It is a strategic imperative for firms to remain competitive, adaptive, and capable of delivering high-quality legal services in today's complex business environment. Partner performance is a critical issue and will become more so in the coming years as AI threatens to replace or reposition underperforming employees. The dynamic and evolving nature of the legal profession, coupled with external factors such as technology, globalisation, and economic changes, underscores the importance of performance management for law firms.

Managing partner performance: Strategies for transforming underperforming partners takes a comprehensive look at how to improve underperforming partners within the legal profession. It provides insight and practical solutions for law firm leaders committed to revitalising their teams and optimising organisational success. Structured into four parts, the book systematically diagnoses underperformance, its cause and effect, how to deal with underperforming partners, and how to proactively performance manage over the long-term.

From crafting individualised improvement plans to implementing mentoring and coaching programs to unlock untapped potential, the book addresses skill development and continuous professional growth through training, while also emphasising the crucial role of effective communication in improving internal dynamics and client relationships.

Strategic role redefinition is discussed to align partners' strengths with organisational goals, while motivation and engagement strategies offer tools to boost overall job satisfaction. The book tackles interpersonal conflicts through conflict resolution and team dynamics, ensuring a collaborative environment.

Throughout, the importance of accountability and consequences is emphasised, establishing clear expectations and measures for underperformance. The book, enriched with real-world examples and case studies, will appeal to law firm leaders, managing partners and HR professionals. It will equip readers with actionable strategies to transform underperformance into excellence. Managing partner performance: Strategies for transforming underperforming partners fosters a high-performance culture, promoting individual growth and ensuring the enduring success of underperforming partners and the entire legal organisation.

Managing Partner Performance: Strategies for Transforming Underperforming Partners was a great joy to read as it provides great insights, contains very clear descriptions of behavior patterns and causes for partners' underperformance and has many brilliant and practical recommendations to remedy the underperformance and to help struggling partners.

The book is very much directed at firm leaders, and quite rightly so, as many have little or no management training and skills and the book will prove immensely helpful to them. This book is equally helpful to all those partners (whether on equity level or below) and other senior lawyers who are actually struggling. It provides such a wealth of good advice that it may even be used as a "self-help" book.

But there is a third group of people that will actually greatly benefit from perusing this book - anyone in a big law firm with the goal of making partner and having a successful long-term partner career. I would like to recommend this book specifically to this latter group of partners and lawyers. They will find a wealth of information, recommendations, action lists, alternative ways of handling matters, or dealing with issues that will prove invaluable and that I wish had been available both at my transition from senior associate to partner and on moving firms.

While one may find today much help, information, and support on the internet or on social media, it is difficult to find a collection of such high-caliber experts who have authored the 20 chapters of this book and the depth that they provide in each of them. I have rarely read a book on law firms where I was not disappointed by significant parts or where whole chapters did not meet my expectations - this book is one of these rare exceptions where I thoroughly enjoyed each chapter.

I wholeheartedly recommend this book and each of its chapters to anyone interested in the workings of a big law firm.
Dr Christian Kessel
Former partner with Baker & McKenzie and Bird & Bird. Coach, Trainer and Consultant for Successful Business Development

JOEL BAROLSKY
https://www.linkedin.com/in/joelbarolsky/

Joel Barolsky is a principal of Edge International, managing director of
Barolsky Advisors, a senior fellow of the University of Melbourne Law School,
and co-author of the Thomson Reuters State of the Australia Legal Market
Report. He writes for the Australian Financial Review Legal Affairs section and
the Law Management Hub. Previously, Joel was head of the strategy practice
of Beaton Research & Consulting. Joel is internationally recognized as an
outstanding advisor, facilitator, and educator to law, accounting, and business
advisory firms. He is a noted expert in the fields of strategy, market
positioning, client focus, culture, governance, organization design, succession,
and capability development. He is renowned for big-picture thinking
and creative problem-solving. His facilitation style is often described as
engaging, passionate, sensitive, and outcome-focused. Joel has advised over
100 of Australia and New Zealand’s leading law, accounting, and business
advisory firms. Over 70 percent of his clients are repeat clients or come
directly from referrals from existing clients.

GRAHAM BROWNING
https://www.linkedin.com/in/grahambrowning/

Graham Browning is the director of Arrisan, a consultancy that builds great work culture through training and individual support. Arrisan specializes in practical tools that help people rise to the challenge at work. Clients include Big Tech, management consultancy, and financial services. After a law degree, Graham embarked on a diverse professional journey. He taught at the University of Cambridge, trained at Clifford Chance, and qualified as an employment solicitor at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer. For 20 years he held dual roles that combined legal and people responsibilities. He has an MSc in Organizational Behavior and is an executive coach. Beginning his transition into HR, Graham lowered employment claims against Freshfields by a third while reducing settlement and exit costs. As global head of people performance and employee relations he led Being Freshfields, a landmark program to transform the firm’s culture. While guiding his team through difficulty as they were under threat of redundancy for six years, Graham implemented a new operating model for the firm. He was a founding member of a Stephen Lawrence Foundation diversity initiative before joining an inclusion consultancy at director level. During COVID-19, Graham trained organizations and built an investigation business that became the company’s largest revenue generator. He founded Arrisan to equip clients to navigate workplace trials and tribulations with confidence.

