Lawyers and Communication: An Odd Couple

The recent regional IBA (LARF) that took place in Buenos Aires for the Latin American legal community showed once again the strong inclination of many firms to use networking as an important tool to develop their presence in the market, but also to enjoy the company of many professionals that, over the years, have become friends more than just colleagues. The latin element surely provides an additional flavor that makes these conferences really fun to be part of. Looking at this large group of lawyers sharing sessions, breaks, lunches, meetings, cocktails, etc. with so much enthusiasm, brings the question as to whether communication is really an issue for lawyers.

From a different perspective, in our session about innovation in law firms partners from leading firms in the region told different stories about changes and improvements they put in place to deal with clients, associates and strategy with partners. At the bottom of all these stories, there was an issue of communication. How do I get to know what my clients think of the firm, our partners and our services? How do I get associates to do what we need them to do? How do we agree with partners about the right strategy for the firm?

Looking at these different situations, my perception is that lawyers do not have a basic problem to communicate or are just nerds that like to keep themselves behind closed doors. Some of them might, like in every activity or industry. But I think the difficulties appear when some aspects become relevant. Larry Richard, a lawyer-psycologist who has conducted many studies about lawyers and their behaviors, indicated in a study of 2008 that lawyers tend to be skeptical and “urgent” or results-oriented. They need autonomy and are abstract reasoners, buy they aren´t very sociable and resilient (Larry Richard´s work is mentioned in The American Lawyer issue of February 2017, “What are they asking?”). My experience is that lawyers are risk-everse and don´t like loosing, which makes them not very resilient, and also skeptical and controvertial which explains, at least partially, their difficulty with creating trust in the firm. So as long as there are no significant elements at stake, lawyers could be charming and fun (like anybody else!), but when the situation (either inside or outside the firm) could entail risks of some kind, then lawyers withdraw and become more skeptical and hard to deal with.

I like to compare communication in the firm with the nervous system of the human body. Your organs, like the heart, liver, kidneys, etc, might be in good shape, but if your nervous system is deteriorated by high stress or breakdown, then it is likely that the body will not function well, and eventually collapse. Likewise, many times firms have good individual components, starting with clever professionals, and eventually formal systems, technology and processes in order. But when they lack appropriate communication, all these good individual elements cannot perform at their full potential. Many aspects go within the term “communication”, like an adequate flow of information that is relevant for work and interaction with clients and within the firm, adequate coaching and support for professionals –including partners-, and more generally, keeping the professionals and staff in the firm informed and well communicated about the major aspects of the firm, in accordance with each other´s role and seniority, and also motivated to feel part of the organization.

It is surprising how much the lack of communication is mentioned by partners in the firms as one of the major aspects that provokes loss of motivation and mistrust among them. And not only that, sometimes this “silo pattern” in which many partners tend to fall, directly affects quality and reputation in the firm. More than once I heard stories where different partners issued totally different legal opinions on the same subject for being completely oblivious of what is goin on in the rest of the firm. This might look like an extreme example but you will find many cases where these “walls” make interactions cumbersome and inefficient, and sometimes tense and distrustful.

This auto-inflicted “Prisoner´s Dilemma” (lack of communication that produces sub-optimal results) where firms could operate with high levels of inneficiency just because partners do not trust each other can only be amended with a conscious effort to revert this situation. It is true that these cultural and systemic behaviors are difficult to change, starting with the very diagnosis that partners have about what is happening in the firm, but an objetive and professional exercise where the biggest areas of conflict may be identified and a deep commitment by the partners to work collectively towards a genuine improvement is given, will be a good start for a significant change.

It is important that firms and partners understand that the significant changes the legal industry is experiencing, and will even more so in the future, will not allow for these kinds of inneficient and unproductive performances. The stuctural lack of trust that you find in some firms will be a death sentence to operate in a much more competitive market than the one we have seen so far. Dealing with this problem will be the key for survival for some of our firms in the region, but conversely, finding solutions to this endemic problem will unleash the great potential that many firms have. Latin American have produced an extraordinary large number of excellent lawyers in the last decades. It still has to produce an equally large number of great firms.