O desafio de administrar advogados

O renomado consultor David Maister, especialista em administração de serviços profissionais e autor de vários livros sobre o tema publicou na edição de abril da revista American Lawyer um excelente artigo intitulado "The trouble with lawyers" (O problema com os advogados). O artigo é leitura obrigatória para qualquer um que atue na administração de um escritório de advocacia, pois aborda questões como confiança, valores, profissionalismo, tomada de decisões etc. Ainda assim, para quem não tiver tempo, destaco alguns trechos para reflexão:

As Tony Sacker, (...) a solicitor in the United Kingdom, says: "I am paid to have a nasty, suspicious mind." Lawyers carry this view into their dealings with their own partners. It is hard to unbundle which is the cause and which is the effect, but the combination of a desire for autonomy and high levels of skepticism make most law firms low-trust environments.

"At your recent seminar you made fun of me because I laughed at the idea of being genuinely interested in the industry and business of the people who are my clients. Rightly so: My laughing was cynical... The first thing you learn when you become a lawyer is not to care. The legally sound judgment, the intellectual sparkle, that is what counts. The personal, the emotional, what is right: Throw it away, because it will taint your professionalism. Do not get involved is the credo."

In a room full of lawyers, any idea, no matter how brilliant, will be instantly attacked. Lawyers are expert loophole finders, trained to find counterexamples of or exceptions to any proposition. Accordingly, within a short time, most ideas, no matter who initiates them, will be destroyed, dismissed, or postponed for future examination.

Lawyers are usually different. Presented with a new business idea, the first thing they ask is, "Which other law firms are doing this?" Unless it can be shown that the idea has been implemented by other law firms, lawyers are skeptical about whether the idea applies to their world. If everyone has these problems, they can't be so bad, the thinking goes. As long as we are no worse than anyone else, we don't need to change! It's hardly a recipe for a strategic advantage.

If lawyers deal with each other so poorly, why do they do so well financially? My answer is only partly humorous: The greatest advantage lawyers have is that they compete only with other lawyers. If everyone else does things equally poorly, and clients and recruits find little variation between firms, even the most egregious behavior will not lead to a competitive disadvantage.

I have written about these topics extensively before, and will not repeat either the arguments or the advice here. Suffice it to say that unless law firms undergo a cultural revolution, not just minor changes, most will not be able to achieve their ambitions. Dysfunctional behavior by partners, currently not only tolerated but vigorously celebrated, will prevent firms from functioning as they desire.

Firms have historically flourished without constitutions that spell out minimum partner behaviors. For many, profits and revenues keep rising. What then will be the force that might create the need for change? Most likely, it will be client pressure on firms to act as firms-delivering seamless service, practice areas that have depth (and not just a collection of individualistic stars), and true, cross-boundary teamwork. Many firms have collections of great lawyers. The time may be coming when clients will expect them to go beyond this and become effective organizations. Without a prior, explicit agreement on minimum standards, and the resolve to enforce them, many law firms will not function well as firms, but will remain what they are today: bands of warlords, each with his or her followers, ruling over a group of cowed citizens and acting in temporary alliance-until a better opportunity comes along.

Cabe ressaltar que David Maister tem décadas de experiência na área e um excelente site com muito material útil disponível, inclusive podcasts: www.davidmaister.com. O que não dá para entender é como uma grande referência como ele não tem um único livro editado aqui no Brasil. Na falta deles, ficam os livros disponíveis em inglês.