![\"row](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.attorneyatwork.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/law-firm-succession-mistakes.jpg?resize=770%2C495&ssl=1\" "\\"\\"")
\n
Table of contents<\/h2>\n\n- Is Your Law Firm\u2019s Future Built on Truth or Assumption?<\/a>\n
\n- The Danger of Untested Assumptions Among Partners<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n
- Four Partner Patterns Hiding in Plain Sight<\/a>\n
\n- 1. Unexamined Assumptions<\/a><\/li>\n
- 2. Uninitiated Conversations and Partner Resentment<\/a><\/li>\n
- 3. Untracked Contributions<\/a><\/li>\n
- 4. Unclear Authority<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n
- The One Habit Worth Starting This Week: Soliciting Partner Candor<\/a><\/li>\n
- Not Everything Is a Big Thing<\/a><\/li>\n
- More Law Firm Management Tips From Attorney at Work<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n
Is Your Law Firm\u2019s Future Built on Truth or Assumption?<\/h2>\n
\u201cSarah,\u201d a managing partner, had been dancing around the subject of her retirement for more than six months. She finally asked her four partners directly: \u201cDo you want to step up and fill my shoes?\u201d<\/p>\n
All four said yes. Of course.<\/p>\n
When I spoke with each of them privately, all four said no: They didn\u2019t want to step up. They liked being tier-two. They had never aspired to lead. Once Sarah actually committed to a retirement date, they\u2019d start planning their own exit strategies. One has already decided to make a run at becoming a district court judge.<\/p>\n
The Danger of Untested Assumptions Among Partners<\/h3>\n
Sarah had been building her firm\u2019s future on yeses that were never tested and thus were assumed. One truth-seeking discussion changed everything .<\/p>\n
Sarah had asked the wrong question. \u201cDo you want my job?\u201d is a question about individuals. The question the firm needed her to ask was different:<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat does this firm need from each of you when I\u2019m gone \u2014 and is that something you want to give it?<\/strong>\u201d<\/em><\/p>\nThe Law Firm Is an Entity, So Treat It Like One<\/h4>\n
Most law firm partners believe they are in a partnership. However, many are in something closer to a cost-sharing arrangement: attorneys working in parallel, each tending to her own practice, sharing overhead and a receptionist and, occasionally, a client.<\/p>\n
The difference is whether the partners treat the firm as an entity with its own identity, its own needs and its own future \u2014 something separate and apart from the sum of their individual practices, something worth tending deliberately.<\/p>\n
When partners operate from that perspective, the internal calculus shifts. The question is not limited to \u201cWhat\u2019s in this for me?\u201d The question expands to \u201cWhat does the firm need from me right now?\u201d That distinction sounds simple, but its implications are enormous. And both questions can be answered at the same time.<\/p>\n
Every person who touches a firm benefits from viewing themselves as a steward \u2014 not just the managing partner. Shared stewardship is a decision and a culture.<\/p>\n
Research on psychological safety by Amy C. Edmondson<\/a>, Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at Harvard Business School, shows that when you change the nature and quality of a team\u2019s conversations, outcomes improve \u2014 not incrementally, but exponentially. Cultivating a culture of candor strengthens both the firm and the relationships that sustain it.<\/p>\nFour Partner Patterns Hiding in Plain Sight<\/h2>\n
After 30 years of working inside and around law firms, I started naming the partner patterns I kept seeing \u2014 patterns that stifle real growth and lead to succession planning mistakes. I call them the 4 U\u2019s. <\/p>\n
Can you spot any in your firm?<\/p>\n
1. Unexamined Assumptions<\/h3>\n
One partner wants to scale, hire associates and build a regional brand. Another wants low overhead, high margin and a predictable practice. Neither is wrong \u2014 but when those differences stay unspoken, they pull the firm in competing directions. Sarah\u2019s succession plan was built entirely on assumptions she had never tested. When she finally asked the real question, the answers restructured everything.<\/p>\n
Do you and your partners have the same answer to: What does success look like for our firm in five years? If you hesitated, you just found one.<\/p>\n
2. Uninitiated Conversations and Partner Resentment<\/strong><\/h3>\nEvery partnership has them \u2014 the topics that get discussed in the parking lot and never make it into the meeting. Silent scorekeeping lives here. So does the origination tension nobody names, the compensation arrangement that stopped feeling fair two years ago, and the partner whose workload has dwindled. You cannot build on top of resentment that everyone is pretending doesn\u2019t exist.<\/p>\n
What topic has appeared on three consecutive management committee agendas and still hasn\u2019t been discussed? That\u2019s yours.<\/p>\n
3. Untracked Contributions<\/h3>\n
Nonbillable work keeps a firm alive \u2014 mentoring, recruiting, committee leadership, firm administration, client development. When it is invisible on every report that matters, it breeds the exact resentment that fractures partnerships. If the work is done to further the firm\u2019s success, it belongs in a report.<\/p>\n
