The Legal Navigator - Fall 2018

FALL 2018

Insight into leading legal talent and issues affecting the legal market

Joe Conroy CEO of Cooley

Creating a differentiated vision by staying true to himself

M OME N T U M Career insights from legal mavericks

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A 360-degree look at culture and how to hire for it

TO LE A D

John Cashman President Major, Lindsey & Africa

Major, Lindsey & Africa is the world’s leading legal search firm. The firm, founded in 1982, offers a range of specialized legal recruiting and advisory services to meet the ever-changing needs of law firms and legal departments and to support the career aspirations of talented lawyers and legal and compliance professionals.

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Cover Story 04 Joe Conroy, CEO of Cooley Creating a differentiated vision by staying true to himself FA L L 2 01 8

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Standards 09 Momentum Career insights from legal mavericks 14

14 360 What is culture and how do you hire for it?

16 To Lead John Cashman President Major, Lindsey & Africa 16

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Creating a W differentiated vision by staying true to himself

hile everyone in the Washington, D.C., metro area was glued to their televisions watching the Washington Capitals win their first Stanley Cup, Joe Conroy was on a fishing trip in a remote location, unaware of the insanity he would return home to. Conroy takes this fishing trip annually INTERVIEW WITH Joe Conroy, CEO of Cooley with his two sons—it’s a family tradition. He enjoys the time disconnecting from the world and bonding with his boys. And anyone who works with Conroy knows how important family is to him—because sharing those elements of his life is part of his approach to leadership. >>>

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COVER STORY

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Conroy leads Cooley in his own very personal way, helping to shape a unique culture not seen at other law firms. This is reflected by Cooley’s appearance on Fortune magazine’s 100 Best Companies to Work For list for five years in a row, moving up consecutively each year. While the Capitals victory parade passed by Cooley’s D.C. office, Conroy shared with us where his entrepreneurial spirit came from, how he developed his leadership style, how that style has impacted Cooley and what it means for the firm’s future.

In 1999, you were ahead of your time starting a technology and venture capital practice on the East Coast. What attracted you to that particular area of the law?

I had a bit of an accidental background in software. When I was in high school, my dad came home and threw this three-ring binder at me and said, “I need you to learn COBOL,” because he had gotten me a job writing code. So I learned that and found I had a knack for it. I took this job working on contracts with some governmental agencies, and they came to me and said, “You know, you should start your own company”—which I did and ran until my third year of law school. It helped me pay for my first house and education. People say that my business experience must have really helped me understand technology, and if technology today were anything like relational database technology back then, maybe, but what it did do was give me a sense for what representing entrepreneurs was like.

I remember my own interactions with lawyers at the time, and that experience really informed how I practiced myself.

What attracted you to Cooley to explore that practice area?

In 1999, while I was working at Hunton & Williams, all these Silicon Valley firms started calling because the technology and venture capital industry in the D.C. market was developing so rapidly. I didn’t want to leave; I loved the people and the place. But it was obvious to me that this practice and the people I would be responsible for needed to be on a platform that was more suited for it, and Cooley was a very natural fit.

I joined Cooley in April of ’99, and, that summer, I got a call from Jim Gaither, one of the great patriarchs of the firm, who told me I was joining the management committee—although I didn’t know what that was. Within three meetings, I was asked what I thought of the strategic direction of the firm. Well, if you’re going to ask what I think, you’re going to hear it. That’s just who I am.

I said, “I think that we’re a great firm, but we’re precariously unbalanced between the East and West coasts; geographically, we’re not global; we don’t have New York and Washington, D.C., offices; we’re not balanced between business and litigation; and if we’re going to be a great firm, we’re going to have to correct all of those things.” The interesting thing was not 6

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what I said, but the way people reacted to it. From that conversation, I was at the center of the strategic planning process, which started a series of dominos falling and ended with me taking the job as CEO in January 2008.

You obviously have an entrepreneurial spirit, as shown by your past business ventures, and it’s well known that you’ve grown the firm tremendously since you’ve become CEO. How do you keep that entrepreneurial spirit while still growing?

