LEXPERT MAGAZINE
|
APRIL 2016 55
| GENERATIONAL CHANGE |
the whole piece?
"eir best experiences, they'll relate
back to you, are when partners have spent
the extra 20 minutes with them on each it-
eration of the assignment and bring them
along. ey just have a higher expectation
of being involved in the whole story from
the get go."
ose changing expectations have made
intergenerational communications enor-
mously important at every level, not just
for firm and practice-group leaders, Mann
says. "I think where the biggest challenge is,
in the context of communication, is how a
Boomer for example communicates back
on a particular task. Immediate feedback
is really, really important to the younger
folks. Feedback was important to us, but
it was almost like if somebody came in and
patted me on the head and gave me a raise
every year, if I got more work, I figured I
was doing okay.
"is is a different environment and I
think it's as hard as anything to convince
the Boomers that it's a two-way dialogue.
ey have to be alive to constantly commu-
nicating with juniors about progress and
things they need to work on, things they
should look for, that kind of communica-
tion. at's a shi."
William Henderson, a professor at the
Indiana University Maurer School of Law,
has written extensively on the challenges
facing the profession, saying: "I don't know
of a single firm that has made the millen-
nial shi. Firms are worried about this, but
most are tinkering in the margins," he told
the New York Times last year.
If anything will blast the issue from ab-
stract worry to concrete action, it is losing
a longstanding client because either they or
their key relationship partner retired.
ANNE RISTIC, Assistant Managing
Partner of Stikeman Elliott LLP in To-
ronto, says the potential erosion of rela-
tionships during the generational handoff
underscores how critical it is for law firms
like hers to form client relationships on a
multigenerational level.
"It's not only in firm leadership, it is
also in client service and practice devel-
opment," she says. "You need to be very
attuned to the human beings that are the
contacts there, not just the institution
that is the client.
"You need to make sure you've got deep
relationships at all levels, which means
you're thinking about and planning ahead
for the time when either our lawyer or
their contact retires. You have to make
sure that there's a relationship coming up
behind that with the next generation on
both sides."
Stikeman has had a number of people
retire in the last three or four years, says
Ristic, "so managing that kind of transition
was a big focus for us.
"e shi we're doing now is to create a
blend. You want to keep your seasoned vet-
erans engaged but at least half or more of
your leadership positions should be people
who are at that emerging-leader, next-gen-
eration, 40-something stage."
Morse says the takeaway from her re-
search is, in her view, that law firms should
be more alive to the greying of the senior
ranks, and work at more closely echoing
the makeup of their clients.
"e message is that you really need to
be looking at this, looking at what you're
doing. e conversation has gone from just
business development to, 'What are we do-
ing on the recruiting front? What are we
doing to transition Baby Boomers' books
of business? What are we doing to retain
Millennials and Gen-X?' e conversation
is really shiing."
She points to Altman Weil's 2015 Law
Firms in Transition, which found that in 63
per cent of law firms, partners 60 and over
control at least a quarter of total firm rev-
enue. "Without systematic planned tran-
sitions, that revenue, along with valuable
relationships, skills and knowledge, will
be walking out the door of many law firms
in the next few years," the study says. "Ef-
fectively planning the retirement of Baby
Boomer partners is critical and must be re-
solved in the next three to five years.
"e timing is not flexible, and if unad-
dressed the cost in lost revenue and client
relationships could be devastating."
Morse says savvy firms are looking at
how they function, internally and exter-
nally – what they put out, who they put
forward, how they do business – at least
partly through the prism of generational
change. She says firms that push the issue
to the back burner do so at their peril.
"ey have got to be dealing with this.
As we're looking at the clients, clients have
many, many more options than they did
even five years ago in regards to how they
purchase and retain legal counsel. A lot of
people are waiting for the recession to be
over to get back to normal. But there is no
back to normal."
Sandra Rubin is a Toronto-based
writer and strategic consultant.
VALERIE MANN LAWSON LUNDELL LLP
"You sometimes have feedback from the juniors, in the course of
reviews and things, that they get really frustrated when they don't feel
like they're really part of the whole story. If you carve off a piece of
work for them, they don't want to do just that. They want to know why.
Why am I drafting this? How does this fit into the whole piece?"
