Seeing all these comments on LI, I'm genuinely interested to know:
Why are lawyers such bad managers / why are law firms poorly managed?
Why are partners okay with not really caring about managing their people well?
The client pressure argument? - there are plenty of service industries with demanding clients - the hours may be long and the work gruelling but at least there's some effort to manage their organizations well.
The "my billable hours and targets leave no time to focus on managment" argument - why don't you hire competent management professionals then? Unlike the MC firms who seem to really invest in hiring good management folks, Indian firms hire folks who for the most part appear to be throughly incompetent in what they do.
It's sad to see that toxicity has become to be accepted as a given constant in law firm culture. What's even more surprising is that most firms don't even care about being perceived like this. The closest accurate parallel here is investment banking, which has horror stories of its own.
I'd love to hear the perspective of the community on this.
It's the nature of the job. Hospitals have their doctors and staff on their toes 247365, does it mean doctors or those in medical fraternity are poor managers? No! It's simply the nature of the job. Now agreed a law firm does not deal with life and death situations like a hospital does and hence the question on the relentless work culture, but then there are multiple factors which come into play like endless supply of new corp law ready lawyers and India being still an underdeveloped law market among others.
But to answer, no it's not true lawyers are bad managers. Rather I would reframe it that they are made to act a certain way due to the structure of the industry, and sadly I don't see it changing unless a major overhaul is seen within the legal industry (which is again vv unlikely)
The apologetic tone of your logic is saddening. I'd also like to understand why you'd want to term the Indian legal market as underdeveloped.
Why is an endless supply of lawyers an excuse for toxic work culture?
What is the structure of the industry that you refer to - and how is it different from any other service industry, such IT services or management consulting? I'm not talking about the nature of the work - just the client:firm dynamics. (Management consulting may involve longer work hours but none of the MBB's are termed as toxic work environments)
Fyi, hospitals have dedicated management teams who are responsible for all operations. The snootiness that "non-doctors cannot be managers" doesn't really exist in the healthcare profession, which sadly is the attitude in the legal profession.
As the OP originally pointed out, "nature of job" is not a reason. Top management consultancies crush in more work, deadlines and billables and yet emphasize on management. You cannot make Partner at a McKinsey unless you have good leadership skills too. I think the problem is that partners in law firms are just PAs/MAs with a higher title. They're not taught how to do business development, nor expected to have leadership abilities to lead a team. No doubt, the partnership feels so empty - with no equity, no leadership, no book building. In the end, you ask yourself - is this what you worked your ass off for 10 years?
Unfortunately this problem is in every field not just law. We, Indians, need to understand that we have to be respectful and polite towards everyone and not just the superiors.
1. The consulting firms or big 4s, which are pretty similar to law firms (all are professional services firms) focus on overall growth of a person for promotions (like leadership quality, financial discipline, team development, market development, etc) and there's a focus on such development. People are specifically trained in many of these skills, unlike law firms, where growth happens by largely number of years and quality of delivery, whereas in big 4/consulting firms, that's a given even at mid level and for reaching top level, all other skills are required. Always remember, the stress is higher when you're doing something which you aren't so familiar and comfortable with but your survival depends on that. Stressed ppl equals many bad habits and behaviors, which will then percolate down.
2. Consulting firms/ big 4 have good quality of people in support functions and they do have a good deal of say in affairs of firms. HR is given fair amount of importance and good deal of people to take care of all admin/infrastructure etc.
Once all these functions starts to matter for someone's growth, you're automatically bound to acquire these skills. This is not to say you won't find bad culture there, but comparatively is better.
Why are lawyers such bad managers / why are law firms poorly managed?
Why are partners okay with not really caring about managing their people well?
The client pressure argument? - there are plenty of service industries with demanding clients - the hours may be long and the work gruelling but at least there's some effort to manage their organizations well.
The "my billable hours and targets leave no time to focus on managment" argument - why don't you hire competent management professionals then? Unlike the MC firms who seem to really invest in hiring good management folks, Indian firms hire folks who for the most part appear to be throughly incompetent in what they do.
It's sad to see that toxicity has become to be accepted as a given constant in law firm culture. What's even more surprising is that most firms don't even care about being perceived like this. The closest accurate parallel here is investment banking, which has horror stories of its own.
I'd love to hear the perspective of the community on this.
But to answer, no it's not true lawyers are bad managers. Rather I would reframe it that they are made to act a certain way due to the structure of the industry, and sadly I don't see it changing unless a major overhaul is seen within the legal industry (which is again vv unlikely)
Why is an endless supply of lawyers an excuse for toxic work culture?
What is the structure of the industry that you refer to - and how is it different from any other service industry, such IT services or management consulting? I'm not talking about the nature of the work - just the client:firm dynamics. (Management consulting may involve longer work hours but none of the MBB's are termed as toxic work environments)
Fyi, hospitals have dedicated management teams who are responsible for all operations. The snootiness that "non-doctors cannot be managers" doesn't really exist in the healthcare profession, which sadly is the attitude in the legal profession.
1. The consulting firms or big 4s, which are pretty similar to law firms (all are professional services firms) focus on overall growth of a person for promotions (like leadership quality, financial discipline, team development, market development, etc) and there's a focus on such development. People are specifically trained in many of these skills, unlike law firms, where growth happens by largely number of years and quality of delivery, whereas in big 4/consulting firms, that's a given even at mid level and for reaching top level, all other skills are required. Always remember, the stress is higher when you're doing something which you aren't so familiar and comfortable with but your survival depends on that. Stressed ppl equals many bad habits and behaviors, which will then percolate down.
2. Consulting firms/ big 4 have good quality of people in support functions and they do have a good deal of say in affairs of firms. HR is given fair amount of importance and good deal of people to take care of all admin/infrastructure etc.
Once all these functions starts to matter for someone's growth, you're automatically bound to acquire these skills. This is not to say you won't find bad culture there, but comparatively is better.