What contributions to the firm aren\u2019t being captured? Start tracking.<\/p>\n
4. Unclear Authority<\/h3>\n
When no one has defined who gets to decide what, every choice becomes a calculation or a conflict. Can a partner approve a paralegal\u2019s vacation without consulting anyone? What about a $5,000 marketing spend? In the absence of clear decision thresholds, partners are perceived as bottlenecks or going rogue \u2014 and either way, tension builds. Clear authority is not about power. It is about protocol, and protocol protects relationships.<\/p>\n
What decision came up last month that nobody was quite sure who should make? Use it as a reason to build out your decision-making protocol. <\/p>\n
\n- What requires unanimous agreement? <\/li>\n
- What requires a majority? <\/li>\n
- What is every partner not permitted \u2014 nay, expected \u2014 to decide on her own?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
The One Habit Worth Starting This Week: Soliciting Partner Candor<\/h2>\n
At the close of your next partner meeting, say this: <\/p>\n
\u201cGive me one or two topics you want to make sure we cover next month.<\/strong>\u201d<\/em><\/p>\nMake this a standing invitation so it signals that every partner\u2019s concerns<\/em> are expected here. Candor strengthens the firm and the relationships that sustain it.<\/p>\nThe conversation that could have calcified into resentment gets onto the agenda instead. The leader who asks absorbs the social risk on behalf of the room. Cost: 90 seconds. Return: a culture that doesn\u2019t hide the truth.<\/p>\n
And once a year \u2014 ideally before anyone feels the urgency \u2014 ask each partner directly: <\/p>\n
\u201cDo you still want this? What does the firm need from you right now, and what do you need from it?\u201d<\/strong> <\/em><\/p>\nNot a performance review. A genuine human-to-human check-in on alignment.<\/p>\n
Worst case? It\u2019s a great excuse to go to lunch one-on-one. Best case: You reveal a structural mismatch or a succession conversation five years before it becomes a cliff event.<\/p>\n
Sarah needed this habit. She almost built her future and that of the firm on four polite and well-meaning lies.<\/p>\n
Not Everything Is a Big Thing<\/h2>\n
After three decades in these rooms, I can confidently say most partnership problems are not emergencies waiting to happen. They are accumulations. Small misalignments that compound because no one paused long enough to name them.<\/p>\n
Which means most of them do not require a restructure, a retreator a difficult confrontation. They require a jostle. A well-placed question. A conversation that has been postponed for no particular reason. A moment of candor between two people who actually like each other and simply don\u2019t have the habit of saying what is true.<\/p>\n
Firms that address these partner patterns describe something that sounds almost too simple: fewer taboo subjects. Less walking on eggshells. The conversation that used to require three pre-meetings and a week of dread happens over lunch instead. <\/p>\n
Because they built a culture where difficult things have somewhere to go.<\/em><\/p>\nOne difficulty to be alert to is that when you are inside a firm, you carry its filters. You know the history, who is sensitive about what. You know which topics have been tried before and landed badly. That knowledge is valuable \u2014 but it can also be the thing that keeps the jostle from happening.<\/p>\n
Still, try it. Ask the question. Be willing to rock the boat a little. If the filter is too thick to see through on your own, bring in someone without it to ask the questions that surface the unspoken. Not a transformation, just a jostle. Sometimes that is all a firm needs to get everyone reengaged and moving forward together.<\/p>\n
\nMore Law Firm Management Tips From Attorney at Work<\/h2>\n
How to Create a Law Firm Annual Plan that Doesn\u2019t Die in a Drawer<\/a><\/p>\nThe Top 10 Challenges for Managing Partners<\/a> <\/p>\n4 Ways Effective Practice Group Leaders Build Strong Peer Relationships<\/a><\/p>\nNobody Told You It Would Be This Lonely: A Roadmap for Women Managing Partners<\/a><\/p>\nSuccession Planning Without Panic: 5 Tips to Open the Conversation<\/a><\/p>\nLateral Partners Don\u2019t Fail for Lack of Talent, They Fail for Lack of Trust<\/a><\/p>\nImage \u00a9 iStockPhoto.com. <\/p>\n
\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.attorneyatwork.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/AttorneyatWork-Logo-%C2%AE-2021-1.jpg?resize=372%2C106&ssl=1\" "\\"\\"")
\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\nSign up for Attorney at Work\u2019s daily practice tips newsletter here<\/a> and subscribe to our podcast<\/a>, Attorney at Work Today.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Who wants to lead? Untested assumptions and polite, well-meaning lies can lead to succession planning mistakes. Tracy Callahan identifies four partner patterns that corrode even the strongest partnerships. Can you spot them in your firm? The post Truth or Assumption? 4 Partner Patterns That Lead to Succession Planning Mistakes appeared first on Articles, Tips and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-153516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legal_matters"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153516\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
