News last month that the leader of global megafirm Baker McKenzie would step away for health reasons put a spotlight on the stressful nature of managing partner jobs, and how far that stress might push the people in those jobs.

New Jersey lawyers who have held the post say it's the type—not only the quantum—of stress that can threaten burnout.

Stephen Vajtay Jr.

“Looking back on my 35-year career, it's hard to find a more stressful period,” said Stephen Vajtay Jr. of his six-year period as managing partner of New Jersey's most populous homegrown firm, McCarter & English. “It's a difficult job to do without personalizing various aspects of it.”

For Vajtay, whose tenure ended in October 2016, 12- and 13-hour days as a practitioner were common enough before he took the helm, but ”I worked harder as a managing partner,” he said. “It was a constant diet of problems and problem solving.”

The job, of course, varies by firm, and Baker McKenzie is an extreme example. Managing partner Paul Rawlinson was overseeing nearly 5,000 lawyers in 78 global offices before announcing a hiatus in late October, and had visited about half of those locations in two years' time, sibling publication The American Lawyer reported.

For Michael Tanenbaum, once the New Jersey-based managing partner of now-defunct Sedgwick, air travel was a tiresome part of the equation. Overseeing as many as 330 lawyers in 15 offices during his seven-year tenure, Tanenbaum's goal was to get himself, or at least a member of leadership, to each office at least once per year, he said.

Michael Tanenbaum

“I didn't hit my limit in the sense that I was too exhausted to do it,” but “it was time for someone else to take over,” said Tanenbaum, who wrapped up his time as Sedgwick's managing partner in early 2015 and left to form litigation boutique Tanenbaum Keale in early 2017.

Tanenbaum spent seven years as managing partner of Sedgwick. There was no term limit for the position; he served an initial three-year term, and was renewed with one-year terms after that, he said.

Tanenbaum was in the unique role of managing the West Coast-based firm from its Newark office, which required significant air travel. “Travel is tiring,” he said, and the kind of travel that managing a multinational firm would require, “I could see it pushing people to the point of saying, 'enough.'”

But what pushed him closest to the edge was dealing with personality issues, for which he had little patience, he said. “You do sit back and go, why the heck am I doing this?”

“The types of things that would get to me were … that I was compelled to spend more time than I thought was appropriate dealing with partner behavior issues,” Tanenbaum said. “That was very draining.”

HR staff can deal with some, but not all, of those issues, which he described as matters of comportment, such as partners being discourteous to colleagues.

“It was the type of things that really just didn't make sense to me,” Tanenbaum said.

Personality conflicts were not a time-consuming issue at roughly 370-lawyer McCarter & English during Vajtay's tenure, but the timing of that tenure—2010 to 2016—was ”a stressful slice of history for me,” as the firm adjusted to recessionary difficulties, said Vajtay, who suspended his law practice during his six years as managing partner.

The recession “not only disrupted demand, it interrupted our normal operating procedure,” as hiring practices, costs, economic performance standards, and the overall approach to the business of running a law firm, all required examination, he said.

“We were struggling to hold onto our culture, which I think we managed to do,” but “we had to make some absolutely wrenching decisions,” he said.

For example, the firm's economics could no longer support partners who wished to slowly transition to retirement—”retiring in place,” as Vajtay called it—while some partners had to be transitioned out of equity-holding status, he said.

There was, of course, travel, too. Though there was no international air travel, Vajtay was frequenting the firm's offices between Washington, D.C., and Boston. “I got to know Amtrak pretty well.”

Amid all of it, communication from others at the firm “really was 24/7,” he said.

“There were people who were unhappy about the various initiatives we were rolling out,” Vajtay said. ”I was receiving emails night and day.”

As coverage following the Baker McKenzie news has shown, stanching outflow of laterals also can be a source of stress for managing partners.

At the very least, it's a lot of work, and replacing people is very expensive, Tanenbaum pointed out.

“Certainly part of your responsibility is to keep people in place, focused on doing work for your clients, and minimize movement out of your firm,” he said. “There was a lot of time spent—and needed to be spent—talking to people.”

Tanenbaum remains in leadership, as chairman of his new firm, which since its opening has grown to 24 lawyers and opened an office in Seattle with Sedgwick alums.

Vajtay, who had been a member of McCarter's executive, compensation and associates committees before being managing partner, summed up his current role in law firm leadership in two words: “completely out.”