Editor's letter: Becoming more than the sum of your parts

Several high-profile law firm unions in recent times have ensured that merger is on the mind of almost every managing partner. The case for growth by merger is compelling - greater mass, a wider geographical spread and broader coverage of the law. Indeed, many multinational clients are demanding global centralised services under one roof. But, how many mergers truly result in more than just a collection of practices operating under the same banner?

Often, beyond a few initial getting-to-know-you meetings and friendly messages of goodwill, there is little substantial change in terms of how the practices operate. The London partners continue to work as they did before the merger and their colleagues across the oceans do the same. Small changes are made for appearances' sake, but old habits die hard and, after the party is over, many partners soon return to business as usual.

Some partners may (quietly) feel that it doesn't really matter if little changes but the logo on the letterhead. They may even say that, as long as clients get the sense that they are being served by a global law firm, what difference does it really make if their practices operate independently? They are still bringing in rising revenues and the firm has achieved its objective of appearing to be global.

But, comfortable as it is for partners to remain in silos, this is ultimately counterproductive. It's obviously much easier to increase business from an existing client than to start from scratch with a new one - assuming of course that the client has been well taken care of by the practice group in question.

Of course, referrals don't happen without a strong sense of "we're in this together". Partners need to feel that it's in their interests to share their clients - whether that's because they are financially incentivised to do so (always a good idea) and/or because the firm's culture is such that they know that what goes around comes around.

Clearly, if you are a managing partner of a merging firm, you need to ensure the new entity operates as a cohesive whole, with partners and staff fully buying into the 'one firm' ideology. This isn't an easy thing to do, particularly when dealing with high-performing partners, many of whom may be sensitive to anything that appears to be criticism. The trick is, as always, to know how to communicate with them.

One way to do this is to start with a couple of the more influential partners and to take them out to lunch. Bring up the topic of referrals in an informal way and present it to them as an intellectual challenge. Let them come up with the answers on their own; show positive but moderate interest. Touch base with them a few days later to thank them for their input and water the seeds of ideas in their minds. If you handle this delicately, before long you may well have a couple of advocates of cross-practice referrals.

Depending on how far you can help them to see that referrals will be of benefit to them, those partners will start talking about their ideas with their colleagues over drinks. This thinking will then gradually take root across the partnership which, with gentle encouragement from you, will start informally referring clients across practice groups and offices. By the time you officially raise the possibility of developing a referral programme based on the ideas of its named proponents, you'll already have a receptive audience. And that's half the battle won.

Of course, if the initiative succeeds, you won't be able to take credit for it - that would undermine its effectiveness. But, you didn't take this job for mass recognition of your leadership skills, did you?