- \n
- The Danger of Untested Assumptions Among Partners<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n
- Four Partner Patterns Hiding in Plain Sight<\/a>\n
- \n
- 1. Unexamined Assumptions<\/a><\/li>\n
- 2. Uninitiated Conversations and Partner Resentment<\/a><\/li>\n
- 3. Untracked Contributions<\/a><\/li>\n
- 4. Unclear Authority<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n
- The One Habit Worth Starting This Week: Soliciting Partner Candor<\/a><\/li>\n
- Not Everything Is a Big Thing<\/a><\/li>\n
- More Law Firm Management Tips From Attorney at Work<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n
Is Your Law Firm\u2019s Future Built on Truth or Assumption?<\/h2>\n
\u201cSarah,\u201d a managing partner, had been dancing around the subject of her retirement for more than six months. She finally asked her four partners directly: \u201cDo you want to step up and fill my shoes?\u201d<\/p>\n
All four said yes. Of course.<\/p>\n
When I spoke with each of them privately, all four said no: They didn\u2019t want to step up. They liked being tier-two. They had never aspired to lead. Once Sarah actually committed to a retirement date, they\u2019d start planning their own exit strategies. One has already decided to make a run at becoming a district court judge.<\/p>\n
The Danger of Untested Assumptions Among Partners<\/h3>\n
Sarah had been building her firm\u2019s future on yeses that were never tested and thus were assumed. One truth-seeking discussion changed everything .<\/p>\n
Sarah had asked the wrong question. \u201cDo you want my job?\u201d is a question about individuals. The question the firm needed her to ask was different:<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat does this firm need from each of you when I\u2019m gone \u2014 and is that something you want to give it?<\/strong>\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n
The Law Firm Is an Entity, So Treat It Like One<\/h4>\n
Most law firm partners believe they are in a partnership. However, many are in something closer to a cost-sharing arrangement: attorneys working in parallel, each tending to her own practice, sharing overhead and a receptionist and, occasionally, a client.<\/p>\n
The difference is whether the partners treat the firm as an entity with its own identity, its own needs and its own future \u2014 something separate and apart from the sum of their individual practices, something worth tending deliberately.<\/p>\n
When partners operate from that perspective, the internal calculus shifts. The question is not limited to \u201cWhat\u2019s in this for me?\u201d The question expands to \u201cWhat does the firm need from me right now?\u201d That distinction sounds simple, but its implications are enormous. And both questions can be answered at the same time.<\/p>\n
Every person who touches a firm benefits from viewing themselves as a steward \u2014 not just the managing partner. Shared stewardship is a decision and a culture.<\/p>\n
Research on psychological safety by Amy C. Edmondson<\/a>, Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at Harvard Business School, shows that when you change the nature and quality of a team\u2019s conversations, outcomes improve \u2014 not incrementally, but exponentially. Cultivating a culture of candor strengthens both the firm and the relationships that sustain it.<\/p>\n
Four Partner Patterns Hiding in Plain Sight<\/h2>\n
After 30 years of working inside and around law firms, I started naming the partner patterns I kept seeing \u2014 patterns that stifle real growth and lead to succession planning mistakes. I call them the 4 U\u2019s. <\/p>\n
Can you spot any in your firm?<\/p>\n
1. Unexamined Assumptions<\/h3>\n
One partner wants to scale, hire associates and build a regional brand. Another wants low overhead, high margin and a predictable practice. Neither is wrong \u2014 but when those differences stay unspoken, they pull the firm in competing directions. Sarah\u2019s succession plan was built entirely on assumptions she had never tested. When she finally asked the real question, the answers restructured everything.<\/p>\n
Do you and your partners have the same answer to: What does success look like for our firm in five years? If you hesitated, you just found one.<\/p>\n
2. Uninitiated Conversations and Partner Resentment<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Every partnership has them \u2014 the topics that get discussed in the parking lot and never make it into the meeting. Silent scorekeeping lives here. So does the origination tension nobody names, the compensation arrangement that stopped feeling fair two years ago, and the partner whose workload has dwindled. You cannot build on top of resentment that everyone is pretending doesn\u2019t exist.<\/p>\n
What topic has appeared on three consecutive management committee agendas and still hasn\u2019t been discussed? That\u2019s yours.<\/p>\n
3. Untracked Contributions<\/h3>\n
Nonbillable work keeps a firm alive \u2014 mentoring, recruiting, committee leadership, firm administration, client development. When it is invisible on every report that matters, it breeds the exact resentment that fractures partnerships. If the work is done to further the firm\u2019s success, it belongs in a report.<\/p>\n
