From the client’s perspective, the imminent retirement of a relationship partner is problematic because it threatens an interruption in service. Clients know, sometimes from painful experience, that many law firms do not have programs in place for ensuring service continuity when lead partners retire. They also know that Baby Boomers are retiring in droves, and quail at having to replace them if no successors are in place. They want law firms to spare them this work by proposing new teams of capable partners providing seamless service as the retiring partner gradually exits the scene.
Effective retirement succession is about one thing and one thing only: Serving the client. Initially, clients need to know that the new team of lawyers can deliver service of the caliber they expect. This is a tricky subject, because the retiring partner typically has practiced longer, and has more experience with the client, than anyone on the transition team. But most clients get that younger partners won’t have the same level of experience as the retiring partner. What they want are subject matter experts – even if these lawyers have less grey hair.
Yet younger partners, no matter how knowledgeable, must inspire clients’ trust and confidence to be acceptable replacements for a retiring partner. This does not happen overnight. It’s why the prep work to integrate younger lawyers into the summit of client relationships must begin years before a partner’s transition period. The transition process must be executed methodically, each step carefully choreographed by the retiring partner. The more thorough this work, the more likely that the firm will retain the client when the retiring partner is gone.
The transition work I did during the two years it took to migrate my $6 million practice to younger partners focused entirely on identifying the needs of each client, and crafting a bespoke succession plan to meet them. While executing each plan, I met with the client regularly to smooth wrinkles in service delivery and help the client gain confidence in the partners taking over my role. As the transitions matured, I also brought in partners from other practice areas. The purpose of these meetings – to give the team replacing me face time with the clients – easily dovetailed into discussions about how to make the client relationships with my firm broader and stronger.
Getting a busy client’s undivided attention is never easy, but it’s easier when succession is the topic to be discussed. Clients welcome thoughtful retirement succession proposals because they help avoid service interruption. Savvy firms welcome dialogue about succession as an opportunity to deepen and improve service. Done right, retirement succession begins and ends with a laser focus on client service.
