Ally or adversary? Fix your relationship with your senior partner

 

Few relationships in law firms are as powerful – and as public – as those between managing partners and senior partners. Yet, what makes a successful relationship is often less easy to strictly define than it is to articulate in one’s own case; each firm is different.

However, speaking to a variety of former and current managing and senior partners, some key themes emerge.

Defining roles

First, there is the importance of structure. The responsibilities of managing and senior partners clearly vary from firm to firm, but they are broadly divided as being internally or externally facing roles. The senior partner usually acts as the external face of the business, while the managing partner focuses on the internal day-to-day running of the firm. However, the lines between both roles can become blurred and there is a need for a clear distinction between them.

Nigel McEwan, former managing partner of Tarlo Lyons and current marketing director at Littleton Chambers, suggests the use of a football analogy to ensure that, along with the supportive arm, there is a clear vision of what the managing partner should be doing and how the senior partner is there to facilitate it.

To him, senior partners “provide the most value by watching the ‘game’ from the stands and taking a detached view”.

“The managing partner is meanwhile in the dug-out shouting out instructions to the team and intervening when things are going wrong on the pitch by making substitutions or by altering the set-up of the team,” he says. “The most valued role to be played by the senior partner is detachment and the view of the long term.”

McEwan adds: “There is too much short-termism in law firms, with little opportunity to consider the long-term value of the business. So, carrying on with the football analogy, the managing partner is responsible for the day-to-day results. The senior partner has overall responsibility for the position in the table at the end of the season.”

That view is shared by Bryan Hughes, chief executive officer at Eversheds. He adds that, while part of the senior partner’s role is to challenge the CEO/managing partner, “it is also important that, on those key decisions, the senior partner is seen to be aligned to and supportive of those decisions”.

Hughes stresses the need for “a ?clear understanding of what the other ?is looking to achieve”.

This is a view echoed by Michael Napier QC, formerly the senior partner and chairman of Irwin Mitchell. He argues that the personal and professional quality of that relationship determines whether or not the business “gets value out of each other’s role working in tandem”.

That clarity of purpose is also evident in the relationship between TLT’s David Pester, as managing partner, and Robert Bourns, as senior partner. Pester stresses that “it’s not so much about the job title but about what you do in that role,” as what is important.

To them, the success of the firm rests, as Pester notes, in being “very clear about how we can both deliver best value in growing and developing the firm; that clarity and understanding is vital to our success”.

Those same sentiments emerged at a recent Business of Law seminar hosted by Allen & Overy on Chatham House terms. The panel felt that, while the managing partner and senior partner’s relationship varied according to the individuals concerned (especially where a long-serving managing partner might work with a number of senior partners), each conveyed their own personal sense of direction for the firm and was both dynamic and fluid in their approach.

What MPs want

So, what do managing partners want from senior partners and how can they get the most value out of them?

Alongside clarity over roles, the strongest characteristic that emerged in managing partners was a desire for support from their senior partners.

As Nigel Haddon, chief executive of SAS Daniels, puts it: “The managing partner/CEO role is the toughest and generally the loneliest role in a law firm. Ideally, [we] want a senior partner who understands the role, often having been one, and contributes positively to the discharge of their duties”.

Support, then, means understanding but also empathy, Haddon says. “The senior partner should be the first to say ‘thanks’ or ‘well done’ to the managing partner. Criticism, when it comes, should always be constructive.”

Simmons & Simmons’ managing partner, Jeremy Hoyland, agrees. “It is incredibly valuable to have a senior partner with whom one can discuss difficult issues with complete openness and who can assist in liaising with the partnership around decisions to be made.”

One speaker at the A&O seminar also suggested that personal chemistry was important in allowing frank discussions. Ultimately, having someone positive, powerful and cheerful to speak with was found to be important.

That sentiment is shared by Alasdair Douglas, formerly senior and managing partner at Travers Smith and currently chair of the City of London Law Society. He notes that the managing and senior partner “have to see eye-to-eye on the big strategy and operational issues”.

“The senior partner needs to give 100 per cent support to the managing partner for the way he or she is going to go about achieving the firm’s objectives,” he adds.

The consequence, notes Nick Jarrett-Kerr, a former managing partner himself as well as consultant with Edge International, is that the managing partner’s role can suffer in the absence of a senior partner.

“I often felt that it was difficult to kick a partner and at the same time put an arm around his shoulders,” he acknowledges.

Nick Bolter, Edward Wildman’s London managing partner, says there was a strong difference between being a partner and being managing partner in receiving support from his predecessor, Laurence Harris.

“I really value his advice,” he says. “We have a broadly informal chat once a week, where we talk the major issues through, and I find that immensely useful, as someone who has only been a partner for four years, to get that extra advice from him, and to bounce ideas off someone who has done the job.”

Need for communication

To ensure that relationship stays harmonious, though, both sides have ?to talk to each other.

Haddon stresses the need for “communication – lots of it,” and that “as much of that as possible should be face to face”. He says both sides have to invest time to understand the needs and drivers of each other.

This is a view echoed by McEwan, who advises: “If at all possible, do not rely on email, except for day-to-day matters. Talk by phone, or preferably meet face-to-face whenever possible.”

That communication also involves, to some extent, raising the views of others, in acting “as the representative of the owners of the business and helping to lubricate the interface between the interests of management and owners,” says Haddon.