BREE BUCHANAN, JD, MS
https://www.linkedin.com/in/bree-buchanan/

Bree Buchanan, JD, MS is senior advisor for Krill Strategies, a legal consulting firm providing support to AmLaw100 firms seeking to enhance wellbeing among their personnel. In 2020, she worked with a small team to create the Institute for Well-Being in Law and served as its first executive director and board president. In January 2024, Bree was recipient of the Reed Smith Award for Excellence in Well-being in Law in recognition of her pioneering work in the field. Prior to this, she served as director of the Texas Lawyers Assistance Program and Chair of the ABA Commission on Lawyers Assistance Programs. Currently, she serves as a commissioner for the International Bar Association’s Professional Wellbeing Commission. Bree’s work in lawyer well-being follows a twenty-five-year career spent working on issues related to domestic violence, during which she worked as a litigator, lobbyist, and law school professor.

KRYSTAL CHAMPLIN-GERAGE
https://www.linkedin.com/in/krystalchamplin/

Krystal Champlin-Gerage is a consultant and business advisor with RJH Consulting and Maverick Coaching Solutions. In her roles, she brings over a decade of experience and expertise to law firms and small businesses across the nation. When working with clients, she empowers them to develop a growth mindset that enables them to take control of their professional careers. Her methodology leads clients to build profitable and sustainable businesses based on their core values and definition of success. When working with law firms as the owner and CEO of RJH Consulting, her core focus is the strategic planning process for law firms, increasing operational efficiency and profitability through systems and reporting, and building solid teams through leadership and organizational development. She has taken the same methodology and tactics to other professional service industries through her coaching business, Maverick Coaching Solutions. Krystal holds several certifications that she applies to her client work. She is a certified executive coach, certified emotional intelligence practitioner, certified DiSC trainer, and holds a Six Sigma Lean certification. She has used her experience and knowledge to help her clients envision the next level of growth while providing the support and guidance they need during the process.

PAULA DAVIS JD, MAPP
https://www.linkedin.com/in/pauladavislaack/

Paula Davis JD, MAPP is the founder and CEO of the Stress & Resilience Institute, a training and consulting firm that partners with law firms, corporate legal departments, and organizations to help them reduce burnout and build more resilient and engaged teams. Paula has been working closely with organizations to create thriving workplaces for more than a decade, and since 2020 alone has delivered nearly 400 workshops, trainings, keynotes, and programs on wellbeing and leadership topics. Paula left her law practice after seven years and earned a master’s degree in applied positive psychology from the University of Pennsylvania. As part of her postgraduate training, Paula was selected to be part of the University of Pennsylvania faculty, teaching and training resilience skills to soldiers as part of the Army’s Comprehensive Soldier and Family Fitness program.

RAY D'CRUZ
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ray-d-cruz-08b919/

Ray D’Cruz is CEO and co-founder of Performance Leader, a software firm that designs and implements partner and employee performance management systems. Ray advises firms on setting contribution expectations, objectives, and metrics, measuring and assessing performance, and recognition and reward. Over 25 years, he has worked with over 150 professional firms internationally. Ray is co-author of The Partner Remuneration Handbook, a comprehensive guide to partner contribution and compensation management, published by Globe Law & Business. Ray is a former lawyer and has held senior HR roles in law firms.

DR HEIDI K. GARDNER
https://www.linkedin.com/in/heidi-k-gardner-ab5b825/

Dr Heidi K. Gardner is a sought-after advisor, keynote speaker, and facilitator for organizations across a wide range of industries globally. Named by Thinkers50 as both a Next Generation Business Guru and one of the world’s foremost leadership experts, she is a distinguished fellow at Harvard Law School and former professor at Harvard Business School. She is currently the faculty chair and instructor in multiple executive education programs at both institutions. Dr Gardner works extensively with her team at Gardner & Co., partnering with boards, executive teams, and other senior leaders to boost performance by embedding the principles and practices of smarter, agile, cross-silo collaboration within those groups and across the broader organization and ecosystem. This results in concrete, quantifiable performance improvements. Altogether, Dr Gardner has authored (or co-authored) more than 100 books, chapters, case studies, and articles. This includes bestselling books Smarter Collaboration: A New Approach to Breaking Down Barriers and Transforming Work (2022) and Smart Collaboration: How Professionals and Their Firms Succeed by Breaking Down Silos (2017). Her research received the Academy of Management’s prize for Outstanding Practical Implications for Management, and has been selected five times for Harvard Business Review’s “best of” collections.

