Some forty years ago, I knew a young lawyer in her third year of practice. My acquaintance had just given birth to her first child. She took what was then considered to be a lengthy maternity leave of 6 months (3 months being standard) before returning to work at a mid-sized downtown Toronto law firm, where she was the only female associate in her department and one of only three female lawyers in the firm. Having taken such a long maternity leave, the firm looked at her as a slacker.
I used to be the type of lawyer who woke up early and headed into the office. On my commute, my head would be full of ideas about my files, firm management, and marketing. I would call and leave messages for my staff and associates or call clients and referral sources to say hello and stay ‘top of mind.’ My commute was part of my workday, and I tried to make it as productive as possible. When the calls were about files, I would be sure to remember to docket the time when I got back to the office. I would do the same on the way home and put my dockets in remotely when I arrived.
I first met Lauren when he was a partner in a large Buffalo law firm which had a significant cross-border practice with an office in Toronto. Lauren practiced business law, although by the time that I met him he was spending a great deal of time on business development. His job involved significant travel between Buffalo and Toronto. Lauren was also quite active in an international legal association and travelled internationally as well.
I once had a partner who I will call Marvin. Marvin was a capable lawyer who had a specialty in a particular area of litigation. Marvin was personable. He could bring in lots of work in his specialty and hold onto clients. Marvin was also smart. He could look at a complex problem, boil it down to its essentials and identify the most practical solution. Marvin was particularly good at developing litigation strategies and he was also very good at negotiating with other counsel and at persuading judges to rule in his favour on all sorts of issues.
Back quite a while ago somewhere in Ontario, a fellow who I will call Sam started a law firm, which he quickly grew to be a decent firm of about 20 lawyers.
Sam was a fairly progressive guy for his time, in a number of ways.
One of Sam’s philosophies was that it takes all types of personalities to build a successful law firm. When other partners would complain that some partners brought in more clients or produced more billable hours than other partners, Sam would say “we need to have diverse personalities and skills to build a strong firm. We can adjust for differences in productivity in compensation.”
Whenever someone makes a pop culture reference to the 80’s, 90’s or 2000’s which I don’t get, I always say, “I was busy working.”
The “organizing principal” and basic building block of law firm economics is the billable hour.