Again , highly successful law firms are not built by the efforts of average employees . Ideally , as Jim Collins notes : If you want to achieve great things with your law firm , then you need to have 90 percent of your firm ’ s key seats filled with the right people . Although this may sound like an unattainable goal , many law firms are able to make this happen . If you want to take your law firm to the next level and beyond , you need a clear understanding of your law firm ’ s “ bus ” - the key seats you need to fill , and the kinds of people that should be filling these seats .
Key Seats
The first step to achieving this foundational 90 percent metric is to identify key seats on your firm ’ s bus . How do you go about identifying these positions ? Collins defines key seats as any seat that meets one of the following three conditions :
1 . The person in the seat has the power to make a significant decision , or 2 . Failure in this seat could expose the entire law firm to significant risk or potential catastrophe ; or 3 . Success in the seat would have a huge impact on the law firm ’ s success .
I like to think of your law firm ’ s key seats as your executive team or inner circle . These are the people that you depend on to help you fulfill your vision . They are typically your firm ’ s key staff , department heads and / or upper management .
The Right People
Once you identify your firm ’ s key seats , then you must ask yourself if each of these key positions is currently being filled by the right people , what I often call the A players . What is an A player ? According to Patrick Lencioni , who has written many insightful books on business development , your A-players must have these three characteristics ; They are :
1 . They ’ re humble – but confident .
2 . They ’ re hungry to grow – both personally and professionally . 3 . They ’ re people-smart – they know how to deal with people and how to communicate with team members to get things done .
The importance of these A players cannot be overemphasized . Having your law firm ’ s bus filled with A players is critical because as you grow , the actual seats that you need in your bus may change as your firm ’ s needs and directions change . The A players are dedicated to your team and its success ; they embrace challenges and can pivot and pull together to accomplish the firm ’ s goals , even if the stated goals or the means to achieving them must be adjusted over time .
What Got You Here Won ’ t Get You There .
If your law firm is experiencing significant growth , shifts and changes in key positions is inevitable . Every time your firm doubles in size , you will need to readjust because you need more staff and more leaders . Although your ideal goal should be to have 90 percent of all your positions filled by A-players , few firms are able to reach 90 percent for all their staff / attorney positions . Realistically your goal should be to have at least 50 to 60 percent of your general employee population be A-players . In contrast , your key seat people , the inner circle / executive team of key positions , should be filled at least 90 percent with A players . To do otherwise is to stall growth and create obstacles to getting to the next level in growth .
Develop or Replace :
Once you have a clear picture of the kind of A-players you need , then examine the people you have currently placed in these critical positions . Be brutally honest with yourself as you evaluate each person in these positions . Be prepared to recognize any positions that are not currently filled with an A player . And remember , what got you here , may not get you there – meaning , the skill sets you needed from a key position may change as your firm ’ s needs change , and someone who was a perfect fit when your firm was smaller , may no longer be the right person to have in the same position as you move forward . Since you are the law firm owner , and the overall Leader , you are the one that must decide on the action plans for the people who will fill your firm ’ s key positions . If you currently have people in these positions who are not A-players , then you basically have two viable choices : You can :
1 . Coach the current employee into an A player , or 2 . Replace that employee with someone who is an A player ( Replace doesn ’ t necessarily mean fire , it means placing them in a different seat ).
There is no hard and fast rule here , and either approach can work . As Collins notes in Good to Great , after studying a large number of highly successful businesses , he observed a 50 / 50 split between those companies that opt to coach and develop sub-A players and those who simply replace them . Personally , absent egregious conduct , if I have a sub-A current employee , I always try to coach them up rather than immediately replacing them . Simply replacing them right off the bat goes against my personal core values as I
The Trial Lawyer 25