Weighing up support

With city law firms holding democratic elections, partners who are aspiring to management positions need to go to the stump like never before.

Anne Mizzi goes globe-trotting with themAs Tony Blair and William Hague limbered up for the general election, another battle for premier position was being fought at the world's only $1 billion law firm.

Clifford Chance's London managing partner Peter Charlton, and Madrid-based joint European managing partner Peter Cornell, stopped short of posing with old ladies and babies in their campaigns for the chief operating officer job when Garth Pollard retires in August.

The winner then succeeds chief executive Michael Bray, when he retires in three years.

But in the short month they had to spread their messages across the sprawling partnership while doing their day jobs, there would have been little time for them to try any gimmicks.

The nomination process, which was launched in February, threw up the two names, and the pair were given a month to campaign for votes of their partners around the globe.

Senior corporate partner Jeremy Brownlow, who has now retired from the firm, was the Clifford Chance board member responsible for managing the election, which was put to secret ballot late last month.

Like other large City firms, Clifford Chance gives candidates the opportunity to produce a manifesto, or as a spokesman put it, 'their vision of how they would bring Clifford Chance forward'.

Getting the message across to voters around the globe is not easy, and the two Peters visited the network together in the run-up to the April vote.

On 31 March, Clifford Chance partners met in Hammersmith, west London, to discuss the firm's five-year strategy, and the candidates got the chance to address all their voters.

The meeting was crucial to their campaigns in allowing them to pitch head-to-head for the job, highlighting their different personal styles and experience.

Both partners were already well known in the global partnership, having practised at Clifford Chance since before Clifford Turner's merger with Coward Chance in 1988.

But Mr Charlton was always going to be favourite on his home turf, while Mr Cornell had appeal in farther-flung offices.

And in terms of personality, Mr Charlton's direct manner contrasts with Mr Cornell's more understated image.

Mr Charlton, a corporate lawyer, pitched a management-led vision for the firm, which proved unpalatable to the large numbers of Clifford Chance partners based outside the UK, while Mr Cornell proposed conserving a partner-led global practice.

When the votes were counted, Mr Cornell's 'back-to- basics' bid won.

One partner puts the results down to a mix of personality and strategic detail.

He explains that in 'a really good firm where there's a strong culture', the candidates would not have 'radically different views', because that would all have been worked out over time.

'The issues will be "should we open an office in Peking or San Francisco?", 'he says.

It is the second time Mr Charlton has lost an election to a rival with stronger international credentials.

In 1997, former Moscow managing partner Tony Williams snatched the London managing partner position in an election.

Mr Charlton only took the role when Mr Williams quit for a 1 million pay-packet at accountancy-tied law firm Andersen Legal (or Garretts as it is officially known) last year.

Mr Charlton has kept a low profile since the election, but unlike another unsuccessful candidate, Slaughter and May's corporate partner Michael Pescod, he is unlikely immediately to announce his retirement.

The firm denies any connection between his retirement and the election outcome, and Mr Pescod says he has made no decision about future plans.

Corporate partner Tim Clark took over from outgoing senior partner Giles Henderson on 1 May.

One partner, who recently failed to be elected to a board position at a large City firm, says: 'In most firms you are spoilt for choice so I don't think it should feel like failure.

You have fulfilled your partnership duty by providing your partners with a choice.

I felt it was my duty to stand and I don't feel any shame about it at all.

They chose the right people.'But there are more changes afoot at Slaughters.

The firm's five elected practice heads are being streamlined to four, and elected representatives on the board are being increased from two to four.

Executive partner Jonathan Haw missed out on the executive partner board position, after partners picked Melvyn Hughes.

The firm has yet to announce the outcome of the practice head elections.

Simmons & Simmons is also embroiled in an election, following the introduction of a management structure to guarantee board positions for non-UK partners for the first time.

Four of the board members will be picked by the 110 Simmons partners based in the UK, while the last two are chosen by the 45 partners based in the firm's overseas offices.

The move was announced following the election of employment partner Janet Gaymer to the senior partner post, replacing Bill Knight, who is retiring in August.

The new chairman of top Leeds corporate firm Walker Morris, Peter Smart, and managing partner Michael Taylor, avoided an election entirely because under the firm's partnership deed, no election is required if the post is uncontested.

But Bristol firm Burges Salmon held an election for a new managing partner, even though Paul Haggett was the only candidate.

Similarly, Nottingham firm Browne Jacobson chose Brian Smith in a unanimous partnership vote in an uncontested election.City firm Barlow Lyde & Gilbert put the managing partner position to the vote for the first time in March, re-electing Kennan Michel, who previously held the position by virtue of appointment by the firm's board.

The election of both senior and managing partner was designed to introduce greater democracy at the firm.With law firms re-organising their management and picking new heads as they grow, partnership experts suggest that elections are a good way to get buy-in from all the partners who have invested in the business.'In a small firm, you may well have a leader emerging, in the old way of the Conservative Party,' says Fox Williams senior partner Ronnie Fox, chairman of the Association of Partnership Practitioners.

'As firms have got larger, it has got more formal.

It's more democratic.' Allen & Overy partnership partner Richard Turnor agrees: 'In the days when you had small partnerships, and everybody knew each other, decisions were made by all the partners, and the senior partner or chairman just emerged.

The management was the whole of the firm, and as firms have got bigger and bigger it's become impossible for everybody to be involved in management.' Often, an outgoing senior partner will identify a successor to take over his job.

'You don't have an election for the sake of it,' adds Mr Turnor.

'It's done for a purpose, and you have to work out what that purpose is.

You normally have detailed rules in the partnership deed.'Mr Turnor attributes the recent spate of board re-shuffles to law firm growth and competitive pressure.

He says that appointing partners to management positions today often means removing them from fee-earning entirely: 'You have to identify a smaller board of people to manage the firm and a structure that has the confidence of everybody.

They have to feel that they've had their say.

That means you need to have an accountable management, and the way you make them accountable is to say "you have to account for what you have done by putting yourself up for election".'Mr Turnor argues that choosing leaders through election rather than appointment also prevents 'politicking on the corridors'.

He explains: 'It is free, open and fair, and not done by damaging and divisive mutterings going on behind closed doors.

That's a situation that you want to avoid.

'The election process makes people feel that they are prepared to leave everything except the most important decisions to the management.'But how each firm manages its succession process must be worked out by the partnership.

And many are opting for more democratic structures with a nomination process, and nominees seconded, so that only candidates with a serious chance stand for election.

Written statements are also becoming more common, sometimes with word limits to prevent candidates spending too long on them.Ian Nisse, former managing partner of City firm Ashurst Morris Crisp, says he produced a statement when he was up for the job because the other candidate had prepared one, although it was not required under the firm's constitution.But there is normally provision for a secret ballot in full-scale partnership elections to important positions.

Many votes are now trusted to e-mail, but for the key strategic role elections, many firms call in the experts, the Electoral Reform Society, to take charge of the secret ballot.The rules for canvassing will vary, although most firms try to discourage electioneering without censoring their candidates.

The financial cost will also be a sensitive matter.

Apart from the hidden cost of lost fee-earning hours by the campaigning partner, there is also the administrative cost of producing statements, holding the ballot and - in a global firm - the cost of air fares, as partners jet to the corners of the world for the opportunity to present their case in person.

Democratic elections are sweeping City law firms, and the results of a head-to-head contest are never predictable, as the Slaughters and Clifford Chance elections show.

Anne Mizzi is a freelance journalist