TinkerX

My observation is that most firms — especially large-ish ones — handle the issue badly. Because it is not part of the usual, daily practice-of-law grind (kind of like marketing and so many other business issues), it is handled "ad hoc." Some lawyers retire… slowly, devolving from Partner to Of Counsel or even Staff Attorney. They may spend years "handing off" their work, going into the office for 8-10 hours a day to do a steadily diminishing amount of work. They go from being senior, "heavy" partners, to being somewhat extraneous.

This is made more worrisome by the arbitrary nature of retirement ages at many firms. Whether it’s 60, 65 or 70, forcing a lawyer to retire who is still a valuable asset to the firm is goofy. As is wasting 30+ years of service due to a lack of planning and imagination… and marketing savvy.

As business mavens, government higher-ups and other movers-and-shakers retire, they don’t always go into obscurity. They continue, in many cases, to benefit their organizations in more non-operational ways. Ways that you and I might call "marketing." Many of the tasks that we as legal marketers would love to see lawyers spend more time on are truly well suited to older lawyers whose books of business don’t necessarily require 60 hours of work a week:

• They can meet with important clients and listen… just listen… without the excuse of a mad, frantic case.
• They can speak
• They can write
• They can get facetime and do PR with the community.
• They can fundraise for firm-sponsored charities.
• They are often in the unique position of "knowing everybody," and having a degree of fame in the business world.
• If they’ve kept up their contacts at their alma mater, they could probably engage in great recruiting activities.
• They can spend time with young associates, training them in both legal and cultural firm issues. Match their experience with young attorneys’ energy and tech-savvy, and you’d have a great team for doing all kinds of marketing and cross-pollenation of contacts and ideas.

There are probably more I’m not thinking of off the top of my head. But to let all the accumulated knowledge and wisdom of long-time partners just sink into obscurity is…well… an example of the excessively bad planning that most firms are guilty of when it comes to non-opperational issues.

And the planning for this needs to start when an attorney hits about 45 years old. I’ve had a number of lawyers around that age — when they’ve reached the point of "confident partner" — tell me that they start experiencing feelings of, "Is this all there is?" They have another 20 years to practice law, but they’ve really climbed the last big hill. From there, is it just "turn the crank" until retirement steals away your mojo? Well, no. Not if you plan a career lifecycle.

At about the time that an attorney really gets confident and settled, that’s the time to start thinking about ways to leverage his/her experience into doing "more" than just lawyering. That’s the time to start ramping up the required number of hours doing things other than billing them thar hours. Why? Because the greatest value that a strong, confident, experienced lawyer can give the firm is NOT hours and hours of billing. This is the point when folks should start doing more management activities, marketing, recruiting and strategic thinking. Why? Because those activities will improve the ability of the firm to bill many more hours via many more lawyers, to be more effective, and to ensure an ongoing stream of clients.

Most industries get this. We call it "management." The smart-as-a-whip kid who can do the work of three regular dudes eventually moves up to manage a small group. Where he eventually maxes out his potential, and hopefully gets promoted to manage a department. As the experience increases, so do the challenges.

Yes, there is legal work of a more challenging nature that requires more experienced lawyers. I’m in no way suggesting that lawyers stop practicing law just when they hit their peak. But I am suggesting that they should start doing "more" than practicing law at that point. And if you have a plan that gradually shifts the emphasis from practice to management activities over 20 years… retirement will be a well-designed, gradual withdrawl. Or it may not really occur at all, as many of the activities I mention above could be done part time, or as part of an alumni program. Either way, it’s better than a gold watch, a giant sheet-cake from Kroger and a move to an office the size of a closet while you "wrap things up."