Although we have grown tremendously, whether we’ve grown in those areas where people deal with entrepreneurs or not, you tend to attract people who believe that the great law firm of the future will be entrepreneurial and will have this new economy bend—it will be adept at partnering with innovation and entrepreneurship. So it’s a lot about self-selecting the people you recruit and the way you manage and lead. I ask the junior partners to create their own vision for the future of the firm that is differentiated from my vision. One of the things that has always been remarkable to me about this law firm is its ability to turn generational corners and continue to succeed.

What is your differentiated vision for the future?

I took over January 1, 2008, when it was not exactly great timing to be saying, “We’re going to grow dramatically, take a bunch of risks and aspire to be one of the greatest law firms in the world.” Not only did I scare people by what I said, I scared them by how I said it. In every conversation, I am who I am, regardless of whether I am speaking to a client, my children or a stranger. My approach was and always is personal, inspirational and coach-like (I coached youth football for almost 20 years). In the beginning, partners would use the word “coach” as a derisive term; now they say “coach” as a term of endearment. But change is hard for organizations, and there wasn’t much user adoption early on.

The legal world is bifurcating between the big law firms that can successfully compete for premium, high-margin new business and those that can’t. When I started practicing, the AmLaw 200 was considered elite, then the AmLaw 100, and now it’s probably 35 or so firms. To be in that elite group of firms and at the same time be distinctive is the foundation of our success. The ability to distinguish yourself other than by saying, “We’re just great lawyers and have been great lawyers for 100+ years,” is critical. So “elite” and “distinctive” are independent of each other, but together they have been the foundation of my vision for Cooley.

The quality of the brand of the institution is critical to my vision. When people ask which

are the great law firm brands, is Cooley going to get its share of mentions? We weren’t anywhere on such lists back then. Now, though, our brand is powerful and broad in both litigation and business. But what is Cooley known for? For us, the distinctive part is being irrevocably but not exclusively branded, focused and differentiated on tech, life sciences and the representation of high-growth, innovative companies and those that finance them. My aim has been to bind together “elite” and “distinctive” through our culture. Everyone understands how culture works internally, but when I talk to clients, they want to talk about our culture and how we’ve created it and how that translates into a better, more efficient service for them. We think of our culture as a big piece of our differentiation— this is part of “Being Cooley,” a phrase I coined for a speech some years ago, which has really caught on across the firm.

People here are constantly finding new ways to “Be Cooley” and live out our values with authenticity and creativity.

BigLaw, there’s going to be some renewed competitive threat, even to the truly elite firms.

COVER STORY

For me, the challenge for these lawyers just starting their careers is to determine their differentiated vision to change our current BigLaw model—including governance structure, practice mix and approach to clients—in ways that are going to keep the growth curve as steep over the next two decades as it has been over the past two. That’s obviously a tall order.

You’ve been referenced as saying you are in the human capital business. What do you look for in talent? How do you identify it?

You can spend time trying to figure out how you manage your rates and realization and all manner of other financial metrics, but that’s all distractions from the main principle, which is that this is indeed a human capital business. What’s really important for a growing firm is the ability to recruit the right people who fit into your practice mix—not over the past 10 years but for the next 10 years and more—and who will fully buy into your culture. Then you must lead and manage them actively.

What’s really important for a growing firm [is to] recruit the right people who fit into your practice mix—not over the past 10 years but for the next 10 years and more.

What’s your hope in a differentiated vision from your next generation?

As we turn this generational corner and put a succession plan into place, we must have differentiators as a firm because the ability of elite law firms to raise rates 6% annually is going to go away at some point. The billable-hour model will fundamentally fade away. The people who have their hands on the wheel are going to be the millennials, and that portends a fundamental sea change in the way that business is run.

In this bifurcating world of

I’ve tried to create a distributed leadership system—if you have something to say, say it. Don’t bring me a problem; bring me a problem with a solution. Assessing how a candidate will fit with the culture, what role they could play in driving the future of their vertical practice and for the firm in general, is critical. I’m constantly thinking about whether a new partner can be asked a question and answer it in a way that is helpful to the enterprise.

Let’s talk about diversity.

What is Cooley doing differently?

