Talking it Through: Conflicts within a firm happen. But with some expert advice, lawyerscan learn to defuse themAuthor(s): JILL SCHACHNER CHANENSource: ABA Journal, Vol. 83, No. 2 (FEBRUARY 1997), pp. 64-67Published by: American Bar AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27839425 .

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LAW PRACTICE

Talking it

m?0^\ Conflicts within a finn

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WS/??W expert advice, lawyers

^ can learn to defuse

HBLV them.

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BY JILL SCHACHNER CHANEN

For 40 years Frederick M?l od and Seymour Berkowitz toiled together, building their

New York City litigation practice in to a thriving 12-lawyer civil defense firm. But beneath it all, trouble was

simmering; their visions of the future were not in sync.

Among other things, they dis agreed about whether their adult children should join their practice, whether they should elevate any of their associates to their two-per son partnership, and whether they should accept any of the enticing plaintiffs work that was finding its way into their office.

Business disputes turned per

Jill Schachner Chanen, a law yer, writes regularly for the ABA Journal.

sonai. The two stopped speaking to each other. Their firm stopped op erating in a business-like manner.

Finally, a New York Supreme Court judge resolved the pair's conflicts, dissolving the firm and leaving each to start anew after four decades.

"I am saddened by it," says Leslie Corwin of New York's Morri son, Cohen, Singer & Weinstein,

who represented Molod for a portion of the dissolution action against Berkowitz. To help them with their problems, "They needed someone who understood their practice. They could have worked it out."

Pushed by client demands and increased competition, lawyers of ten ignore the conflicts simmering within. When those conflicts sur face?and they all eventually do? many choose to move on to different practices, hoping for greener pas tures. Others simply shut down

Communications altogether, allow- ^ ing personal disagreements to spill over into their practice.

"We are seeing a tremendous loss of energy and productive ca- *

pacity that results from sustained conflict," says Stewart Levine, a law- .

yer in San Francisco who practices in the area of conflict resolution.

^ "There are emotional, financial and opportunity costs involved." 1

Levine sees intrafirm conflicts ij increasing as competition for legal services intensifies. "The kind of ^

competition with the person sitting in the office next door to you or with the person who came into the firm at the same time as you really gets

*

in the way of collaboration," he says. a ^ As these conflicts proliferate, ^

learning how to resolve them be- >f , comes crucial. At its heart, conflict drains productivity and wastes re- * S sources. Recognition of the value of productive workplaces has become ^ so important to businesses op?r?t- a ^ ing iri the general economy that A

companies are investing in conflict m 1 resolution training to refocus their employees' energies on the tasks at -y *\ hand. ^

This training helps encourage '"M people to speak to one another

'

about personal and professional dif- ^ ferences to reach compromise solu- ^ tions.

Lawyers, however, have yet to

64 ABA JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 1997 7<

ILLUSTRATION BY SAM WARD

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take the cue. Instead of focusing on the business of providing legal ser vices, they too often allow intrafirm conflicts to interfere with their pro ductivity.

Levine suggests that lawyers' training may feed into this prob lem. "There is almost an institu tional lack of perspective, skill and competence in quickly resolving conflicts and moving on because the focus remains on the problem," he points out.

"As

long

as law

yers contin ue to focus on the problem," he says, "they will be stuck in conflict.

"Most businesses realize their main task is production. But lawyers, because of the way they are insti tutionalized, will stay with the conflict."

Validation Is Essential Yet, according to Merrilyn As

tin Tarlton, a principal in the Den ver legal consulting firm of Astin Tarlton, lawyers often are resistant to resolving conflicts within their firms because they believe the crux of the problem is money.

More often than not, though, they are wrong. "It is easy to say the problem is over money because it is tangible," she says. "Very often the root of the problem is not

money, but an overwhelming dis content and unhappiness."

Tarlton often sees lawyers change law firms for higher com pensation on the mistaken belief that more money will lead to great

er personal and professional satis faction.

"When lawyers talk about com pensation, they are talking more about how they are valued," she says. "Those are very difficult and very ephemeral issues to talk about because the managing partner is likely to ask what you want done, and it is very difficult to describe wanting to be valued more."