What contributions to the firm aren\u2019t being captured? Start tracking.<\/p>\n
4. Unclear Authority<\/h3>\n
When no one has defined who gets to decide what, every choice becomes a calculation or a conflict. Can a partner approve a paralegal\u2019s vacation without consulting anyone? What about a $5,000 marketing spend? In the absence of clear decision thresholds, partners are perceived as bottlenecks or going rogue \u2014 and either way, tension builds. Clear authority is not about power. It is about protocol, and protocol protects relationships.<\/p>\n
What decision came up last month that nobody was quite sure who should make? Use it as a reason to build out your decision-making protocol. <\/p>\n
- \n
- What requires unanimous agreement? <\/li>\n
- What requires a majority? <\/li>\n
- What is every partner not permitted \u2014 nay, expected \u2014 to decide on her own?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
The One Habit Worth Starting This Week: Soliciting Partner Candor<\/h2>\n
At the close of your next partner meeting, say this: <\/p>\n
\u201cGive me one or two topics you want to make sure we cover next month.<\/strong>\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n
Make this a standing invitation so it signals that every partner\u2019s concerns<\/em> are expected here. Candor strengthens the firm and the relationships that sustain it.<\/p>\n
The conversation that could have calcified into resentment gets onto the agenda instead. The leader who asks absorbs the social risk on behalf of the room. Cost: 90 seconds. Return: a culture that doesn\u2019t hide the truth.<\/p>\n
And once a year \u2014 ideally before anyone feels the urgency \u2014 ask each partner directly: <\/p>\n
\u201cDo you still want this? What does the firm need from you right now, and what do you need from it?\u201d<\/strong> <\/em><\/p>\n
Not a performance review. A genuine human-to-human check-in on alignment.<\/p>\n
Worst case? It\u2019s a great excuse to go to lunch one-on-one. Best case: You reveal a structural mismatch or a succession conversation five years before it becomes a cliff event.<\/p>\n
Sarah needed this habit. She almost built her future and that of the firm on four polite and well-meaning lies.<\/p>\n
Not Everything Is a Big Thing<\/h2>\n
After three decades in these rooms, I can confidently say most partnership problems are not emergencies waiting to happen. They are accumulations. Small misalignments that compound because no one paused long enough to name them.<\/p>\n
Which means most of them do not require a restructure, a retreator a difficult confrontation. They require a jostle. A well-placed question. A conversation that has been postponed for no particular reason. A moment of candor between two people who actually like each other and simply don\u2019t have the habit of saying what is true.<\/p>\n
Firms that address these partner patterns describe something that sounds almost too simple: fewer taboo subjects. Less walking on eggshells. The conversation that used to require three pre-meetings and a week of dread happens over lunch instead. <\/p>\n
Because they built a culture where difficult things have somewhere to go.<\/em><\/p>\n
One difficulty to be alert to is that when you are inside a firm, you carry its filters. You know the history, who is sensitive about what. You know which topics have been tried before and landed badly. That knowledge is valuable \u2014 but it can also be the thing that keeps the jostle from happening.<\/p>\n
Still, try it. Ask the question. Be willing to rock the boat a little. If the filter is too thick to see through on your own, bring in someone without it to ask the questions that surface the unspoken. Not a transformation, just a jostle. Sometimes that is all a firm needs to get everyone reengaged and moving forward together.<\/p>\n
\nMore Law Firm Management Tips From Attorney at Work<\/h2>\n
How to Create a Law Firm Annual Plan that Doesn\u2019t Die in a Drawer<\/a><\/p>\n
The Top 10 Challenges for Managing Partners<\/a> <\/p>\n
4 Ways Effective Practice Group Leaders Build Strong Peer Relationships<\/a><\/p>\n
Nobody Told You It Would Be This Lonely: A Roadmap for Women Managing Partners<\/a><\/p>\n
Succession Planning Without Panic: 5 Tips to Open the Conversation<\/a><\/p>\n
Lateral Partners Don\u2019t Fail for Lack of Talent, They Fail for Lack of Trust<\/a><\/p>\n
Image \u00a9 iStockPhoto.com. <\/p>\n
\n
\n<\/a><\/figure>\n\nSign up for Attorney at Work\u2019s daily practice tips newsletter here<\/a> and subscribe to our podcast<\/a>, Attorney at Work Today.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Who wants to lead? Untested assumptions and polite, well-meaning lies can lead to succession planning mistakes. Tracy Callahan identifies four partner patterns that corrode even the strongest partnerships. Can you spot them in your firm? The post Truth or Assumption? 4 Partner Patterns That Lead to Succession Planning Mistakes appeared first on Articles, Tips and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-153516","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-legal_matters"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153516\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/xira.com\/p\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
- 2. Uninitiated Conversations and Partner Resentment<\/a><\/li>\n
- Four Partner Patterns Hiding in Plain Sight<\/a>\n