Jonathan Agar: How lawyers are like soldiers

"I think soldiers are just like lawyers - they're cynical. If they think you're mad and want to take them over the hill to certain death, they're not going to follow you, it's as simple as that. And that's no different to a law partnership - if they think you're going to take them down a road which is going to lead to their eventual demise, they're not going to do it."

Birketts' new CEO provides an interesting perspective on modern law firm leadership. Jonathan Agar, who joined the top-100 UK law firm in June 2013 from Deutsche Bank, says his management approach is founded on what he learnt during his six years as a captain in the British Army.

"I'm very clear on what we're trying to achieve, what the steps are to achieve that goal and that everybody who's involved in it understands their role in achieving that objective," he says.

However, he emphasises that it was never his style to "bang the table and give orders" and that it certainly isn't his approach in Birketts board meetings. Instead, his approach to managing and leading soldiers - which he says he has carried forward to managing a law firm - was to consult, convince, be clear and ?be decisive.

"I'm a real believer in complete transparency of all plans and of really clear communication as to who is going to do what and when - for me, that is one of the fundamental principles of successful business management," he says.

Non-lawyer leaders

The question of whether law firms need professional managers - rather than managing partners who have risen through the fee-earning ranks - is a divisive one. On the one hand, there is a clear case for firms to be managed full time by people with management experience and training, rather than by lawyers who were formerly the firms' top fee earners. But, on the other hand, there is the difficult issue of whether the partnership will accept and trust non-lawyers to lead them.

Agar is in the fortunate position of being the second non-lawyer CEO at Birketts and therefore is already in a somewhat trusted position with the partnership. For him, the question of whether law firms should be led by seasoned managers rather than ?lawyers is a 'no brainer'.

"I don't think it really matters whether you know about the law or not in order to do my role," says the former Deutsche Bank divisional COO. "I think if you have business principles and if you have disciplines around vision and strategy, followed by planning and execution, ?you can probably do the job in almost ?any sector."

He compares his perspective to that of a person moving home and considering where best to place furniture, rather than that of a person continuing to live in a home that has furniture placed wherever it seemed to best fit at the time of purchase.

"I think fresh eyes, fresh ideas and no baggage is incredibly helpful and allows us to develop in a way which we couldn't beforehand," he reflects.

"A big advantage is that I can start again and really ask people 'why do you do that this way?' and, in a very nice way, challenge some of the established practices - many of which are entirely logical and should remain - but a number of which one could actually say 'could we not do it a different way?' or 'perhaps we should set things up like this'."

Delegated management

Birketts' management structure gives Agar a fair amount of leeway in making strategic decisions and introducing internal change. A corporate structure was adopted in 2004 when the firm started to expand. Today, he says only the "biggest" or "most impactful" decisions are put out to the partnership as a whole; the rest are made by the management board.

Reflecting on how this determination works in practice, Agar says there are guidance notes as to whether an agenda item needs a partnership vote, but that ultimately it's a judgement call. "You learn quite quickly and get a feel for whether people really feel strongly about something and whether it should be put out more widely or if it is something that can be ?left to the board to decide," he reflects.

Agar says the firm's partners are not "as blinkered, cautious or reluctant" as the reputation of the legal industry would suggest and are, in fact, very happy to allow him to define the firm's strategic focus and vision and manage the ?planning and execution process. This level of trust and the partners' ability to relinquish control is largely thanks to the efforts of his predecessor, but is also based on having "the right governance, checks and balances in place" he notes.

Of course, leaving the business of management to the professionals allows the partners to return to what they enjoy doing best - client work. "I think to a certain extent they are quite relieved ?to have someone else do the ?management work," he says wryly. "If ?you've spent your life advising clients ?on corporate transactions or share purchase agreements, you'd probably rather do that than think about the things that I have to think about."

For Agar, giving internal management responsibilities to high-performing partners is counterproductive. "When you tie up your high-quality fee-earning senior members into managerial roles, effectively you are losing some of your best revenue generators, and that's a difficult thing to replace," he says. "It's better to keep partners earning high-quality revenues and delegate the management responsibilities to others who can bring their own real specialist skills to bear. So I think it's a ?'no-brainer' for most firms."

