Management Evaluation in Law Firms – a Can-Do?

Every major company and most law firms evaluate their employees and partners on a yearly basis. However, many law firms don’t hold their management to the same standard. Here’s why Managing Partners should be evaluated and how to do it.

Key words: Evaluation, Management, Managing Partner

Image: Pexels/Pavel Danilyuk

“Amateurish” Management

In a recent interview study with many Managing Partners, some of the interviewees described their own leadership as amateurish. And when I repeat that here it’s not to criticize them. Rather, it is a way to express the fact that many lawyers in a variety of jurisdictions don’t have a lot of executive experience before they take over as Managing Partners. And from one day to another they are expected to lead a firm whose turnover can be well over a hundred million dollars – in many cases all while keeping a successful practice and therefore by spending only a fraction of their time on management activities.

Evaluation of Management

In most law firms every lawyer has to submit to some sort of more or less formal and/or standardized evaluation of their performance over the past quarter, semester or year. But not only associates but also partners, especially in firms with a lockstep remuneration system, are evaluated on a yearly basis – by either the management or a separate committee. Evaluation criteria are various and can range from quality and quantity of new business over associate training and coaching to teamwork or how timley a partner sends out his or her bills to the clients.

And while these evaluations for associates and partners seem to be the norm these days (as they should), management doesn’t seem to have to adhere to the same standards of scrutiny. Some of the interviewed Managing Partners dismissed the idea of a formal management evaluation, stating reasons to the effect of: “We’re a partnership and the role of Managing Partner is voted on every couple of years. If people don’t like the way I do my job, they can vote me out very easily.” While it might be true in theory that a Managing Partner could be voted out pretty quickly in a partnership setting, in practice the whole matter is a little more complicated. First, voting somebody out of management is a clear sign of distrust or discontent – both triggers for lasting disfunction within a partnership. Second, if a Managing Partner is voted out or not reelected to his or her role, somebody else has to step up. But in many settings it seems hard to find a suitable candidate for the position, due to lack of interest from the candidate side as well as the many requirements the job entails. And third, many partners just don’t really care. They want to be left alone as much as possible, they enjoy their autonomy and as long as a Managing Partner doesn’t actively interfere with their business, they’re happy.

So no, simply saying that because of the nature of the Managing Partner position as an elected position an evaluation is not necessary, would be too easy. Also, an evaluation does not only review how well a Managing Partner is doing his or her job. Much rather it serves to advance the management development of Managing Partners. The feedback will help them to get better in their new function, prevent leaders from developing in the wrong direction, and make sure that they steer the ship in the interest of the law firm.

How should such an Evaluation look like?

In order to achieve the above-mentioned evaluation, a formalized self-assessment as well as evaluation by various stakeholders (among which mainly but never only partners) is required. Additionally, the evaluation should contain two different and clearly distinguishable parts: Goal Achievement and Performance.

In the Goal Achievement section, the focus lies on the specific goals of a Managing Partner over a certain period of time (e.g. one year). However, in order for the achievement of these goals to be tracked at all, evaluation criteria must be defined (if they aren’t self-evident) at the time the goal is agreed upon. Examples of such goals including evaluation criteria are:

- increasing the attractiveness for interns or support staff (measured by the number of applications per position);

- increasing the payment morale of customers (measured by the number of days from invoicing to receipt of payment); or

- increasing the relative and absolute number of women in the partnership or in management functions.

In the Performance section, on the other hand, criteria are assessed that result directly from the Managing Partner function or – if such exists – from the formal role description. The document should include evaluations from previous processes. Examples for this section include:

- whether the Managing Partner communicated sufficiently often and in an appropriate manner;

- whether they were receptive to concerns of various kinds;

- whether a Managing Partner visited the most important clients;

- whether they acquired and successfully integrated lateral hires; or

- whether they significantly promoted cooperation between the different office locations.

At the end of the evaluation form there should be space for more qualitative remarks and suggestions. What did the Managing Partner do exceptionally well? What should his or her focus be during the next year? How could he or she become a more effective leader?

Evaluation done right

Evaluation can be a powerful tool for the future development of support staff, associates, partners and management – as long as it is taken seriously and done right. You probably have a system in place for employees and partners, now is the time to expand this system to the management. While it might look threatening to them, the firm will be better as a result of it – and as soon as Managing Partners realize how much an evaluation can help them with the development of managerial capabilities, they will enjoy and proactively participate in it.