It’s a passion for me. Fundamentally, what drives me crazy is the question, “What’s the business case for diversity?” Diversity is business; diversity is success. I see the difference between succeeding and failing not in degrees of profitability but as a cliff that we’re going to go over unless we effect real change.

We have such a tremendous way to go to create a workforce that is substantially more diverse and inclusive in looking like and representing client teams. And clients increasingly demand that. In addition, being meaningfully diverse is about making good decisions. Good decisions are made with a variety of perspectives, and a variety of perspectives do not necessarily come from people who look the same and come from the same background. Having diverse perspectives where decisions are made is critical. We can look at diversity numbers and say that our numbers are getting better, but this is one place where I’m not going to The Legal Navigator

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accept that we will simply suck less than our competitors.

It’s not a numbers game; it’s fundamental to our future.

You’ve got to give partners a simple concept to get behind. So I say, go to the opening dinner for our summer associate program and take a mental picture; then go to our partner meeting and take a mental picture of that group. And then go to a management committee meeting and take a mental picture; and tell me, are we getting closer to narrowing those gaps?

For us, the very first step was creating a sufficient awareness in the partnership that it’s an imperative—not a nice-to-have— and the ramifications of not getting much better are a cliff, not a gradual downhill. You have to give people something to latch on to so they can make meaningful change where it matters. You have to pay exaggerated attention every time you make a decision, even if it doesn’t move the needle. At the end of the day, you don’t say this seat is going to get occupied by someone who checks a box without them being able to do the job, but you have to ask the question when you are trying to fill every single seat. The whole industry has to change. You have to say it, but do you believe it? And do you act on it? Are there consequences if you don’t believe in the imperative? In our firm, there are hard and fast consequences for not embracing the imperative.

Diversity is business; diversity is success.

I’ve read a few things that you have consequences for not embracing other cultural issues as well. I think your leadership style is one of transparency and responsibility.

How would you describe the culture of Cooley?

We have a West Coast-influenced culture. It’s a consensus style, not yell and scream. We don’t vote; we reach a consensus. We do not tolerate disrespectful behavior at any level of the organization. If just one partner behaves in a way that isn’t consistent with our culture and you don’t deal with it, then you lose credibility. People will have the perception that you don’t really believe it. Whether it’s about a specific initiative like diversity or whether it’s culture, there have to be consequences for inconsistent behavior.

You have to have leadership that is courageous, determined, principled and not afraid to let money walk out the door.

You must be very open in lateral recruiting because you get people who’ve done things a certain way for such a long period of time. They have to be put on notice that this is the way we do it, and you’ve got to work with them—you cannot just assume that everybody is perfect.

How did you develop your leadership style?

I was the first-born son in an Irish-American family with the fundamental but anachronistic belief that the sun rises and sets around the first-born son. I was taught that I should lead 8

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and that they will follow. I had that in my head my entire life, rightly or wrongly, and developed a “coachist” style over time—and an Irish stubbornness that I’m going to be myself at all times, and if that doesn’t work, I’ll go do something else. One thing I’m not going to do is change who I am.

What are the challenges in Cooley’s future?

Preserving the culture. Turning the next generational corner. Ensuring I can fulfill the most sacred professional promise that I ever made when I was talked into taking this job, which was that the day after I leave, it will be just as good as or better than the day before I leave.

And what do you see as the challenges for the industry?

How are firms going to differentiate themselves when the elite group is ever smaller, and just being great lawyers and raising your rates annually will no longer be viable? How is the model regarding the delivery of services going to change? And how much of the change is going to be driven by technology? Where is the intersection of the practice of law being an art, a craft and a business—how is that going to work out? At the highest end, the reason clients are still willing to pay what they pay is because they get true value and the brightest minds. It’s not necessarily a business approach; it’s a professional approach. With that elite group flattening and declining, how is this approach going to differ in the years ahead? Ten years from now, partnerships are going to think very differently than they do today.

What’s Cooley doing to tackle these issues?

