“Do not confine your children to your own learning, for they were born in another time.” Chinese proverb
The Chinese were on to something. We all make the mistake of teaching things to younger generations based on our own experience. Here is some of the bad advice that I gave to my Associates:
Since I retired, I do not speak to law firm partners very often, which is just fine with me. For one thing, I cannot afford to speak to them about professional matters. For another, I have had quite my fill of speaking to partners about topics that they know precious little about, such as how to run a law firm profitably while maintaining a positive and welcoming culture.
So imagine that you are a newbie lawyer working for a firm. When looking for your first job, nobody told you that the most important consideration was to work for a competent person of good character, so you chose your job based on other factors which seemed important at the time, like prestige or money.
My wife says that I am pathologically honest. I even have trouble bringing myself to tell little white lies (except when writing on LinkedIn where I may fib about the identity of some of the characters, and that one time I forgot to mention to my ex-wife that I had fallen in love with my Associate.)
Being too honest can be a real problem sometimes, especially when you are running a law firm.
At my law firm, we were scrupulously honest. But my friend Martin tells me that at his firm it was sometimes necessary to lie to the Associates.
I hated partners meetings. Not because I did not like most of my partners. In fact, I quite enjoyed spending time with the majority of them. But there were always one or two…
After many years of contemplating why I disliked partners meetings so much, I developed a theory. Here it is.
They say that the Americans are tougher than we are when it comes to business. I think that it is probably true.
I met John in the early 90’s, shortly after he had arrived in Toronto to set up a Canadian branch of his large Buffalo law firm. John was a very senior lawyer by then and he was the managing partner of the Toronto branch office of his firm, and in charge of the firm’s cross-border practice.
When I started out in the legal profession many years ago, becoming a Partner at a law firm was the dream of every new lawyer. At the firm where I articled in 1979, each new Partner received two gifts from the firm upon being admitted to partnership. The first was a gold sculpture of Sisyphus, pushing the boulder up the hill. The second was a speakerphone, which at the time was new and exciting technology.