Succeeding in a Time of Change

Reflections on the Occasion of My Retirement

If you’ve been reading this newsletter recently, you’ll know that I’ve retired from my law firm, Pierce Atwood LLP. After many years in private practice and more than a decade with this excellent firm, I decided it was time to move on. Never one to follow good advice (in this case, to fill retirement with rest and play), I have new projects in the works that you may hear about in future posts.

Earlier this week, the firm treated me to a retirement reception. It was a splendid event, populated by lawyers and staff from the firm’s Boston office, the managing partner, the head of my practice group, a few good friends from outside the firm, and of course my wife, who has patiently stood by me throughout my long career.

After some very kind words by a few presenters, I was allowed to address my former colleagues. As I did not want to waste would would likely be my last opportunity to do so, I gave a lot of thought to the farewell message I wanted to impart.

First, I singled out a few people in the firm to thank, and paid tribute to the firm’s “great blend of attracting excellent talent while maintaining a highly collegial culture.”  I then briefly touched on the inevitability of change and the importance of how law firms and other organizations respond to it.  What follows are slightly edited excerpts from that part of my speech.

In my limited but I think still relevant experience, I’ve observed that every law firm has a personality. Those personalities can change as firms adapt to changing times. Sometimes they change as firms expand into new locations or take on groups of lawyers from, or merge with, other law firms. As the world around us grows more fast-paced and complex, so do clients’ needs. Law firms that want to retain their clients and attract new ones have had to expand into more jurisdictions and practice areas, and each expansion has effected cultural change of varying degrees within those firms.

I then recounted some of the ways that Pierce Atwood has effectively responded to change over time, including successful geographic and practice area expansions, and recruiting and retaining talented staff to manage its marketing, IT, and other business operations. I continued . . .

It's probably cliché, but I’ll say it anyway – in every walk of life and every business and profession, change is inevitable. How an organization responds to change will determine its success or failure.

But just as change is inevitable, it also is unpredictable. Who among us predicted that a worldwide pandemic would shut down in-person operations within our own offices, our clients’ offices, and the courts for months or even years? Just as it feels like things are getting back to normal, we’re now witnessing China muddle through a new stage in its own response to Covid, and we can only wait and wonder what new impact that country’s change in policy will have on us.

I had intended to give another example of unpredictable change (insurrection anyone?), but to save time moved directly to the following unsolicited, but I hope well-received, advice.

So how can organizations prepare for change, and especially for change that threatens the way they are accustomed to doing business? I want to suggest three ways.

First, be vigilant. Don’t assume that change is behind us. Understand that more change will come, perhaps in the form of a new deadly virus, a financial crisis, a renewed attempt at insurrection, or, on a more positive note, the development of new technologies, laws, or business models that improve the way we live and work. Whatever the future has in store for us, we need to recognize the changing tide before it becomes too late to navigate it.

As you can tell, I was most focused on the types of change that appear as threats to organizations. But firms that can identify positive change quickly also have a competitive edge over firms that are slow to notice or appreciate new trends and innovations in their industries.

Second, be responsive. This firm [Pierce Atwood] did an amazing job responding to Covid when it first affected us. We were able to do so because of our excellent leadership and strong IT team that moved us from in-person to virtual operations very quickly and effectively. Having the talent already in place that can turn on a dime and keep us going through unanticipated change was so important to our ability not only to survive but to flourish.

That second point was more a statement of why this law firm in particular was successful in managing the change wrought by Covid, but that experience offers lessons for other organizations as well. The main point is that firms must be prepared to respond nimbly to sudden change, and to do so they need to have in place smart, capable, and flexible leaders and senior staff who know when and how to move into rapid response mode.

Finally, and I think most important of all, prioritize a culture of teamwork and collegiality that can provide the foundation for everything that needs to happen in responding to change. Cling to the constants, the qualities that allow an organization to deal with change without compromising its identity or turning on itself. What are those qualities? I think there are several. They include mutual respect and support, civility, collegiality, concern for each other’s well-being, placing the needs of the collective above one’s own self-concern, honesty, and fairness, among others. And for lawyers, I would add a steady commitment to the Rule of Law and to meeting the legal needs of those who otherwise would have limited access to justice.

A positive culture is the foundation for everything else. It alone won’t guarantee success, but success is much more difficult without it. And success that fails to preserve or promote those cultural qualities that most of us value might not fairly be considered success at all.

I closed my remarks by praising Pierce Atwood for so well exemplifying those qualities that I consider important to a law firm’s success and the professional satisfaction of the people who work there. I’ll miss the firm’s people and its collaborative environment, but in truth, these pandemic years, challenging though they’ve been, have allowed me to transition gradually to the next chapter of my life, and to avoid the unwelcome disruption that would have been caused by a more abrupt departure.

And so, here is my message to those of you who may be interested in these types of matters. To any of you for whom retirement is still many years away, it’s never too early to consider how you define success in your life and your career, and to set your sights on achieving it. And, especially to those in positions of leadership, there is no time like the present to make sure that you and your organization are equipped to respond to significant, unanticipated change when, inevitably, it arrives.