The only thing you can do is to be completely open to the fact that although I am not smart enough to sit here and tell you what the exact changes will be, there is 100% certainty that there will be changes to the model. If you have the best human capital, empower them to create the next best vision, and if you are generationally not stifling by having the old folks hang out too long, then, regardless of whether you ultimately solve everything, you’ll be in a better position than your competitors.

Let’s talk about succession planning.

What does it look like for you?

It’s a very timely topic. It’s what I think about the most right now. I firmly believe that succession doesn’t happen accidentally. It takes a process of meaningfully engaging the right depth of partnership to have not just an effective but a fully supported solution. The law firm solution has historically been who has the gold makes the rules.

That makes no sense. It needs to be a process that puts forward the people who have the aptitude and skills needed to run a global business. These skills will often be completely different from those required to lead a practice. I am committed to making sure that Cooley is best-placed for future change and achievement over the long term. It’s all about putting the right people in place.

MOMENTUM

Career Insights from Legal Mavericks

ME L A N I E ROW L A N D S Group General Counsel, Smiths Group You shouldn’t have a fixed idea of what you want your career to be and how it should go. Organizational change brings massive opportunity— but you have to have the right mindset. Those that see the opportunities have that attitude. If you have a fixed idea of how your career will pan out, you may miss opportunities, and in my experience, it will never go that way anyway!

Looking back, the unplanned things were probably the most rewarding.

Being an M&A lawyer in business, I’ve been in the thick of things when there has been a sale/takeover/merger. I’ve understood the rules, timetable and process and how the situation was likely to pan out, so I have had more sense of control than other people in the company. But that doesn’t mean you are in control of what happens to you, and those unplanned times are the most unsettling to me personally.

However unsettling ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE BRINGS at the time, MASSIVE OPPORTUNITY—BUT YOU HAVE TO HAVE THE RIGHT MINDSET. these are usually the periods when you develop quickly and learn a great deal. The other thing is that, in normal times, legal is just another small part of a business, but when big corporate changes happen, quite often legal becomes

central to the outcome and we can see the impact we are having in real time. In fact, it has been during those periods of major change that I’ve been offered roles that required me to step out of my comfort zone and take a big career risk. The risks have usually paid off. So see these times as opportunities, not threats.

One risk I can share is when I took a role as legal director and company secretary of a private equity–owned technology business. They asked me to take on the HR job in addition to legal. A lawyer doing HR? Why would that make sense? We had a really big strategic agenda, and I did it despite my misgivings. I was lucky to have a CEO, chairman and a board who were supportive of the move.

I am really pleased I spent some time outside legal, as it gave me a valuable different perspective. That was the first time I really understood that we [lawyers] are business people first, and we just happen to have a technical skill we bring to the table.

I realized that we have broader technical and soft skills to offer in business. You know, after all these years, I remain hugely passionate about being an in-house lawyer and the difference we can make.

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J ASON L . B ROW N Vice President, General Counsel & Secretary, Dyson When I left Pepsi and moved on to NAMWOLF and became their first executive director, it was my first opportunity to take 100% responsibility for and ownership of an entire organization. There was no umbrella organization; it was just me, the staff, the board and then the member law firms and a host of corporations that had a strong interest in what we were doing. From there, I realized the importance of gaining an understanding of everyone’s perspective. We had well over 100 members at the time, and knowing that each of them had a different interest and a different desire, and putting all that together in a way that’s uniform and managing that from an enterprise standpoint was really huge for me.

YOU CAN’T JUST DEAL WITH THE ISSUE IN FRONT OF YOU AND NOT THINK ABOUT HOW THAT’S GOING TO IMPACT [THE ORGANIZATION] IN THE FUTURE.

As the GC of Dyson, I need to think about how the decisions we make now impact us in the future, which is the larger perspective that you need to have if you’re a successful GC. You can’t just deal with the issue in front of you and not think about how that’s going to impact the other parts of the organization or the organization as a whole in the future.

What’s the vision for the organization? You’ve got to develop a vision. You’ve got to have objectives so you can achieve that vision. Let’s craft our vision and focus on the problem that we have. That type of work, which isn’t legal, is work that an organization that is successful has. We can’t just look at things as to how they affect just one small portion; we’ve got to look at them with a much broader perspective.

