Are Law Firms Manageable?

by David Maister 2006

This article was first published in the April 2006 issue of The American Lawyer.

After spending 25 years saying that all professions are similar and can learn from each other, I’m now ready to make a concession: Law firms are different.

The ways of thinking and behaving that help lawyers excel in their profession may be the very things that limit what they can achieve as firms. Management challenges occur not in spite of lawyers’ intelligence and training, but because of them.

Among the ways that legal training and practice keep lawyers from effectively functioning in groups are:

• problems with trust;
• difficulties with ideology, values, and principles;
• professional detachment;
• and unusual approaches to decision making.
• If firms cannot overcome these inherent tendencies, they may not be able to deliver on the goals and strategies they say they pursue.

Read more at: http://davidmaister.com/articles/4/92/