Law firm managing partners are often promoted from within the fee earner ranks, with the result that many are unsure of how to actually be a manager. Anne Compton says undertaking a specially tailored MBA course helped make all the difference

I am just coming up to the end of my first term as managing partner of Rickerbys, a 19-partner, Cheltenham-based practice serving both commercial and private clients throughout our region. Despite the challenges brought on by the current economic climate and the pace of change resulting from the Legal Services Act (LSA), I am looking forward to my second term.

Prior to being appointed managing partner, I had spent the previous 15 years as a fee earner and subsequently partner in the corporate and commercial team at the firm. I had little prior knowledge or experience of management other than of a small group of fee earners and my secretary.

Needless to say, despite a useful six-month handover period with the previous managing partner (who has since remained with the firm and who has provided valuable support to me in my role throughout), the first few months in the role involved a climb up a steep and stressful learning curve, a curve which has scarcely levelled since. I suspect that this is not an unusual position for a new managing partner to find themselves in. How often have we heard the story that firms have 'promoted' their best fee earner to the position rather than the person with the qualities most suited to the role?

As a lawyer, I had (barring the odd day of self-doubt) been pretty confident of my ability. Thanks from clients, feedback from colleagues, bills delivered and paid, and deals successfully concluded all form the bread and butter of a lawyer's daily life and, alongside years under-the-belt, enable those of us with some degree of self-awareness, to evaluate our own performance (in addition to any more formal appraisal process). As a full-time managing partner, most of these signals, upon which I had learnt to rely, disappeared and, for me, this rapidly led to a desire to gain a formal qualification to provide a backbone to and greater confidence in my new role.

Choice of course

After some research and speaking with others who had completed the course, I decided that the MBA in Legal Practice Management run by Nottingham Law School was the most relevant to my role. I decided against a more general MBA because I was definitely not in search of a qualification for its own sake. I wanted to do something that would help me to perform my new role to the best of my abilities and the outcomes from which would, hopefully, be of benefit to my firm.

The challenge of managing a business under the umbrella of a partnership structure, and the special dynamics of legal practice when coupled with the pressures of change from the LSA mean that there are some unique issues in relation to law firm management that I felt would be addressed by the specific MBA offered by Nottingham.

The course divides into two years, with five modules in the first year and one module plus dissertation in the second. All aspects of the management of a law firm are covered: knowledge and information management; finance and economics of legal practice; human resources management; and strategy, structure and business development. Each module commences with the receipt of a reading list, followed by a three- or four-day residential course and an assignment on the topics covered. This means that most of the work does not impact unduly upon the normal working week and can be fitted in around holidays and weekends.

At the time of writing, I am in my second year and wrestling with my first-ever dissertation on my chosen topic of cross-selling.

What has the course done for me?

There are a variety of ways in which I believe the course is delivering benefit to me and my firm.

First, it has given me an opportunity to spend time with fellow lawyers and managers from an extremely wide range of practices and backgrounds, from high street to magic circle, as far-ranging as India to Jersey, and as diverse as personal injury to competition law. Time spent sharing views between members of the group has proven to be a valuable learning experience.

Coupled with this has been the opportunity to hear from guest speakers invited along to the modules. Often past students, these professionals have been able to add insight into initiatives undertaken at their own firms and have, on many occasions, been refreshingly frank about things that have and have not worked for them.

The course tutors themselves have largely comprised professionals who have experienced practice at the sharp end and, in addition to guiding students through the theoretical basis of the learning, have also been able to add practical insights from their own time in practice.

This is not to underestimate the value of developing a more thorough understanding of the theoretical basis upon which legal practices are built. Knowing that a residential weekend is imminent and that an assignment will follow certainly focuses the mind and invokes a discipline to do background reading that is otherwise often sadly absent in the hurly-burly of daily practice.

However, perhaps most valuable, has been undertaking the assignments themselves. Following each residential weekend, there has been a requirement to complete an assignment on the topic covered. Far from being a dry academic exercise, the assignments have represented an opportunity to carry out an evaluation of one's own firm (or section thereof) in relation to the subject matter of the module. The end result is often a practical working document that can be used in the development of plans and proposals within one's own firm.

The finance module assignment, for example, concluded in a draft presentation to the partnership on steps that could be taken to improve the firm's financial performance, while the module on strategic decision-making ended with an action plan and key milestones that would need to be taken to achieve the firm's strategy and how to influence change.

Topics that previously seemed steeped in mystery, such as the different cultures which might exist within law firms and how one might begin trying to assess the culture of one's own firm, have become clearer through the use of management models and theories – both generic and tailored to law firms in particular.

While it has proven difficult to implement such proposals and plans wholesale (one needs to be alert to potential scepticism among one's partners to management theory), it has certainly been the case that they have been of use both explicitly and implicitly in considering live issues within the firm, creating prioritisation and starting to suggest solutions.

I have, undoubtedly, spent incalculably more hours thinking about the direction of the practice than I would otherwise have done if I had not undertaken the course and, because of the learning, have been able to do so against a background of theoretical underpinning that I would otherwise not have had.

The importance of management

One could, perhaps, legitimately question whether this is good use of a managing partner's time in the current challenging environment. What added value can a managing partner bring as a result?

Historically, law firms in the past often operated along similar lines to barristers' chambers. Each partner or fee earner served what effectively were their own clients with little team activity among them. Such firms are perhaps few and far between today, but one still hears complaints of fee earners operating within silos and partners who continue to suffer from 'my client' syndrome.

In order to maximise the benefits that can come from operating within a true partnership – the benefits of different views (whether they come solicited or unprovoked and whether based on sound rationale or sentiment), different practice areas, different sector specialisms, different client bases and, frankly, different personalities, today's managing partner needs not only to be able to perform a daily juggling act with the multitude of balls that will inevitably be in the air at any one time, but also to have the leadership skills, patience and diplomacy to draw together a coherent whole from what are often disparate component parts of the business.

To do this requires not only an ability to stand back from the business but also the creation of time to do so. For me, undertaking the MBA has ensured that I do just that – and although, at this point through the course, I have to confess that I am very much looking forward to regaining at least a part of my weekends, I do intend to continue the discipline of regularly taking a step back from the daily detail of the business in the interests of maintaining an overview.

Aside from the detailed knowledge gained from undertaking the course, it is this sense of perspective and how to go about creating, maintaining and developing it that must surely be of critical importance in these interesting times.

Anne Compton is managing partner of Rickerbys.