MARTIN HILL
https://www.linkedin.com/in/martin-hill-1308706/

Martin Hill is an experienced learning and organizational development consultant with over 25 years’ experience, working primarily with law and other professional services firms. He focuses on leadership development and culture change, and in addition to training and facilitation is an executive coach, working with partners and teams. He has a background in psychology and HR, started his career in the UK, and has been based in Hong Kong for over a decade. Martin now operates as Okano Consulting and partners with a number of other consultancies in Asia and the UK. Prior to setting up Okano, Martin was the global head of learning and development for Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and enjoyed a short period as a strategy consultant to law firms.

JIM LAWRENCE
https://www.bclplaw.com/en-US/people/james-d-lawrence.html

Jim Lawrence is a partner with the international law firm BCLP. He is a trial lawyer and leads the firm’s Kansas City commercial disputes team. He handles a wide range of disputes arising in the US and abroad, representing some of the largest financial institutions, insurance companies, and other national and multinational corporations in complex litigation. He has successfully represented clients in disputes with more than six hundred million dollars at issue. Jim has leveraged his successful law practice to bring attention to legal professionals’ wellbeing. Jim chairs BCLP’s Global Wellbeing Board and has provided presentations about his own journey with substance abuse disorder among other wellbeing related topics.

STEPHAN LUCKS
https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephan-lucks-7159121/

Stephan Lucks is a chartered occupational psychologist at Pearn Kandola where he works in the area of diversity and inclusion. He holds degrees in Psychology and Applied Psychology and is a member of the Division of Occupational Psychology of the BPS as well as a registered practicing psychologist with the HCPC. Stephan’s work focuses on helping both individuals as well as organizations to become more inclusive in their management and leadership of people. He frequently coaches individuals on the topic of inclusion and advises and designs processes in the areas of assessment and development with fairness and inclusion at their heart. He has led on the design and implementation of a talent program in the legal sector with the explicit intention to achieve a more gender balanced talent pipeline approaching partnership. He also frequently provides advice and training on inclusive recruitment for trainees in the legal sector.

IVAN MATVIAK
https://www.linkedin.com/in/imatviak/

Ivan Matviak has more than 25 years of experience transforming complex global businesses through disciplined strategy, product innovation, operations optimization, and cross-silo collaboration. Currently, Ivan is the CEO of Smarter Collaboration Int'l, a technology company focused on delivering tools to enhance organizational collaboration. Previously, he was executive vice president at Clearwater Analytics, a software-as-a-service fintech company, and an EVP at State Street Corporation.

PATRICK J. MCKENNA
https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrickjmckenna/

Patrick J. McKenna is an internationally recognized author, lecturer, strategist, and seasoned advisor to leaders of premier law firms, having the honor of working with one of the largest firms in over a dozen countries. Patrick is author/co-author of 12 books. His three decades of experience led to his being the subject of a Harvard Law School Case Study entitled Innovations In Legal Consulting. One example of that innovation was launching the first instructional program designed to address the issues that new firm leaders face in their first 100 days – graduating over 80 participants, many from AmLaw 100 and 200-sized firms. Patrick is the recipient of an Honorary Fellowship from Leaders Excellence of Harvard Square and was voted by readers of Legal Business World as one of only seven international thought leaders.

MICHAEL ROCH
https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelroch/

Michael Roch is the partnerships advisor and founder of MHPR Advisors. He guides partnership boards, managing partners, and senior leaders globally on architecting strong partnerships and on leveraging partnerships for sustainable growth. Michael has advised dozens of organizations on becoming market leaders in relation to their partner profit-sharing systems, partnership governance, and global partnering strategy. His clients range from multinational partnerships and alliances to mid-sized firms to startups across the globe; most operate in the professional services, technology, life sciences and related sectors. Michael is co-author of The Partner Remuneration Handbook.

JONATHAN WATMOUGH
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-watmough/

Jonathan Watmough qualified as a solicitor in The City of London at Reynolds Porter Chamberlain in 1993. Practicing in corporate, he became a partner at 30, managing partner at 38, and spent the next ten years helping to transform RPC from a London insurance firm into an international, multidisciplinary professional services business. The firm won Law Firm of the Year three times. Jonathan was also twice-named within The Lawyer’s Hot 100 lawyers in the UK. After ten years as managing partner, he retired from the firm in 2016 to help law firms cut through to what matters and emulate the simple things successful firms do differently in private practice. This distils down to practical common sense guidance on what matters most in the real world of commercial law, why, and how to do it to get ahead.