Typically these lawyers re main unhappy and dissatisfied af ter changing law firms because the real issues that plagued them?bad relationships, isolation, lack of ap preciation?do not get resolved. Moreover, the hierarchical struc ture of law firms discourages the airing of grievances, thereby stok ing internal fires.

"In most law firms there is not a process in place to facilitate con versations about dissatisfaction," Tarlton says. "Many managers do not see themselves in a role respon sible for worker satisfaction." In stead, they view themselves as peers just trying to work together, and they fail to acknowledge that conflict exists in their firm and needs to be addressed.

This attitude also works to stifle attempts at confrontation, which is a crucial and necessary part of the resolution process, says lawyer Austin Anderson, a princi pal in the AndersonBoyer Group, law-firm management consultants based in Ann Arbor, Mich.

Instead, Anderson of ten sees conflict manifest ing itself inside firms through a series of closed door meetings, in a futile attempt to keep the peace.

"Instead of address ing the issue up front, we

will meet with other law yers to talk about another person," he says.

But the actual task of conflict resolution is a sim

STEWART LEVINE Lawyers cant lei

go off a conflict.

pie one, says Mike Jenner, a principal in the Chicago office of Jacques Fisher Evolution, a Swiss-based consulting firm that spe cializes in leadership de

velopment and communication ef fectiveness for business. "It is the lack of skill with which people at tempt to resolve conflict that caus es all the problems.

"Frequently, people associate the behavior with the individual.

What happens then is that people talk about that individual as op posed to talking about the behav ior," he explains.

"That is how people feel at tacked. They get defensive, and af ter a while they become so pained that others shy away from them."

Jenner says that any attempt at resolving conflict must begin with the premise that conflict is es sential. It is not personal, but rath er it is a reflection of differing needs. A need can be as mundane as get ting another lawyer to share a sec retary's time more equitably, to something as painful as correcting a colleague's table manners to make business lunches less awkward.

Jenner encourages co-workers

to resolve their conflicts by separat ing their emotions from their needs. "If you can keep it at a level of what is my need versus what is your need, then you can keep conflict resolution at its most profitable level: What is the best and highest solution that meets both parties' needs?" he says.

A common mistake that many people make when attempting to resolve their conflicts is relying on the hierarchical structure of the

ABAJ/DAVID WEINTRAUB ABA JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 1997 65

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A%:

workplace to control their respec tive needs.

"People will rely on their rank to impose their needs on the other person," Jenner says. "The other person will essentially concede and swallow his needs. Resentment then builds." Among workplace peers, this framework turns conflict resolution into a contest of wills.

Anderson, who often consults with law firms on internal conflict resolution, advises lawyers to avoid the organizational pyramid when ever possible and instead talk di rectly to the person with whom the conflict is brewing. Conversations should occur as close to the time of a misunderstanding as possible and

focus only on needs that are not being

met.

"You need to un

derstand specifically what the other indi vidual said or did, without interpreta tion," Jenner says.

"Then you need to understand how you were affected by what was said," by what you took to be

MIKE JENNER It helps to put

needs in writing.

the implication. To avoid ner

sonalizing a conflict, Jenner advis es his clients to put their needs in writing. If it contains many adjec tives or phrases like, "You always do this," chances are that interpre tation is being injected into the con flict. Jenner also emphasizes the need for at least one of the parties to check his or her emotions before attempting a resolution, because successful conflict resolution re quires that one participant manage the other's reaction.

He offers the example of a con flict brewing between two lawyers over the off-the-cuff remark made by one about the hour the other leaves the office each day. The law yer to whom the remark was made

interpreted it as an insulting com ment about how hard he works.

Jenner says the proper way for the insulted lawyer to address the remark is by saying this: "I felt bad that you said I always leave at 5 because it means to me that you don't think I work hard enough."

Thus, when he hears a difficult response, such as, "I did not mean to imply that you don't work hard, but the rest of us stay every night until 7, and we see you leaving the office at 5," it is important for that

lawyer to continue to keep his emotions in check so as to be able to understand what the other lawyer is really feeling.

