Your phone rings. It’s the vice president of sales. “Jim! It’s our former employee, Larry. He’s calling all of our customers and bad-mouthing us. He’s telling our competitors to get a job and sharing our pricing information. We have to stop him immediately.”
You call Susan, your close friend who has been outside counsel to your family business for 30 years. The call goes to voicemail. You then call her office. “Susan is in wine country this week. We can’t reach her.” You remember it’s the second time she’s taken a lengthy vacation this quarter.
At this point, you realize that Susan is slowing down in her career. It’s her privilege to select her schedule, but you cannot allow the situation to leave your company and its employees vulnerable.
Lawyers should (but aren’t required to) have a succession plan for their clients in most instances. However, it’s often not in the lawyer’s best pecuniary interests to tee up the lawyer who will take their business from them.
So, how should Jim approach this subject with Susan? A dual-track approach is wise:
1. In this example, Jim should ask Susan to introduce him to another lawyer at her firm, who knows Jim’s business well enough to step in at a moment’s notice. Following this informal appointment, that potential successor should have enough opportunities to work with Jim so that Jim can decide if the successor is a good fit by the time of Susan’s full retirement.
2. Spread out the work to another law firm so you can be comfortable with making a firm switch if the replacement lawyer at Susan’s firm isn’t suitable.
Indeed, Jim approaches succession questions with this level of care when he’s considering his operation’s manager or his vice president of sales. He knows whom he would tap if either person fell sick for a prolonged period.
By contrast, for decades, it was Susan, and only Susan—even though the outside counsel often holds an equally important role within Jim’s organization. If Jim is able to set up a succession plan for his corporate counsel, he can insulate his business from a painful transition.