Appointing non-lawyers to chief executive roles has been widely successful in the past, but the corporate model may bcome more widespread in future, writes Cameron Timmis




Last month, City firm Barlow Lyde & Gilbert broke with its own tradition and appointed a non-lawyer as its first chief executive.



Clint Evans, a chartered accountant, joins later this year and will effectively take over the managing partner role. He will assume full control of the firm’s day-to-day operations, following the retirement of the current managing partner next April. In the same week, UK/US giant DLA Piper also appointed a non-lawyer to a senior management position – David Crookston, currently at JP Morgan and also a chartered accountant, who will be the firm’s new chief operating officer (COO) for Europe, the Middle East and Asia.



Appointing non-lawyers to top management positions in law firms is not a new trend – quite a number of firms have taken this route in recent years. If anything, the trend has gone the other way because often it seems the non-lawyer experiment has not been a wholly successful one.



In perhaps the most high-profile example, in the late 1990s, City firm Simmons & Simmons appointed its former finance director, Alan Morris, to be managing director. After a turbulent three years at the firm, Mr Morris left and Simmons subsequently reverted to a traditional senior partner/managing partner model. More recently, regional firm Bevan Ashford hired Ann Conway-Hughes, a former director at engineering firm GKN, as its first chief executive. Her tenure lasted just 18 months. And last year, south-east firm ASB Law parted ways with chief executive Christopher Honeyman Brown, an accountant, with the firm also returning to a lawyer-only management model.



Despite a patchy track record, some believe the tide may be about to turn more strongly in favour of non-lawyer senior management.



One reason for this, suggests Alistair Rose, head of the professional partnership advisory group at accountants PricewaterhouseCoopers, is that as law firms become bigger and more complex, more professional management skills are required. ‘It’s all part of professionalising the way law firms are being managed,’ he says.



It is not only at chief executive level that more non-lawyer appointments are likely, he adds. ‘A number of firms are bringing in COOs one level down.’ (Like DLA, City firm Herbert Smith has also recently appointed its first non-lawyer COO.)



Another spur towards more non-lawyer managers, suggests Nick Jarrett-Kerr, a consultant at Kerma Partners and formerly managing partner at Bevan Ashford, will be the Clementi reforms. ‘With the new Legal Services Bill, we are going to see more firms following a corporate model, both in terms of setting themselves up to be attractive to investors, and also making themselves bullet-proof and stronger from attack outside the profession. Certainly investors are going to want to see more non-solicitor management – professional management.’



Mr Jarrett-Kerr also believes the trend will increase as a new ‘cadre’ emerges of professional managers who have already gained experience within a law firm. ‘The profession has been through a phase of bringing in professional managers to manage specific functions, such as finance, marketing, HR and IT. Those professionals that have come in have to build up credibility and trust. What we are seeing is a number of them moving on to become chief executives.’



One of those who have made this progression is Paul Stothard, chief executive of regional heavyweight Shoosmiths for the past five years, and an accountant by profession. ‘I think the main challenge if you come from outside the law firm is to establish credibility at an early stage,’ says Mr Stothard, ‘I was fortunate. I had been here 18 months in quite a different role – a finance role. Over that time, all the equity partners had got to know me and I was able to employ my accounting skills to gather a measure of respect and trust.’



Mr Stothard also notes that, unlike some other chief executives, he was elected to his current role by partnership vote (and was subsequently re-elected). ‘I was elected in competition with a partner… all the partners have appointed me,’ he says. ‘I think that’s helpful.’



The other big challenge, says Mr Stothard, is the weight of expectation, particularly if a chief executive is expected ‘to come in and sort out’ strategic issues. ‘You need partners signed up to the strategy before you hire someone to implement it… to bring in a completely fresh face with no legal background to implement a new strategy and drive it forward is a very big ask.’



Martin Darroch, chief executive at Scottish firm Harper Macleod, was also finance director at the firm before taking on his new leadership role. ‘One of my first projects was looking at the debt recovery part of the business. As a direct result, we have taken that team from £100,000 to £800,000 in turnover,’ he says. Consequently ‘the move into the chief executive role didn’t come with any resistance because I had already proven myself’.



‘I’ve had experiences at previous firms where you don’t get an appropriate level of respect,’ says Andy Duxbury, recently appointed chief executive of Aaron & Partners in Chester. ‘Respect comes from doing the job and proving you are capable… you have to be very thick-skinned. It’s not for the faint-hearted.’



Another challenge for the non-lawyer manager, suggests Mr Duxbury, whose professional background is in marketing, is recognising the limits of one’s authority. ‘There are lines you draw,’ he says. ‘I know pretty much intuitively where those lines are… you have to be aware of those sorts of politics, just how things work.’



One of the biggest issues for non-lawyer managers, according to Nick Carter-Pegg, a professional services consultant at accountants BDO Stoy Hayward, is the bar on non-lawyers becoming equity partners. ‘It can be very difficult for someone who comes in, who isn’t an owner, to have sufficient authority and respect of the partners,’ he says.



‘It certainly was an initial concern,’ acknowledges David Crookston, COO-elect at DLA, but says he has been assured ‘it won’t be much of an issue’. Mr Crookston also observes that, following implementation of the Legal Services Bill and the alternative business structures provisions, non-lawyers will be allowed to become owners in a firm.



Outsiders coming into law firm management also face challenges that stem from the unwieldy nature of partnerships. ‘It’s a partnership versus an incorporated business,’ says Mr Crookston. ‘I think that means the management tends to be far more consensus-driven… there is less control from the centre than you would find in an investment bank.’



‘Even big firms need full consultation and buy-in on decisions that you wouldn’t really get in a major private company,’ adds Mr Duxbury. ‘Take a rebranding exercise: you wouldn’t want to go back to a group of 80 partners to present ideas on branding.’



As he heads to Barlow Lyde & Gilbert, Clint Evans is also familiar with many of the challenges of managing partnerships, having previously spent three years working at Clifford Chance as head of branding. ‘It [partnership] can be a great strength and a drawback,’ he says. ‘It can be a great asset to have the majority of shareholders engaged in the day-to-day business, which you wouldn’t get in a firm owned by investors.’ On the other hand, he says: ‘There is a higher level of scrutiny of decisions made and the impact on the owners.’



Another big challenge, says Mr Evans, is striking the right balance between strong leadership and listening to the many different points of view of partners. ‘You have some excellent minds around who have an opinion on how the firm should be run… none of them may be right, but they are “good” opinions.’



He adds: ‘Law firms are high-octane individual businesses and you get the consequences of that… you get diverse opinions and challenges.’ Mr Evans could well be described as ‘high octane’ himself. A former international oarsman, he was the overall winner of the 2005 Atlantic Rowing Race along with Chris Andrew, global risk director at Clifford Chance.



Whether chief executives are lawyers, or non-lawyers, perhaps the biggest impediment for law firm managers is the type of individual they are trying to manage.



Nick Jarrett-Kerr concurs: ‘I do think lawyers are particularly difficult to manage… they tend to very demanding in terms of the credibility of whoever is involved in management, and distrustful of any efforts to manage them. This is the case even if you’ve got a lawyer chief executive.’



Cameron Timmis is a freelance journalist