Two lawyers come together in a partnership. It happens all the time.
How will things work out? It depends on two things:
- the business objective, and
- the leadership.
The more ambitious the goal, the more important the need for leadership.
Typical Partnership Objectives
Lawyers come together with different ideas about what they want to achieve in a partnership.
I can think of several objectives, and there are certainly more.
1. Fun
Some lawyers become partners so they’ll have someone to go to lunch with and hang out with in the office. That’s fine. Fun is good. I wish I had more of it sometimes. Fun lawyers sometimes make money. Sometimes they don’t. Often, they don’t care.
2. Mission
Many great lawyers come together to make a change in the world. They want to achieve justice for a particular group or make some impact on the way things get done. I respect those lawyers. They often make the world a better place for the rest of us.
3. Profit
Some lawyers come together to crush it. They want to bring in business, crank it out, and turn a tidy profit in the process. They came together because they saw an opportunity to help one another and grow a business together that they couldn’t grow on their own. They seek to stay small, but they want their small business to generate a substantial amount to take home.
4. Growth
Some lawyers have big dreams for their business. They want to build something bigger than themselves that lasts long after they’re gone. They have visions of more partners, associates joining and buying their way into the partnership, and a business that thrives under professional management. They like the idea of a big practice.
5. Other
Some lawyers just do it. They come together because (1) it’s what lawyers do, (2) because misery loves company, or (3) because they have some other wild and crazy thoughts in their heads. Whatever. Lawyers join up, split up, go solo, join back up, etc. in an endless dance of musical chairs. It happens, and it’s more fun than working.
What Makes the Difference Between Partnership Success and Failure?
Sometimes lawyers come together for a variety of reasons. For instance, they might be on a mission but seek to make a profit at the same time. These objectives aren’t always easy to classify. Things are murky sometimes, and our objectives are often mixed.
Let’s ignore, for now, the lawyers coming together for purposes other than profit and growth. We’ll focus on the two lawyers anxious to achieve profit and/or growth.
What’s going to happen to these two lawyers interested in profit, growth, or both? How will their partnership play out? Will their business succeed?
Of course, much depends on their talents, skills, and abilities. Lawyers who can’t do the work aren’t going to do well. Sure, trying hard will help—a lot. But you’ve got to have decent people skills and some aptitude for legal reasoning, or you’re going to struggle. For today, let’s assume these two lawyers have what it takes to build a strong reputation in their community as capable and competent. What’s going to happen to their business?
Are they going to win or lose?
It’ll all come down to leadership. Leadership is the biggest difference between the winners and the losers. Can one of them lead? Can one of them follow? It’s important that these two lawyers decide quickly who’s going to play which role and that they allow the leader to lead.
One of the two lawyers has got to agree to let some things go. The lawyer who agrees to follow has got to be willing to suck it up and follow along on most of the decisions.
Why Many Partnerships Get Stuck
For lawyers, agreeing to follow is tough. Many of us think we should be in charge. We believe things will be better if we’re allowed to take on the leadership role.
We might be right. We might be the better leader. Things might be better under our direction.
That’s how we end up with quasi-leadership arrangements. One lawyer handles this, while the other lawyer handles that. One lawyer has the last word on this element of the business, and the other lawyer gets to decide these other issues. We are good at creating complicated arrangements. That kind of thinking will slow the business down and impair its success.
With a new, tiny, two-lawyer practice, we don’t need two leaders. We need one. We don’t need to split authority. We need someone to take charge. We don’t have the time or energy for divisiveness. We need to bring all the decision-making authority into one person.
Until one of our two lawyers decides to follow, we’re going to be stuck. We may not see it. It may not be obvious, but we’re moving dramatically more slowly than we’d have moved otherwise. We’re not going to make the progress we seek. We’re going to be mired in a leaderless muck.
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It’ll be tough for one lawyer to step aside. There’s a need for each lawyer to feel valued and trusted. There’s a need for each of them to be heard, understood, and respected. It’s essential that each lawyer knows his or her importance to the success of the business.
But someone—one of the lawyers—has to be the leader. Someone has to make the call. Someone has to weigh all the variables and make the decision. There simply isn’t time or energy to reach consensus on every issue.
It’s Time to Choose a Leader
Law firms that insist on being run by committee, even a committee of two, are slower, less willing to take risks, and lack the ability to take action based on impressions, intuition, and gut feeling. Sometimes any decision, even the wrong decision, is better than a deliberate, well-considered decision. Sometimes the issues just don’t matter.
Before forming the partnership, the partners should decide who’s going to be in charge. Ideally, they’ll codify that understanding in their written partnership agreement. In a perfect world, they’ll arrange for one partner to have absolute authority over decision-making through their ownership structure. That’ll help their new business achieve quick progress.
Businesses require leadership. It’s tricky in a new, small business. It’s especially tricky with two partners who happen to be lawyers. Figuring out who’s going to lead and who’s going to follow is an important discussion that needs to take place. It needs to happen before the business gets going. If it didn’t, then it needs to happen now.
Failure to resolve the leadership question often results in failure.
