Signium International

If the impressions that I intend to share with you in this post seem recently familiar, perhaps you may find the reason in the special devoted to this topic published in this past weekend’s edition of Expansion newspaper. For this report, the newspaper wanted to have the professional opinion of Signium International Spain and that is why maybe if you bought the paper on Saturday or Sunday you will find some similarities in what I say here. However, I did not want to miss the opportunity to advantage of my thoughts for this special collaboration with Expansion to also share in our blog some of my conclusions on the matter.

Along these lines, the question one asks almost instantly when thinking about employment and the legal sector in Spain is what this year holds for the legal profession in Spain? Overall, one could say that in 2011 the sector will continue adjust its teams to the firm’s real workload needs. This trend will be felt on several fronts: firstly, the adjustment that started a few years ago will continue to affect the hiring of new graduates. And on another, this goal of efficiency will also mean promotions to Senior Associate or Partner will be scarcer, and therefore one’s advancement will become harder. Another of the general trends we will see in the sector is the continuous flow of partners from competing firms. These hires will be better received if they can bring with them their client portfolio. Sector concentration will also be another tendency in this market. My prediction is that during the 2011 firms will continue to merge or acquire other firms, seeking to offer the highest number of discipline areas as a way of dodging obstacles created buy the current economic recession.

Returning to the question of Partner appointments or promotions, I would point out that in my opinion, beyond the fact that opportunities have been reduced, what has really happened is an adjustment to reality. Therefore, it would be more correct to talk about a situation of containment to correct the excesses committed in the boom years. What happened during these years is that the position of Partner was too readily given to professionals whose actual contribution to the management, development attitude was not adequate. As a result, the figure of Partner was devalued, in billing and compensation per partner, as well as causing the numbers of Associates to swell beyond those really needed for business. As we have been tracking since 2005 in the annual sector remuneration study published by Signium International Spain, this decrease in revenue sharing between Partners is not a result of but rather precedes or accompanies the general compensation slowdown experienced all industry segments. This study that I referenced can be found in the studies section of our website.

Finally, I can’t end this post without making reference to the areas in highest demand during 2011. Specifically, the biggest growth will be in financial and banking law - particularly in the regulatory area - and criminal and procedural law in their more advisory capacities. The other areas that will also grow are labor law and some specific areas of tax law. In conclusion, adjustment of teams and Associates, industry concentration, restraint of wages and new opportunities in come practice areas. That, according to our perspective, is what will happen in employment in the legal profession in 2011. What actually occurs will be seen by all over the next nine months.

Proper communication is a task that requires time, effort and creativity.  We live in a society where the oversaturation of information drives us to be selective, making it quite complicated to capture the public's attention.  As spectators of information we establish filters that allow us to separate the information that interests us from the background noise that barbards us on a daily basis.  And as craftsmen of information we must be able to create structures sustainable over time that will ensure the correct flow of information with our clients, candidates, friends and our greater community.  In the past we tried, without sufficient conviction, and our efforts did not meet the test of time.  Today, having learned from our errors we undertake again this communication experience, this time with more confidence and enthusiasm than before.

During the more than 15 years that I've been in this profession, I've been lucky to meet the best professionals from all over the world.  Having had the opportunity to work closely with these men and women, I have enjoyed, and have been enriched by, a wide range of perspectives, experiences and opinions regadring business management, differing business cultures around the world, and of course, talent management.  As a consultant, my main vocation always has resided in providing advice to the many professionals that have crossed the our threshhold. I would have liked to sit with them, even just to chat and have a coffee - pick their brains on dozens of matters which their experience could most likely iluminate my own understanding.  However, we never have enough time to receive everyone.  As we also do no have the time to search for, analyze and understand a great part of the information available on professional talent management or any other business-related subject.

For this reason, we hope that with these lines we will be able to share each week your knowledge and experiences as well as some of our own opinions, fruit of many years of experience.  Through this interactive format, most certainly more personal and approachable than more traditional corporate communications channels, we would like to invite you to participate with your comments, questions, concerns and ideas.  If this were a fable where a genie could give us one wish, our wish would be that this space becomes a true forum for professional dialogue revolving around the world of professional talent management.  We hope that you can join us on this adventure, because this time we've come to stay.

The current economic climate tends to produce numerous professional and personal situations that leads us towards a state of discouragement, and this discouragement is precisely one of the main causes of our inability to escape from the situation in which we find ourselves.

The result of this negative climate resides in its influence over us, in which me settle into a complacency comparing our own situaton with those that are passing through harder times and thus conform ourselves with the fact that we are in at least a somewhat better position. In the worst cases, our despondency carries us into a downward spiral that can affect everything, even our health.

It is not a question of maintaining a permanent state of optimism but neither is it a question of being one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocolypse of which unfortunately seem to abound in today’s environment. The macroeconomic situation may be outside of our control but not the microeconomic implications of which we are directly responsible and should be able to formulate an clear plan of action.

The first step is to know ourselves, whether it be on a personal or professional level – it is necessary to understand what are our virtues and defects, or in business terms, our strengths and weaknesses, in order to reinforce the former and minimize the latter – to continually concentrate our effort on recognizing how we can develop those strengths and use them to our advantage whether it be for a job interview or winning a new project or contract.

We all have problems but, with the exception of those that are health related, the solution lies in large part in our own hands, although to reach them we need to learn to accept sacrificies, whether those be in salary, changes in organizational function or responsiblities in the case of our professonal careers, and to do so we need, as I mentioned previously, we need to know ourselves to be able to establish to what level we are able and willing to make sacrifices.

For this task we need to be able to look inside ourselves and find the necessary strength to move forward which can stem from sources or varying nature; our families, our desire to progress, our survival instinct… they should form our motor, and at the same time our refuge, from which we find our inspiration to pick ourselves back up when we fall into that state of discouragement, because if we are not able to first support ourselves and self-motivate, then with dificulty we will find that support from our surroundings.

This is not an innate ability; it must be exercised, and only those that can to develop this talent will be the ones to overcome the dificulties presented in our day by day reality.

It is not an easy task, but our responsibility should propel us to try our best since we are not only motivated to help ourselves but also should be motivated to aid those arround us and this helping to achieve the goals that we set for ourselves.

Ignacio Bao
Chairman
Bao Partners / Signium International

The management of Professional Services companies, auditors, consulting firms or law offices has experienced great changes during the last few years, including the substitution of the Managing Partner for the figure of the Managing Director, in their attempt to look for better efficiency in management. But undoubtedly in the past few years, the American market has surprised us with a new tendency that will mark a different future. This consists on substituting the figure of the “rainmaker” (authentic kings of the company) for that of the “starmaker” whose values are centered on the team rather than on the individual. These are the values that today’s companies are looking for.

Of course, the generation of business is still important but what now matters most is the capacity to give clients continuous service by developing the talent of team members, not individual players that look for personal success. What is important now is that most people are motivated to work for a person whose main ambition is to develop their team and who has the ability to develop stars, a ‘genuine starmaker’.

Ignacio Bao
President, Bao & Partners
Worldwide Chairman, Signium International