GIOVA N N A C I N EL L I Partner and Lead, International Trade & National Security Practice, Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP For 15 years, I served as a Naval Reserve Intelligence Officer (NRIO) while I was also in private practice. Working as a Naval Reserve Intelligence Officer was an amazing experience from the perspective of supplementing the legal side because it gave me insight into how the regulators I had to work with on the legal side thought. If somebody said, ‘There’s a national security concern,’ I wasn’t just looking on the outside saying, ‘Why is there no statutory definition of national security?’ I actually understood from the inside what is it that the government looks at when there is no YOU NEED TO DO statutory definition, so that was very helpful.

SOMETHING THAT IS MORE THAN JUST To me, it wasn’t work. I very much love this country, and I BEING A LAWYER. think that this country has made it possible for me to succeed in a way that no other country could, and I believe I have a responsibility to give back. So I viewed my work as an NRIO as a combination of giving back to my country and learning something I would never be given an opportunity to do just as a plain lawyer. It was a gift, in a certain sense.

I cannot say enough to the young attorneys: You need to do something that is more than just being a lawyer. Extending beyond yourself into other areas allows you to gauge issues more quickly and provide creative solutions while enhancing your perspectives, and it allows you to focus multidimensionally rather than two-dimensionally. These experiences provide you with the perspective you need when you have to put yourself in the client’s and the government’s seat. The reconciliation among these views allows you to advise clients in a more effective and timely way.

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MOME N T U M

K YL E OH Associate, White & Case

While I started my legal career abroad at an international law firm (in New York and then Hong Kong), I left private practice after three years to join the Korean Air Force as a judge advocate (JAG). My main task as a JAG was reviewing legal documents and providing related advice, which was pretty much the same as my role as a law firm associate. However, acclimating to the military culture took some doing. The hierarchy was top down and very strict. Every now and then, I had to be involved in military exercises, during which I would review the legality of military targets and advise on the rules of engagement. This was when I really thought that I was working for the military as a captain, not as a lawyer. Also, most of the judge advocates were Korea-qualified lawyers who did not have expertise in drafting, reviewing or negotiating legal documents written in English, so I didn’t have many colleagues who were able to give me instructions or review my work product.

It was a big transition, BEING A GOOD COLLEAGUE/TEAM but overall it was an PLAYER IS WHAT MATTERS THE MOST, enjoyable, valuable REGARDLESS OF WHERE YOU WORK OR experience, especially WHAT INDUSTRY/FIELD YOU WORK IN. given that it was a very different experience that most other lawyers would not be able to enjoy. I learned that being a good colleague/team player is what matters the most, regardless of where you work or what industry/field you work in. I made some of my best friends while serving as a lawyer in the Korean Air Force.

I have since returned to a law firm. The amount of work and responsibility have gone up substantially compared with my time in the air force, but I learned how to deal with pressure in the military, either by giving legal advice to high-ranked generals or working on matters of great national importance.

N AVEEN RAJU General Counsel & Executive Vice President – Group Legal Services, Mahindra & Mahindra I wanted to be a lawyer from a young age.

My folks were like, ‘Are you sure this is what you want to do?’ because most kids in India were encouraged to be a doctor or an engineer.

Lawyers were viewed much lower back then.

In fact, the in-house counsel role was virtually nonexistent. Legal was a part of the secretarial department, and most corporations had a single law firm that was a one-stop shop for the company. Early on, I worked for the largest private sector company, Reliance, which was a trendsetter in changing the law department. They started to internalize a lot of legal work they were outsourcing. I was part of the transformation.

EVEN IN-HOUSE COUNSEL NEEDS TO COMPARE THE QUALITY OF SERVICE THEY GIVE CLIENTS [TO THAT] ANYWHERE ELSE IN THE WORLD.

There is still a lot that can be done to improve the cause of the in-house counsel in Indian corporations, but I think the legal profession is at an inflection point. It’s more well-regarded and more opportunities exist for young lawyers. The younger generation needs to realize that we are part of a economy, and they need to be able to provide quality services that are comparable to the best in the world. Even in-house counsel needs to compare the quality of service they give clients to that provided by in-house counsel anywhere else in the world.

