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We see ourselves, and others see us, as detached.
We love to play the critical friend who is set apart
from the business
. Although this is necessary
from time to time for professional purposes,
lawyers tend to over-egg it. Think about it for
a minute. It hardly endears us to others when
we destroy an idea with dispassionate, clinical
precision, without staying in the room to suffer
with non-lawyers as they scramble for an
alternative. Put another way, we congratulate
ourselves too much for knowing the real
meaning of the word ‘disinterest’.
Here is the explanation that I like the most:
We use the ‘in-house’ tag mindlessly, and in doing
so we sleepwalk through a career-long analysis of
‘success’ that never moves beyond a comparison
with private practice lawyers. If we represent a
better, cheaper and quicker alternative, then we
are successful
. There are two problems with this
constant comparison:
First, let’s say you come out on the right side
of this analysis consistently throughout your
career. Does this make you CEO material? Hardly.
Comparing well in this test is very easy. Once you
have been a senior business lawyer for a short
while, if you can’t demonstrate that your legal
team represents a better, cheaper and quicker
alternative to wheeling in external firms, you are
a cretin.
Second, where’s the ‘in-house’ accountancy
department, or the ‘in-house’ marketing team?
They don’t exist, and that’s precisely because
other professionals are less worried about
comparisons with their former selves or external
providers, less concerned about leaving their old
skills behind and learning new ones, and more
centred on contributing to general business
success. This fuels the personal ambition that is
missing among lawyers.
Why is it important for lawyers to aspire to
become CEOs?
Lawyers can do extremely well in business, so
maybe it doesn’t matter much that the top job
is beyond their reach.
I would argue it does for
three reasons. First, poverty of ambition creates
a self-fulfilling cap on progression for those of
us who have left private practice. Second, when
trying to hire a talented lawyer for our business,
we are hamstrung because we can’t have a
plausible discussion about the stratospheric
career possibilities that might exist if we were
instead recruiting an accountant, an engineer
or a marketeer. Finally, this matters to the UK’s
boardrooms because an entire professional skill
set is missing from the very top echelon of UK
business.
Maybe the next question I ask a candidate for a
lawyer role in my business should be ‘What’s your
plan to become CEO?’
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