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Can someone please explain to me what on earth a partnership is?


magic box with mysterious smoke

How many variations on ‘partnership’ can you name?


When I was an articled clerk, it would have been two or perhaps three, at least amongst English law firms. Now I would place an argumentative bet that there are as many variations of ‘partnership’ as there are professional services firms. From the ‘all-equity, partnership-at-will’ format of Slaughter & May at one end to a quoted company which simply calls its senior people ‘partners’ at the other, with myriad permutations in between.


Is any of these variations better or worse than the other? I say ‘each to their own’ because there are many ways to skin the professional services cat.


But when we do pay our money as a ‘partner’ and take our choice, we have to make sure we understand the choice we are making.


And each of us has to make sure that this choice is the right one for us.


Is this an environment in which I can thrive? That is the singular question. And one that few partners think through to any real degree when they join a firm, let alone keep asking themselves along the way - ‘is this an environment in which I am thriving?’


Every professional services firm is an interface between two markets – a client market of service buyers and a people market of service providers. A platform or marketplace if you like to bring buyers and sellers together with confidence.


Some of those ‘platforms’ are complex and global, and some are simple single offices. The common denominator, however, is that ‘partners’ are at the heart of the business as principals both leading the provision of the professional service and owning the client relationships.


So the firm is primarily buying our client proposition. And therefore most of the firm’s judgments about us are commercial – what value do we add?


And so, almost in response, we tend to spend most of our time considering and evaluating the firm’s client proposition – the strength of the brand, the reputation in particular practice areas, geographical coverage etc. Because that is within our comfort zone and it is typically a binary question which is easily answered.


But my experience is that partners spend comparatively little time evaluating the firm’s people proposition, even though this matters so much more to partners on an individual level:

- Is this a place I understand?

- Is this place really a partnership?

- Is this a partnership I understand?

- Is this a structure I understand?

- Is this a partnership and profit sharing system I back myself to navigate through?

- Is this a place I will be supported

- Is this a place I will have room to grow, long-term?

- Is this a place I can commit to 100%?

- Is this a place I believe I can fit into?

- Is this a place where I like the people?

- Is this a risk profile I understand?

- Is this a partner proposition I understand?


And the list could go on and on. These are all crucial questions to address, and occasionally re-address, especially now that there are myriad variations on what constitutes a partner and a partnership.


A firm’s disappointments about a partner are almost always client/commercial-related. And a partner’s disappointments about the firm are nearly always people/partnership-related.


And of course from the firm’s perspective the latter is typically the result of the former. Whereas from a partner perspective the former is typically the result of the latter.


Time we spend on reconnaissance is seldom wasted.

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