American Lawyer on THE NO A**HOLE RULE

The February American Lawyer just appeared and it contains a story about The No Asshole Rule.  I haven't seen the story as it isn't available online, but I do know that they are printing an excerpt.  If you have seen it, please let me know what it is like!

Aric Press is the editor of the American Lawyer, "the nations leading publication for lawyers."  They have over 100,000 subscribers. Aric has been a strong supporter of the concept of the no asshole rule since I first published my 2004 essay, "More Trouble Than They Are Worth" in the Harvard Business Review. Aric wrote an editorial right after that essay was published suggesting that law firms implement "jerk audits," which included this wise advice:

Partnership and brilliance have their privileges. And, to their credit, most lawyers seem to manage a decent politeness even under stress. Which only makes the outliers seem worse. At a minimum, what I'm suggesting is that you ask yourselves this question: Why do we put up with this behavior? If the answer is 2,500 value-billed hours, at least you will have identified your priorities without incurring the cost of a consultant.

Aric's 2004 editorial also resulted in a funny -- and I confess very satisfying -- little twist. At that time, my wife --who is a partner in a large law firm -- was in senior management. We have different last names. When Aric's editorial came out, one of her partners sent her an email about the article, suggesting that it was a topic she might be interested in... he didn't know it was her husband's article!

I don't think that there are more assholes in the law than in other occupations, despite the popular stereotype.  In fact, although law gets the rap for having the most assholes, surveys of different occupations suggest that doctors are more abusive than lawyers, with nurses being their most frequent targets.  But there are some special challenges for law firms that want to enforce the rule.

First, there are big power differences in law firms among people at different levels, and as I've shown, there is a lot of evidence that power can turn people into selfish insensitive jerks, who act is if the norms of civility that the rest of us have to follow don't apply to them!

Second, as I show in The No Asshole Rule, one of the primary causes of demeaning behavior, backstabbing, and an nastiness of all kinds is severe competition between individuals, when life is seen as an I win-you lose game.  Most partnerships divide up the profits every year among the partners in a zero-sum game, where if one partner gets more, the others get less. Moreover, the American Lawyer -- the most important publication in the business -- fuels this problem by ranking firms (among other ways) in terms of profits per partner.

Third, let's face it, one of the reasons that people hire lawyers is to help intimidate rivals in litigation and negotiation, yes partly through facts and logic, but also through demeaning interpersonal moves meant to unnerve and intimidate opponents -- dirty looks, put-downs, teasing, glaring, and intense eye contact.  The problem is that, although these very same skills may help in the courtroom, a deposition, or a negotiation when used at just the right moment,  when attorneys use them on their peers and underlings (and aren't stopped)  the asshole poisoning spreads.

Indeed, you might say that one key to law firm management is learning how to turn your assholes on and off!

Comments

[Jerry reynolds]

Dr. Sutton,

Regarding your use of the word Asshole in the title and throughout the book - and any critical comments you may receive - In my first year at West Point an Army Colonel was giving us an introduction to Leadership and in his brief outline of how to be a good leader he said "Don't be an asshole." He didn't need to define that any further, he didn't need to apologize, he didn't even dwell on it. But we all knew exactly what he meant and it was one of the easiest lessons to remember.
The subject matter and the need to eliminate these people from the workplace is the issue not your phraseology. Sometimes no other words fit and it is better to err on the side of accuracy than diplomacy.

Thanks for the nice piece of writing.

Sincerely
Jerry Reynolds