Thinking about firm culture

‘Culture’ has become a buzzword in the legal industry. Most recruitment websites I came across when applying for training contracts included a lawyer at the firm who expressed their admiration for the firm culture. The term seems elusive and the task of discovering a law firm’s culture when you yourself are not employed there appears daunting. Looking back on my applications, I think that culture played a very important part in helping me make my key decisions. In this blog post, I will try to examine what firm culture is, how you can find out more about it and why it is something to be excited about.

The word ‘culture’ is used in many different ways today. For instance, Boy George founded a band called Culture Club. The idea of a club sheds light on the meaning of culture. A club is something which signifies both inclusivity and exclusivity – the members of the club feel as though they have many things in common (the feeling of inclusivity), and they feel different to other people (the feeling of exclusivity). You would not think of a law firm as a sort of club, but the idea still applies. Firms are not the same; they are constantly trying to distinguish themselves from their competitors in order to attract and retain the best people for the long term. And if an individual lawyer is going to work for the firm, they must feel as if they fit into the culture. Think about how the culture of a firm affects lawyers every day. Is there an open-door policy to encourage communication, feedback and discussion? What are the firm’s principles by which it operates? What is the impact of particular pay structures?

This makes firm culture a very personal matter for someone applying. We have all had experiences which have shaped our individuality and our values. When thinking about firms, try not to be influenced by your friends or anyone who tells you to apply to firm X, Y or Z: think about your own position and the culture of the organisation which you would like to join.

LawCareers.Net can help you in this respect and it certainly helped me. LawCareers.Net has a Researching law firms page, which lists a set of questions that you should consider when making applications to law firms. I found this list, originally from the University of Law, to be very comprehensive. The one caveat is that the answers to some of the questions might require more ‘digging’ (ie, more research) than others, depending on the firm you are applying to.

One of the questions is about the ‘ethos and culture’ of the firm. Taken on its own, this question seems quite daunting. But taken in conjunction with the other questions on the list, you should be able to piece together a basic picture of the culture. The next stage is to be more rigorous and go to other resources – anything where you can get a perspective on the firm culture which is as objective as possible.

One illustrative question which particularly inspired me was on the ‘age of the firm.’ This gets you to look back at the firm’s history. You do not have to look back to the earliest clients of the organisation, but you should consider recent history and any moments within that history that have had an impact on the firm’s culture today. Culture is not a monolithic structure which has always existed within a firm: it has developed over time, fluctuating with the course of the firm’s successes and failures over the years. This link between history and culture gets you to evaluate firms in a very critical manner, forcing you to consider their place in the modern legal market and how they have come to obtain that place. The culture of the firm today is more likely than not dependent on a watershed make-or-break moment in the firm’s history.

An example of analysing firm culture is in a news article which I read about Debevoise & Plimpton when I was researching the firm. This fascinating article from the New York Times in 2012, ‘Culture keeps firms together in trying times’ is an apt statement given the event which was being covered: the bankruptcy of the law firm Dewey & LeBoeuf in 2012. This reveals the competitive nature of the legal industry – business challenges affecting law firms can overwhelm them to the extent that they go bust. The article really helped me to see the importance of firm culture in practice: Debevoise made the decision to retain its lockstep model at a time when its competitors were aggressively expanding. The lockstep model is intended to guarantee collegiality among lawyers. The antithesis of this approach is the ‘eat what you kill’ model: after sharing certain costs, partners keep most or all of what they have generated themselves.

Beyond this research, the next stage is to engage with the firm as much as possible so that you can see the culture in practice. Vacation schemes or open days are great experiences. I also found that using LinkedIn was useful for having my questions about firms answered.

Lastly, firm culture is something to be excited about. Rejections are inevitable and can make the application process difficult at times. But when you do succeed in obtaining a training contract, you can say that the process was vindicated by the fact that you were chosen by an organisation which sees you as part of its culture. This should motivating: after each failed application, think about the next one and how it could be the successful one. Firms are always looking for people to drive their culture forward.

Toby Cohen is a future trainee solicitor at Debevoise & Plimpton. He is studying law with French at the University of Bristol.