
seven years in succession.

2. What are your firm's biggest strategic priorities for the next
three years?

Our business strategy focuses on achievements in four areas: our clients
and markets; our operating platform; our financial performance; and our people.

In addition to preserving and growing business from our current client base, we
are looking to increase our market share in our two primary markets: the market for domestic and international employment
law and the overall markets for legal
services in the communications, media
and technology sectors.

We also aim to increase the range
of services that we provide to those clients and have set up a number of innovative
and complementary service lines to explore the opportunities. Our international initiatives described above form an important part of our ongoing strategy.

Like many firms, we are focusing on improving the quality and efficiency of our operating platform. We have introduced a number of new technology systems, with the current focus being on the rollout of a new online appraisal tool and strategic management product, as well as the continued development of systems aimed
at improving costs management
and reporting to clients.

We have worked on a number of process-mapping initiatives in relation
to both our client services and our business services. The next step in that programme will be to improve our bill production processes in order to streamline the process and improve quality and relevance to clients.

In looking at financial performance, we focus at least as much on long-term value and improving cashflow as we do on the current year's profit figures, whether at firm
or equity partner level. Having improved
the firm's funding base over the past twelve months, we continue to focus on these areas and, in particular the management of lock-up, which we are aiming to bring in line with
best practice rather than average levels within our industry.

Our strategic objectives in relation to our people are quite closely linked to our annual involvement with the Sunday Times' best companies programme, as the survey involved in that programme yields detailed anonymised data each year on how we are performing as an employer and group of partners. On that basis, our areas of focus over the coming years are to improve the quality and relevance of appraisals so that they really support the individual development of our partners and staff, as well as ensuring continued satisfaction around the fairness
of our pay systems.

3. What are your priorities
as managing partner in the
coming year?

My priorities very much follow the agreed business strategy, working on three-monthly programmes to take us closer to the achievement of each of our business objectives. Our director group has a key role to play in the delivery of many of our objectives and I work closely with them on implementation programmes.

On that basis, I am currently focused on projects assessing whether we adapt any of our internal structures to better support the implementation of our strategy and a possible brand refresh aimed at achieving similar benefits.

I also participate in the leadership of several cross-firm groups focused on developing work from particular industry sectors, the creation of additional service lines, the coordination of our international relationships, and improving pricing and project management skills.

4. In which areas does your firm intend to invest in the coming year?

We are likely to invest in most of these areas, as well as in our first overseas
office, focused training and improved technology systems.

Whilst we may continue to attract
and take on strong, specialist practitioners as lateral hires, I do not think that we are likely to combine with any other firm through merger, takeover or otherwise.

In recent years, there has I think been
a higher level of informal conversation within the industry about such possibilities, with those conversations helping to shape firms' views of what would or would not work for them.

As matters stand, I think that Lewis Silkin is aiming for quite a specific place
in the legal services market of the 2020s and not one that either requires a merger or one that would readily make us an obvious merger partner for most firms.

5. Which activities take up most
of your time each week?

I start the week with the firm's business services directors in a meeting which takes anywhere between 15 minutes and one hour. During this meeting, we set priorities for the week and aim to rapidly resolve as many points which would otherwise roll
on through the week and fill up inboxes.

The firm's wider management board meets once a month in order to focus on more strategic issues. This meeting used
to take two hours, but has extended in length as the complexity of our environment and the size of our business has grown.

My own fee-earning work is limited, although I do continue to be in contact with a number of clients with whom I
have maintained or built relationships over the years. Most often, this is by involving other practitioners, but I would say
that, in looking at clients' problems, my improved commercial and business skills now add a dimension which I would not have acquired in a full-time practising role.

I take the lead within the firm on long-term strategic planning and so devote a lot of time to that. I've found that some of the best of that time is spent in informal conversations with colleagues who
are passionate and far-sighted about
their individual areas. Almost all of
the best initiatives we have pursued
reflect a significant level of such input
in their genesis.

I aim to interact with partners and
staff across the firm as much as possible, partly through set piece events, such as staff briefings every three months and partners' meetings on a similar rotation,
but also through informal contact during the course of each week.

There is usually at least some external networking to be done each week and it is a privilege to represent the firm at a senior level within our professional community.

6. Which books on management and leadership would you recommend to a friend?

As someone who used to read such books for fun and then took an MBA degree, reading even more of them, I have a very long list, but among the highlights would be the following.

I would start with What Management Is: How it works and why it's everyone's business, by Joan Magretta. This is an excellent primer which gave me my first clear overview of general management.

A big part of leadership in law firms is change management and I have come across two stand-out articles on this topic. The first is the well-known piece by John Kotter, 'Leading Change: Why Transformation Efforts Fail'. The second is 'Tipping Point Leadership' by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne, which describes the highly effective leadership style of police commissioner William Bratton.

For a lighter read and if you like business fables, Patrick Lencioni's Death by Meeting offers some tips which have certainly been useful in improving time spent at roundtables in my own career.

7. What do you think are the most important personal attributes of a managing partner?

It would be very difficult to carry out
the role without building up a significant level of trust within the partnership and
the firm. Doing that depends, in turn,
on establishing credibility, integrity and
a willingness to listen to people, as well
as presenting a stream of new ideas,
only some of which will likely be carried through to execution.

Those outward-facing qualities
call on a number of inward attributes, including resilience and a healthy sense
of perspective.

8. How would you describe your leadership style?

I would like to think that it is positive, inclusive and largely consensual, albeit with the willingness to act decisively and quickly in the limited instances where such a style is the right one within a partnership.

9. What are the biggest leadership lessons you have learnt over
the years?

To a significant extent, the people you work with at all levels of the firm are motivated professionals who know how to do their jobs well and are capable of performing strongly as teams.

Given that, they need two things from those that lead them. The first is help in removing or mitigating any obstacles that stand in the way of that performance, such as inefficiencies in the operating platform or points of tension between different teams. The second is a sense of overall meaning which connects what those individuals and teams know and can do well with the wider purpose and progress of the organisation.

Occasionally, there are events in the lifecycle of the business where things break down in some way, at which point you have to get involved and make it your business to work with the relevant partners or managers to resolve things.

10. Which title would you give
to a biography of your life?

Ask me in a few more years! If I have
to give an answer now, can I borrow
from the accounting lexicon and say
Work in Progress?

Manju Manglani is editor of Managing Partner (www.managingpartner.com)