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The Aspiring Lateral: The Succession Plan

Is this a great job opportunity, or a career dead-end? If you’re missing a critical fact, you may never know.

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Ed. note: The Aspiring Lateral, a new series from Levenfeld Pearlstein, will analyze a variety of issues surrounding lateral moves, drawing on the firm’s experience in the lateral market as well as the individual experiences of LP attorneys. Today’s post is written by Rob Romanoff, LP’s Managing Partner.

You’re 35-50 years old. You’re a partner at a large law firm, thinking about leaving for something smaller. You’ve been given an offer by a firm that interests you. The firm has a good reputation, steady business, and a solid practice in your area. It consists mostly of partners over 60 and associates younger than you.

Is this a great opportunity, or a career dead-end? Based on the above, it could be either. You’re missing a fact critical to determining whether this — and many other lateral opportunities — is one worth pursing, or one that should be avoided. That fact is this: what is the firm’s succession plan?

A succession plan (that is, a plan for leadership transition when those in charge step down) doesn’t necessarily have to be elaborate, but it should exist. From the firm’s perspective, a succession plan is vital to any healthy, long-term business planning for the firm as an institution. And from the lateral’s perspective, a succession plan is necessary to answering the prospect’s questions about what they are getting themselves into. Those questions can take different forms, depending on the situation:

  • At a small firm controlled by a few personalities, lateral prospects will be asking themselves: what’s going to happen when the name partners leave?
  • At a mid-sized firm heavily populated with senior partners, lateral prospects will be asking themselves: am I just here to finance these people’s exit at retirement?
  • And at a firm like the one above, with a substantial gulf between its senior partners and junior attorneys, lateral prospects will be asking themselves: are the senior lawyers having a hard time letting go, driving younger partners away?

In all cases, however, those questions are sources of substantial anxiety. And if a firm’s succession planning is non-existent, dysfunctional, or ad-hoc, its answers will do nothing to relieve that anxiety.

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Admittedly, succession planning will not, and should not, be a central focus for all lateral prospects. When the destination firm is a large and long-established one, there is a degree of built-in assurance that the firm can successfully navigate a transition (although even in the case of Am Law 100 firms, one can think of a handful identified very strongly with their leaders, raising questions about who will fill their void, and when). And lateral prospects still early in their career will likely not have the succession question on their radar. When I transitioned from a large firm to a six-lawyer boutique at 30 years old, for instance, I was far more interested in the quality of training I would get in the immediate future.

In all other situations, however, laterals should get enough answers about a firm’s succession plan to relieve their anxiety — and specifically to comfortably imagine what their practice, and their position at the firm under consideration, might look like 10 or 20 years into the future.

Some years ago, my own firm implemented a management-succession plan with the future of our junior partners in mind. We prohibit attorneys over the age of 60 from participating as managing partner and on our key committees. We also have a formalized process for electing managing partners and committee members, with stated terms and term limits.

Our plan has more structure than some firms will require for their needs, but it works for us. Regardless of a plan’s specifics, however, it should give lateral prospects a clear picture of who leads the firm, when that leadership will be handed off, and what the prospect’s own route to a leadership position might be. Only then can the lateral prospect fully assess whether they have the opportunity of their career, or something much less attractive.

Here are some additional questions for any lateral to ask in connection with succession planning:

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  • How do decisions get made? You can’t assess the firm’s leadership-succession planning without identifying who the real leaders are. At any given firm, the ones calling the shots might be the executive committee, the practice group leaders, the rainmakers, or the chairman’s secretary. When you know where the power is vested, you’ll have a much better sense of how that power will (or won’t) be handed down.
  • Does the firm have a long-term business plan? Succession planning is one component of the firm’s long-term vision, which should include a plan identifying the firm’s business strategy. Some firms don’t have one.
  • What role do younger partners play in firm management? Whether a firm uses committees to develop future leaders, as ours does, or uses other methods, firms should give their younger attorneys a seat at the table, and a clear path to management positions.

Disclosure: This series is sponsored by Levenfeld Pearlstein, which is an ATL advertiser.

Chicago-based Levenfeld Pearlstein (LP) was born of the desire to create a different kind of law firm. While many firms promote a “value proposition” of high quality work, responsiveness, efficiency and reasonable fees, to LP, those are just the basics of doing good work for clients. LP’s focus is building business relationships with clients as trusted strategic advisors who understand their clients’ business and industry inside and out, seeking legal solutions that support the client’s long-term business strategy as well as short-term needs. LP’s top talent and entrepreneurial setting translate into the sophisticated skills and resources of a big law firm in a more manageable environment.

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