Because successful con

flict resolution requires train ing and practice, dispute reso lution nrofessionals sav lawvers

also should consider availing them selves of the alternative disnute res olution services to which they often send clients.

Dispute Resolution Services Work In Chicago, the principals of a

three-lawyer firm sought counsel ing from a psychologist with experi ence in resolving family business disputes after their repeated clash es over personal style and profes sionalism began to affect their per sonal satisfaction with their work.

One of the partners sees her self as a formal person; the other as more casual. They differed on how to interact with clients, about the office hours each should keep, and over how to share the services of their office manager. The third part

Listen Up When confronted with a conflict,

a person's natural reaction is to become defensive and emotional.

'That is what you must avoid doing," cautions Mike Jenner, a principal in the Chicago office of Jacques Fisher Evolution, a Swiss based leadership-development consulting firm.

Instead, he suggests the "novel" approach of managing the other person's reaction by actually listening to what the person has to say.

As an example, let's say you are burning up inside because one of your partners took a fee for work he did for one o? your clients. What should you do? Don't walk into that lawyer's office and say: "I can't believe you once

again took all the fees from that client and left me with nothing."

Jenner says, "You need to manage the other person's reaction. You need to do with them what you did with yourself. Work through the problem with him. He will respond to you."

Calmly sit down and explain what you perceive to be the facts, Jenner says. For example, say, "I'm feeling upset over the Smith case. As you know, the firm earned a $100,000 fee from it. I saw from accounting that you are billing $80,000 of time on the case, which leaves me only $20,000. Since I brought the case into the firm, I think I'm entitled to half the fee."

Typically, the confronted lawyer will react defensively. Listen through your emotions to what the other

lawyer is trying to say, Jenner notes. In this situation, the lawyer who took the larger share of the fees may respond angrily and say: "I can't believe you think you deserve more money. Yeah, you brought the client in, but he came because of my reputation and I did all the work. You didn't lift a finger. You're lucky I was so generous with you in the first place. I shouldn't let you get one dime."

Don't escalate the emotional reaction by saying, 'Twenty thousand bucks was generous?" Instead, you might try: "What I hear you saying is that you believe you would have gotten this case anyway and that you believe you were being generous by giving me 20 percent of the fee."

Says Jenner: "If what the person is saying does not invalidate your

66 ABA JOURNAL / FEBRUARY 1997 abavcyntha howe

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ner found herself unwittingly tak ing sides in issues that previously had not affected her.

The conflicts, one of them says, made their firm a decidedly less pleasant place to work. "We also were less productive because we spent time and energy thinking about those things, instead of doing our work or marketing ourselves," she adds. Dissolution became a like ly, yet unfavored, possibility until they sought psychological counsel.

"It was a really positive exper ience, because the three of us are individuals who have different as sumptions about business and in terpersonal relationships," says an other of the partners.

"Those assumptions can cause conflicts that are not readily appar ent. Discussing them requires very difficult communications that indi viduals are not always capable of having themselves. A professional, trained in eliciting the relevant as sumptions and forcing communica tion on a neutral ground, is really instructive."

Recognizing the value of con flict resolution, Levine says that he is advising many of the law firms he works with to include a med iation clause in their partnership agreement.

"When I build agreements on the front end, I try to establish the fact that there will be conflict, no

question about it," he says. "It's a matter of realizing that

if you are in a business relationship together, the thing to do is to get to the other side of the conflict."

feelings, then repeat yours. But what might happen is that you will find out something that affects the situation."

That something may be that the other lawyer missed his daughter's first birthday party in order to finish the work on the Smith case, which is the real reason he feels he should be given more money. Upon hearing that, you may understand why the lawyer believes he is deserving of such a large share of the fee.

"Ultimately what you are doing is communicating to the other person your needs, and when the other person gets through the emotional disquiet, the person will come back down to a reasonable level. In the process, you will find out what the other person's needs are," Jenner says, which ultimately brings closure.

about an aging

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If you have some ideas

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