Canadian Lawyer

16 J u n e 2 0 1 4 w w w . C A N A D I A N L a w y e r m a g . c o m by PhiliP slayton lEgal EthiCs the broken loyalty bargain Partners are willing to cross the street for a few dollars and law firms are just as willing to jettison them. A few months after I joined a big Bay Street law office in the early 1980s, a mid- dle-rank partner left for another firm. This event caused a sensation. There was much gnashing of teeth. Partners went into each other's offices, closed the doors, and had conversations of incredulity. There was whispering in the halls. How could he have done it? Had he no loy- alty? Didn't he understand? Why, no one had quit the firm since that famous incident in 1951. . . . I didn't know it at the time, of course, but those were the last days of the Old Order. The loyalty bargain still prevailed, but it was on its last legs. You stuck with your partners and the firm, and they stuck with you, except in the most extraordi- nary of circumstances. You didn't quit to join the competition, and you didn't get pushed out because your book of business was dwindling. The worst that could hap- pen is the firm might regretfully cut back on your share of partnership profits. Things have obviously changed, and dramatically. There is so much flitting to and fro today that you need a program to figure out who's on first. As I wrote recently in this column, a partner who thinks he's undervalued and can make more money with the competition will not hesitate to cross the street. It happens all the time. The other side of the old loy- alty bargain, the loyalty of a law firm to its partners, is dead as well. Firms are quite willing to push out partners who — in their eyes — are under producing or oth- erwise unnecessary. After all, what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Last November, U.S. legal publish- er ALM Legal Intelligence produced a study called "Up or Out: When Partners Have to Go." It was commissioned by SJL Shannon LLC, a consultancy that gives career advice to lawyers. The report's introduction strikes a gloomy note. It says "right-sizing" of partnerships is on the rise, "cutting out layers of equity and nonequity partners considered to be underperforming or no longer central to the business. Some long-time partners are abruptly shown the door with virtually no warning." It tells us — no surprise here — the biggest reason partners are laid off or encouraged to leave is the "inability to develop and cultivate new clients or origi- nations or to sustain a book of business." The report quotes Sang Lee, CEO of SJL Shannon: "Recent changes and recent economic events require firm leaders to look through their new-found FayE rogErs

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