Conversely, says Bolter, “as the local managing partner in London, there’s a tendency from some partners to see you as the local partners’ representative to the senior management of the firm, but in fact, I also face the opposite direction. I represent the senior management in London and so, to that extent, I am less of a ‘union rep’ for London and focus on issues like partner profitability as well as their own concerns.”

To Bourns and Pester, that discussion has to be open and forthright, something also stressed privately by many law firm leaders Managing Partner spoke with.

Both men noted that “having an ongoing, completely frank and honest, dialogue about the business and where it’s going is critical to ensuring that we can each perform our roles and work together to ensure the firm’s success”.

It’s a view shared by Douglas, who says: “Good two-way communication is the key, provided there is a meeting of minds on what they together need to achieve. Regular meetings mean that issues don’t fall between the cracks or are lost.”

Honesty, says Douglas, is key. “They have to be frank with each other – it’s no use if the senior partner is relied upon to keep his ear to the ground but doesn’t pass on what he hears.”

At times, this could lead to very robust exchanges of views, as members of the A&O seminar noted. But, the essential trust between both parties means that both can become very close friends across the range of issues, reliant on strong mutual respect for each other’s views.

From MP to SP

In many law firms, it is seen as a natural progression for the managing partner to move on to the role of senior partner at the end of his term(s). But, moving from an internally-facing role to an externally-facing one can be difficult.

“Just because someone is very good at the internal management of the business does not mean that the person has the requisite skill set to deal effectively with the media and wider business community,” notes Guy Adams, a director at recruitment consultancy Laurence Simons.

“Managing partners generally have to build relationships among the whole partnership, which usually involves a deft understanding of the internal politics of the firm and careful manoeuvring,” he explains. “Meanwhile, senior partners can sometimes be asked to ride roughshod over these relationships to ensure the desired consensus.”

That sentiment rings true for Napier. “The transition from managing partner to senior partner is not easy or natural because the required skills are very different,” he says.

The importance of character, and the emotional intelligence required to demonstrate it matter, says Napier. “The chairman needs to possess more humility than the managing partner, which is not an easy shift in character or style. “He has to learn to be hands off, having been hands on, which can be a tough challenge”.

Jarrett-Kerr agrees, saying “it is really hard for a managing partner to become a senior partner, noting that “it may seem a natural progression but I don’t think it is”.

He says the reverse applies as well, noting that “it is often hard for the newly-appointed managing partner to feel his predecessor watching over him as the senior partner”. As Douglas wryly says, new managing partners have enough on their hands “without the ghost of Christmas past still stalking the corridors”.

Haddon notes that “the key has to ?lie in remembering what you found ?difficult in accepting from colleagues as managing partner, and what you found helpful, and then, in so far as possible, ?only providing the latter”.

Best person for the job

Given the challenges of automatically passing the role of senior partner to the outgoing managing partner, who then is the best person for the role of senior partner? And how should approaches to the appointment of senior partners change?

Douglas says the senior partner should be “someone with the clout to lead the firm and who carries the brand both internally and to the outside world”.

This is a sentiment shared by McEwan, who identifies the need for gravitas, clarity of thought and language, maturity and experience, as well as high levels of emotional intelligence and the ability to ‘read’ situations quickly and accurately.

Hughes, speaking from Eversheds’ background of a more corporate structure with John Heaps as chairman and himself as CEO, acknowledges there is no single type of person who gets picked for the role of senior partner; what counts is the support given to the business.

Napier, however, suggests that “the qualities required for a good senior partner are not always identifiable in potential candidates when a firm is engaged in succession planning, which many either don’t do or leave until it is too late”.

Attitudes vary as well as to whether the role should be appointed or elected. Douglas favours democracy, as “it seems to be the model that most successful ?firms still follow”.

He notes that, conversely, while he doesn’t feel “the appointments lead to testosterone-fuelled competitions terribly often but, when they do, I think it is difficult for the loser to carry on and the firm might then lose one of its top lawyers”.

To Douglas, appointments are best done discreetly and out of the public ?glare, if possible.

Andrew Caulfield, managing consultant of Badenoch & Clark, disagrees. He says they should all be transparent and based solely on election, as “old-school ‘collegiate’ appointments have caused problems within City firms”.

“A move to an open, merit-based election process will ensure that the right candidate for the position is selected, sending a clear message to external stakeholders about the firm’s internal practices and priorities,” he suggests.

Hughes himself is agnostic about the merits of either, saying “some organisations appoint, some vote. There are pros and cons to each approach; the important thing is getting the right person into the role”.

Jarrett-Kerr says he is “not much in favour of straight elections, though the culture of some firms may demand it”.

Instead, he suggests a compromise of a combination of selection and election processes, with a small committee appointed to invite submissions and to filter possible candidates into a shortlist from which the partners can elect.

Bourns says that, at TLT, appointment is currently by election by the owner group, “but I can perhaps see an interview process being preferred, reflecting a changing legal market”.

That person need not necessarily be a lawyer, however, given the rise of alternative business structures and C-suite style appointments in the legal sector. Napier suggests that, if there is no good senior partner candidate internally, “firms should appoint an external non-executive chairman or senior partner”.

Jarrett-Kerr says, equally, that it is ?not necessarily important for the most senior person to do the role, just that “the entire obvious chairman-like qualities should be there”.

Echoing Bourns’ key criteria, Jarrett-Kerr says “the best person for the job will be the person who most obviously meets the needs of the business”.

Ben Rigby is a freelance legal journalist