Alisson Wolf, a certified executive coach, has always wondered why smart, talented, dedicated, and hard-working lawyers sometimes make such a mess out of management.
The current business model in many private practice law firms, a high-pressure environment that fosters internal competition, feeds on low trust and demands top quality work churned out at a clip pace, may be partly to blame. The partnership arrangement that governs the legal world and its well-entrenched formula-based compensation system may be also at fault. With much current practice in firm governance, organization and compensation providing fodder for office politics, sources of conflict, and discord, it is hardly surprising that unseemly conduct sometimes arises.