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Michael Caplan Chief Operating Officer, Goodwin I’ve been in legal operations for close to 20 years. I’m not an attorney; I manage the business of law and hold a master’s degree in accounting. I got into legal ops post-Y2K when I was at Goldman Sachs. I spent time getting to know the GC and worked for him as director of finance and operations, where I implemented legal technology, with a focus on managing outside counsel spend, and ran the finance team (including e-billing and management). In that role, I talked to people in the industry, and I started to build a COO network. About five years into that job, I decided to start my own legal ops consulting practice during a time when a lot of organizations were focused on legal spend and outside counsel as well as e-billing and financial management. While working at Marsh & McLennan, I spent a lot of time with our law firms and realized building partnerships with law firms was more important than trying to just manage outside counsel spend. Understanding law firm metrics, leverage models, project management, the client perspective and the competitive landscape is crucial to building relationships and risk management models with law firms.

The business of law, to a GC, is as important IT’S NOT JUST as the practice of law when that individual is ABOUT LUNCHES being measured by the CEO in terms of a budget and expenses. My experience on the AND DINNERS. IT’S client side allows me to advise our lawyers on how to maintain frequent communication ABOUT SHARING with internal corporate counsel and present information to them in the best way possible.

INFORMATION THAT It’s not just about lunches and dinners. It’s about sharing information that is pertinent to IS PERTINENT TO their business and their practice and inviting them to speak on panels, asking them to THEIR BUSINESS. write articles, looking at professional development and training. Learning how to maintain frequent communication is a skill I focus our lawyers on developing—because corporate lawyers have day jobs; they are not just meeting with firms all day. To stay in sight and in mind, focus on shared project management, leverage communication, stay in touch with clients—and have members within the operations team be a part of the client relationship.

I’ve been offered roles that required me to s career risk. The risks have usually paid off. So 12

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MOME N T U M

Ramona E. Romero General Counsel, Princeton University Growing up, I wanted to be one of two things: an astronaut or a lawyer.

When I was in high school, I discovered I was too short to be an astronaut, and my focus changed to law. I came to the U.S. from the Dominican Republic as a kid and lived in a working-class neighborhood. There were no lawyers or other professionals where I lived, but law was still very appealing to me. It became even more appealing when Sandra Day O’Connor was nominated to the U.S. Supreme Court. She gave me a role model to look up to and made me think more about becoming a lawyer and about what the career path might look like.

I’ve been very, very I KNOW IT’S TIME TO MAKE A CHANGE fortunate because I have WHEN I START TO FEEL THAT MY really enjoyed all aspects of OPPORTUNITIES FOR GROWTH ARE my practice as well as the LIMITED [...] IN TERMS OF INTELLECTUAL different settings in which I ENGAGEMENT AND JOB SATISFACTION. have practiced—a law firm, a corporation, the federal government and now a nonprofit university. For me, the key to professional satisfaction is to continue to grow, contribute and learn. I know it’s time to make a change when I start to feel that my opportunities for growth are limited—and I’m not talking about growth in the sense of career advancement, but in terms of intellectual engagement and job satisfaction.

I’ve also been very fortunate that things I wasn’t expecting have come my way. For example, I ended up at DuPont after working on antitrust issues for the company at a law firm. The government gig came about by coincidence. The Obama administration got to know me when I was president of the Hispanic National Bar Association. It was a volunteer position that I took seriously enough that people noticed, so it resulted in a really significant opportunity for me. It wasn’t an opportunity I was actively pursuing, but I was open to it and willing to take the risks associated with going for a job that requires Senate confirmation. Princeton was another career opportunity I wasn’t expecting. I hadn’t thought about being the GC of a university.

My secret to success has been my willingness to do the work required for me to deliver excellence in every role, regardless of how small or big it is. As a leader and an executive, I keep an open mind about my work and never ask others to do things I wouldn’t do myself. I’m always willing to roll up my sleeves and work with my team to do what needs to be done for my clients, so long as it is legal and ethical.

step out of my comfort zone and take a big see these times as opportunities, not threats.

