Canadian Lawyer

20 S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 8 w w w . c a n a d i a n l a w y e r m a g . c o m I t's been a decade since Stewart McKelvey moved toward a leadership model that places a chief executive officer in the key management role, dispensing of the usual managing partner role typically employed by law firms. With its 220 lawyers, the regional firm figured with its significant footprint in Atlantic Canada it would clarify some confusion in the marketplace. Hav- ing a CEO allows those familiar with the corporate model to identify with the structure of the firm. "It just made sense to the firm that we would start to move a little more to a corporate model," says Lydia Bugden, a Halifax-based corporate lawyer who took over the position in 2015. "There seems to be at least a baseline in the marketplace and among your constituents as to the level of responsibility and the level of decision-making that needs to go into that role. That certainly has helped us in terms of defining the role and responsibilities." And although the move has been deemed to be effective, when Bugden took over, she wanted to signal that she's also still a partner in the firm and convinced the partner board to reinstate the older title, adding it to the CEO title. Cox & Palmer, another major regional firm in eastern Canada, also has a CEO steering the ship. But while Bugden works at that job full time with Stewart McK- elvy, Cox & Palmer's George Cooper continues to carry on with his practice in THE RIGHT LEADERS The traditional partnership model is preventing many firms from adopting a more sophisticated management approach By Marg. Bruineman L A W O F F I C E M A N A G E M E N T Moncton. Cooper says the firm's CEO, board of directors and managing partners at most of the large offices are all supported by a team of pro- fessional managers, with chief operating officers in each of the four provinces. The resulting operations committee exe- cutes the strategic plans and decisions that all report back to the COOs. "In our structure, the professional managers are meant to carry the majority of the load by way of execution," says Cooper. "The board of directors, the CEO and the managing partners are meant to set policy, goals, objectives and develop, with the assistance of the professional managers, strategic plans." That business focus in the leadership struc- ture hasn't yet been universally adopted, says Thomas Clay, principal at Altman Weil, Inc., whose work focuses on law firm management principles. For the most part, law firms use the same old structure, although he does see a lot more people involved in the management leadership function and has seen those roles change over time. Clay, who co-authored Altman Weil's Law Firms in Transition 2018 — a survey of U.S law firms with 50 or more lawyers — believes what needs to happen with the current evolution of the law firm is the involvement of nonlawyers in executive roles to help drive the business of the firm and address client demand for VIGG

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