Daily Diary

Diary managerial masterclass...with Guy Beringer

Posted 16/03/2007 by The Daily Diary

10. A PEP in the right direction 

So, I see Freshfields is going down the same old road as Linklaters a year or two ago, gently nudging its veteran partners through the open 15th-floor window of retirement and ushering in a brave new era of uber-profitability. Haven't they heard? PEP is last year’s news.

As I’ve argued all along, you can’t measure the financial performance of a law firm with something as one-dimensional as its financial performance.

We need to re-imagine the profession, if you will. It’s just common sense. Talk to the man in the street or the saloon bar public house and he’ll say: “Gawd blimey, Guy, the numerator and denominator ‘ave became way too impressionist in law firm reporting and it’s time someone sorted it out. Gawd blimey, Mary Poppins.”

Sorted, it is. Because at A&O we believe in creativity. And transparency. Ideally, things that combine both – like stained glass windows. Or clothes made from cling-film.

Being an LLP, we can’t be creative with our accounts, like certain other City firms I could mention. So we need other outlets to express ourselves – like making up new performance benchmarks that don’t actually involve measuring performance, or benches.

Yes, we’ve blazed a trail in terms of transparency. But then we’re not the kind of firm that goes round doing something Eversheds and Withers did two years earlier then banging on about how ground-breaking we are.

And now we will soon be evaluating our partners on a range of new criteria. Gone are the days when the City cared not for the environment. Partners with pot-plants in their office will therefore gain extra points in my new foliage per square inch eco-efficiency metric. Trainees will reduce their own emissions by sealing themselves in biodegradable grow-bags.

That’s why our staff is so happy (about from those moaning gits in leveraged finance).

Similarly, fee earners who interrupt drafting a key document to rush outside and help an old lady across the road can expect a hefty bonus – and not just the spiritual reward of knowing you work for the City’s fluffiest legal leviathan.

You see, client satisfaction is measured in hugs, not pounds sterling. Sure, bagging the lead role on a big-ticket deal can be lucrative (or so I’m told). But the smile on a general counsel’s face when you get him off those charges of illegally backdating his share options? Priceless.

Law firms now have to understand that the world has moved on. These days corporate success is all about things like environmental contribution, corporate social responsibility and, most importantly, jumping on bandwagons.

Am I a visionary? No. Am I insane? Perhaps. One office wag has already joked I’ve boosted A&O’s ‘prophets per equity partner’ count by one.

But have faith. We will bring PEP crashing down, once and for all.