- MELANIE ROWLANDS

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Willie Hernandez, VP and Deputy General Counsel, Hewlett Packard Enterprise Culture is the (unspoken) beliefs and values generally held by the people who make up the organization and the actions they take carrying out these beliefs and values. Organizations often write “values” for the group to capture what they WANT for the group. Culture, on the other hand, reflects what the people believe based on how they view the organization and the people around them. One hopes the culture reflects the written values, but this happens only when an organization’s actions credibly advance them.

Hewlett Packard believes it is innovative in everything it does, ranging from product and solution development to how we deliver legal services to the company. We embrace change, and we pride ourselves on adapting to it. We believe our employees are critical to our

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success and we collaborate to drive innovation, all while delivering excellent client service every day.

It is critical for us to hire people who are comfortable operating in an ambiguous environment where change is the only constant. Therefore, while our lawyers and legal professionals must have superior legal skills, we hire people who demonstrate experience and comfort with change and have an ability to drive it. Also, we look for unique and diverse candidates. Driving change and innovation requires having people with different experiences and backgrounds, and we value diversity as a business imperative. Then we recognize and reward people and teams when they demonstrate thought leadership and drive innovation and change.

When you hire people who are comfortable in your organization’s culture and you recognize and reward them for doing what they already love to do—in our case, innovate—you tend to get strong retention rates and business results as well as happy team members.

Barrett Avigdor, Managing Director, Major, Lindsey & Africa Every organization has a culture—it is either intentional or unintentional. Culture is the set of behaviors that are accepted and rewarded in an organization. How an organization rewards behavior is very important. If an organization doesn’t “walk the talk,” leaders lose credibility and morale is undermined.

An organization with a well-executed, intentional culture will be one that is living its mission, which in turn leads to the attraction and retention of people who believe in that mission and bring a sense of purpose to their work.

However, if an organization says it values teamwork but then gives big bonuses and promotions to people who undercut their teammates, no one will believe that teamwork is valued. In this scenario, an unintentional culture is being created. The more those leaders talk about the value of teamwork, the more credibility they lose. People believe actions over words.

For millennials, in particular, culture is usually the No. 1 or No. 2 factor to consider when taking a job—along with how much they will learn. Talented people have choices, and very few talented people will choose to stay at a company with a culture that makes them feel uncomfortable.

An organization needs to know what their culture truly is, not just want they want it to be. They need to survey their employees, look at what people say in their exit interviews, read employee reviews online and talk with their managers. Once an organization knows what their culture is, if they want to change it, they need to articulate what they want it to be and why.

After there is agreement on what the culture should be, the organization should ensure that the leadership and management communicate and model those behaviors, and they should revise their performance management criteria to reward those behaviors.

Keith Wetmore, former Chair and Chief Executive Partner, Morrison & Foerster Culture is what you choose to do, what you choose not to do and how you go about doing the things you do. It is a term that gets overused—or sloppily used. It can be used to describe a number of different facets of what an organization is like. In a law firm, it generally relates to how the partners generally interact with each other, with the associates and with their clients collectively.

I’m a believer that a law firm’s DNA is its compensation system, so firms that have a very formulaic means of compensating partners for certain behaviors will get a lot of that behavior. One of the distinctive features of Morrison & Foerster is that it has a multifactorial, subjective compensation system, which means that a geographic-, practice- and gender-diverse committee meets in person after the members interview every partner in the firm, and then it allocates income for the next year based on objective and subjective data. Compensation movement then can be gradual and deliberate over time. So what is the effect on culture? It means that short-term results are not immediately rewarded, and long-term contributions get recognized.

When smart people are in a system that rewards certain things, they generally do the things that get rewarded because people like to be rewarded. In hiring, you try to get a feel for people’s capacity to behave in accordance with your norms. Sometimes they come with reputations that they won’t be able to fit in. But I’ve seen people who come from very cutthroat places move in laterally to Morrison & Foerster and find themselves exhibiting very different behaviors than they exhibited at their previous firm because Morrison & Foerster rewarded their better behavior.

Recognition and horizontal equity are more important in law firm retention than absolute numbers. You keep people with these things, not money alone in most cases.

