“If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else.”
Yogi Berra
In late 2017, I began planning my transition. Rather than wait for someone from the firm’s Senior Management Team (the “SMT”) to knock on my door, I contacted the Global Managing Partner. He asked me to work on a plan with a member of the SMT. Since the SMT member assigned the job led Reed Smith’s 2004 negotiations of its acquisition of my former firm, I was very comfortable working with him. We met twice, discussed myriad issues, and I gave him a written proposal.
The preamble to my plan sets forth my commitment: “At a minimum, stay through 2020 when my equity status automatically ends. During this period, I will transition my book of business to other partners in the firm who are on my team. In September 2020, the firm and I will discuss any further relationship in 2021 or later on terms and conditions acceptable to both of us.”
Some said that was very risky since by the time September 2020 came around, I would have moved most of the clients and have little leverage left for negotiating a deal for 2021 and beyond. That was a fair observation. However, I had faith in the firm’s integrity. I took that risk. If someone lacks faith in their firm’s integrity, they must approach the more extended term differently with greater detail.
The next step in my plan was an honest analysis of my strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (“SWOT”) and what they meant to my future with the firm.
A SWOT analysis is a business tool as old as dirt. Used in virtually every successful organization as a starting point for strategic planning, a synopsis from a course at Harvard Business School describes it as a “Competitive strategy [that] begins with the iterative assessment of the external environment and the organization’s internal capabilities. Looking outside and inside is known to strategic planners by the acronym ‘SWOT’: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.” While traditionally used by businesses, it is an equally valuable tool for individual planning. It is often hard to be forthcoming about yourself in a SWOT analysis. But it is a critical first step.
While one can often identify his or her strengths with ease, articulating weaknesses and threats is more complicated. In addition, whatever opportunities exist in your SWOT analysis can only be successfully pursued if you understand how to balance them against your strengths, weaknesses, and threats.
It has been my experience that most lawyers do not prepare a SWOT analysis for themselves or their personal business planning. That is true of law firms as well. That is a pity. I have started with a yearly SWOT analysis throughout my entire career. I predicate my annual business plans on it. Without question, I attribute my success to the SWOT and business planning discipline. It only made sense that I would use it to plan my future with the firm and after that.