A part of that delegation of responsibility involves getting specialists in sales and marketing to manage the business development process.

"There's no doubt that our best business development ambassadors are our partners and fee earners," says Agar.

"But if you want someone who's ?really going to shape a strategy around how you might go about that, then you want a marketing director who's got real detailed knowledge of how to present ?the brand proposition, build the opportunity, help look into the market ?and find out what the next trends are, ?what the client needs are and, with a fee-earner or partner, lead campaigns or incursions into those particular areas where opportunities exist."

Culture shock

Agar's first job in the legal sector was a bit of a culture shock for him. One thing in particular that struck him was the inherently cautious nature of lawyers, which he feels makes them less predisposed to develop plans in a group setting than many people in business management roles.

"I think people with legal training would prefer to have thought of everything beforehand and then present it as something which is defendable and robust in law," he reflects. "And that's a very different place to come from."

He notes however that a key benefit of lawyers' more thoughtful and measured approach to decision making is that he has been under no pressure to make big changes at Birketts. "That is a really refreshing aspect of the legal industry," says Agar.

"In other industries, it's all about your instant impact and value. Sometimes people are making decisions just for the sake of making a decision - because they need to be seen to be decisive and doing things at a certain pace. Here, you have the opportunity to really get inside a firm and learn it, meet the people and understand what they want, with no one rushing you."

However, at the same time, he notes that it's his job to ensure the pace of decision-making doesn't slow down to inertia when complications stall the process of change. "I need to make sure that we don't get bogged down in the details in an argument," he says.

Now several months into his new role, Agar says he is adjusting well to the change in tempo and doesn't miss the frenetic pace of his previous role, which involved frequent international travel. "It's a huge contrast to working in ?a large investment bank across the world to come back and be a part of a bigger fish in a smaller pond, and to be in the community in which I was born, brought ?up and now live."

"I'm incredibly fortunate really," ?he adds. Let's hope he still feels that ?way after his honeymoon with the firm ?is over.

 

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Changing business practices and attitudes

Now celebrating its 150th anniversary, Birketts has been transformed over the past 12 years from a single-office practice to a four-office East Anglian firm under the leadership of its first non-lawyer CEO, Alistair Lang.

However, the £30m-turnover firm still has a small-firm mentality, with business practices not fully matching up to its current size. This is where its new CEO, Jonathan Agar, comes in. One of the key messages that he says he is trying to drive home at Birketts is ‘becoming the firm we really are’. He says this means taking “some of the things that we still do which are from a small-firm mentality and actually acting our size and maturity, which is as a medium-sized firm”.

Agar’s current priorities are: developing the firm’s operating model so that all practice areas are fully integrated and aligned using a matrix management approach; making business practices more consistent, disciplined and process-orientated; upgrading the firm’s practice management system; optimising the use of previous technological investments; and establishing a differentiated standard of service. He defines that service standard as providing high value and being more responsive and attuned to client needs.

“Ultimately, we are just like any other service business – the law just happens to be the commodity that we advise on. But the service is really what differentiates us and is something we can control and differentiate on; one of the skills I think I bring is an ability to heighten our awareness of service,” he says.

Growth is also on the cards for Birketts. Agar plans to build up the firm’s Cambridge offering in the coming year, in addition to its Norwich practice. However, he has ruled out international expansion, noting that the firm is happy with doing inbound and outbound work for international clients from its current offices.

“I don’t think we’ll go overseas – I don’t see an Amsterdam, Paris, Frankfurt, Madrid or New York offering for Birketts,” he says.

When asked if there is a merger on the horizon for the firm, Agar says he would “never rule it out”. But, for him, the best way to achieve Birketts’ ambitions is through organic growth and lateral recruitment, rather than mergers. Equally, he is not interested in obtaining an alternative business structure licence for the firm, but says “we’ll keep an open mind”.

At present, there is no internal urgency to pursue either of these options. Agar says revenues in the traditionally quiet first quarter are slightly ahead of budget and that the firm is forecasting annual growth of between seven and ten per cent.

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