Organizations often write “values”for the group to capture what they WANT for the group. Culture, on the other hand, reflects what the people believe based on how they view the organization and the people around them. - WILLIE HERNANDEZ The Legal Navigator

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Major, Lindsey & Africa

At Major, Lindsey & Africa, we talk about how important it is that we be the very best place to work in our industry. Research overwhelmingly confirms that a memorable first day plays a large role in longterm job satisfaction and employee engagement.

It also sets the stage for a more diverse, inclusive and collaborative workforce.

think differently than you do. And it means being open to what everyone has to say.

By John Cashman President, Major, Lindsey & Africa

The enthusiasm with which I believe that a many come into a new learning culture is all job, however, diminishes about opening our minds over time as workload and and hearts to new ideas the daily grind take hold. and new approaches.

Maintaining that Day One mentality is challenging.

Jeff Bezos of Amazon defines Day One as coming to work every day like you did the first day. How can an organization keep that entrepreneurial energy alive on Day Two, Day 10 or even Day 2,000?

An engaged workforce can often agree on why they work for a particular organization. And while the “Why” we do this is so important, the “How” is the more difficult part of any meaningful cultural change. I believe the first step in maintaining the “How” for Day One is developing a learning culture.

LEARNING CULTURE Stanford psychology professor Carol Dweck says that, broadly speaking, there are two types of people: those with a fixed mindset and those with a growth mindset. What does it mean to have a growth mindset? In essence, people with a growth mindset are always willing to learn. Not just looking to read or listen, but actually learning and demonstrating sincere curiosity. It means changing your mind about things as you learn more and acting accordingly. Conversely, a fixed mindset is the idea that basic abilities (talents, intelligence, charm, etc.) are mostly fixed. The goal for people with a fixed mindset is to document and reinforce the existing skill set, as opposed to trying to improve or change it. A fixed mindset also tends to value talent over effort.

GROWING OUT OF YOUR COMFORT ZONE Having a learning culture means more than just training.

It means more than just having a constant desire to improve—although that is important, too. It means more than reading books. I believe that a learning culture is all about opening our minds and hearts to new ideas and new approaches. It means listening more than talking. It means surrounding yourself with a diverse group of people who

Joe Conroy’s drive for a differentiated vision from his younger partners reflects his desire to instill a learning culture and growth mindset within Cooley. As he explained in his interview, “The challenge for these young lawyers is to determine their differentiated vision to change our model, governance structure, practice mix and approach to clients to keep the curve as steep over the next two decades as it’s been over the past two.” He is pushing Cooley’s attorneys out of their comfort zone. Several of the legal professionals featured in “Momentum” share how having an open mind to take risks and try something new helped get them to where they are today. Both Ramona Romero and Melanie Rowland, for example, took on roles and duties they never saw themselves doing—and have found themselves engaged and enthusiastic about work.

People with a growth mindset are more likely to be happy and successful. I believe that a “learn it all” attitude will always do better, be more successful. In my experience, learn-it-alls become better parents, better team members and better spouses. They are also more prepared to withstand competition and technological challenge, to float with the ever-changing tide.

THE PITFALLS OF A FIXED MINDSET We all know what the opposite of a growth mindset looks like. Not because we do it, of course, but we have seen it in others. What are the telltale signs? > “We don’t do it this way in our market.” > “Our market is different.” > “So and so will never go to that firm.”

> “That isn’t how we do things in the [fill in the blank] practice area.” > “That isn’t how we work.”

That doesn’t mean those people are not often correct when it comes to the individual business problem— sometimes markets are different or clients or candidates do not take our advice. But the mindset behind those phrases is what can be limiting. Those are words from people not interested in learning things. Those words are inconsistent with a learning culture.

On the other hand, people who ask questions, probe for compromise, look for ways to help their colleagues—those are people who are bringing a growth mindset to work. To life.

MOVING FORWARD To have an organization that is truly committed to creating a place where every person feels welcome, supported and equipped in every way to do incredible work, everyone needs to come to work with a growth mindset, ready to tackle each new day like it’s Day One. The Legal Navigator

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Thank you to our consultants for connecting us with our outstanding interviewees!

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