Managing the Message When an MVP Partner Leaves

Jennifer Simpson Carr: Welcome to episode 164 of On Record PR, where we discuss the topics and strategies that matter most to law firm leaders. I’m Jennifer Simpson Carr, Vice President of Strategic Development at Furia Rubel Communications. Today I am joined by my colleague Sarah Larson, our Executive Vice President, who with Gina, leads our crisis management and litigation communications team. Hi, Sarah.

Sarah Larson: Hello Jennifer. Nice to see you. Thanks for having me on.

Jennifer Simpson Carr: Nice to see you, and thanks for joining me. I know for any football fans, it was a late night. Especially a late and exciting night for any Philadelphia Eagles fans.

Sarah Larson: We’re doing video now, right? My eyes might be a little puffy.

Jennifer Simpson Carr: Yes.

Sarah Larson: We had a late-night last night, screaming and yelling for the Eagles. So, lots of fun.

Jennifer Simpson Carr: Well, it was a good result for us, and it was a fun game to watch, I guess, unless you’re a Chiefs fan but, nonetheless.

Partner departures are what we’re talking about today and it’s an inevitable part of law firm life. How law firm leaders handle departures have significant impact on the firm’s reputation. So, in our discussion today, I’d like to equip our leaders with strategies for managing communication around partner departures to maintain stability and trust.

This is an area in which you and Gina lead executive committee members and managing partners. I know it’s an area that’s oftentimes really wrapped up in emotion. So I’d love to talk to you about that. I mean, given that we’re on the heels of the Super Bowl, Saquon Barkley comes to mind with his departure from the Giants to the Eagles and the emotions around that. And so, some of this is what happens when an MVP leaves your firm.

Jennifer Simpson Carr: Law firm leaders know that partner departures are a reality. Often times they communicate to us that they feel blindsided when it happens. What are the first steps law firm leaders should take, internally, once they’re notified that a partner is leaving?

Sarah Larson: Yeah, this is one of the most common reasons that that firms will come to us for, you know, what they consider kind of crisis communications. Like immediate, really high-stakes communications. And look, it’s just a fact of life in law firms. People come and go. But it’s really important how you talk about it. It really sets the tone for your firm, and you’re right, you can’t control the story. It’s going to happen sometimes. But there are things that you can do to remind your team that with every change, really does come opportunity.

I hate to sound like Pollyanna, but you know, the departure of a really important rainmaker leaves room, maybe at the top, for other attorneys internally to move up. So, there’s always some sort of silver, positive lining that we can highlight in our communication. We usually give law firm leaders kind of, like, 5 tips to guide their communications. Generally, we tell them to, unless there’s been some sort of wrongdoing, acknowledge the departure with gratitude and kindness. Be transparent but professional, and remain positive as much as you can and number three, reassure your team. Because of these kinds of changes, sometimes the leaders understand what it means. But you know the associates, the professional staff, a lot of people, their first inclination is always going to be, “What does this mean for the firm? What does it mean for my job?”

The other things are, we always kind of want a pivot to look ahead. So yes, this thing has happened. But what’s next? What are we doing next? And then the other thing to keep in mind is, we always tell them that you’re going to want to personalize your communications for different audiences. So, what you say to the executive committee, might be different than what you say to the equity partners. What you say to the equity partners is definitely going to be different than what you say to the associates. And then what you say to your clients and your external partners is gonna be different than what you say to your internal team.

Those are our five pieces of advice that we give whenever we’re handling these kinds of things.

Jennifer Simpson Carr: Those are great steps, and I am sure in working with firms, they do help partners who are making decisions take some of the emotion out of it. I know having worked in-house, that when communication doesn’t happen around a significant firm event, it leaves the individuals within the firm open to start generating their own narrative. Can you talk a little bit about what taking a proactive and transparent approach to communications helps mitigate?

Sarah Larson: Sure, absolutely. So one of the things that that we find is, especially if it’s a departure of a really high-level partner, maybe a practice group leader, somebody who’s been there for a long time, it makes sense that they’re keeping it quiet because they’re working out all the details with their new firm, or, if they’re going to go out on their own. But a lot of times, their partners and the executive committee really end up feeling betrayed.

So, there’s also this sense of betrayal that you have to help them overcome and get everybody to kind of take a step back and realize, you know, in the end this is business, this is work. As much as we might be colleagues and friends, this person had to make this choice. This is the best choice for their life. But even then, when planning those communications, there’s always a way to position it to minimize the negative parts where we don’t want as much attention and focus on the stuff we do want people to think about.

Jennifer Simpson Carr: There’s a really key point that I have learned from you and Gina, watching you handle these difficult situations so gracefully. It revolves around how to handle internal communications in a way that maintains trust and stability, and is also transparent, but in a way that protects the firm in case the communications are, if you will, leaked. Can you talk a little bit about that strategy?

Sarah Larson: Sure. I always fall back on something that I think must have come from my early days in reporting. Never put in writing anything you wouldn’t want to see printed on the front page of the newspaper is what I used to go by. Now it’s more like, you know, never put in an e-mail anything that you would want to see online. Even when you craft your messages for different audiences, everything has to remain cohesive. That is the word that’s coming to mind. You have to be telling the truth and the whole picture to both audiences. Both your messages have to be consistent. So, if you say one thing in one message, whatever you say in the other message can’t detract from that. Does that make sense?

Jennifer Simpson Carr: Absolutely, yes.

Sarah Larson: Yeah. We assume that whatever we say internally is going to get out. It’s going to be leaked. There’s a lot of different ways that we can control leaks. There’s all kinds of tech tools you can put on emails to track forwarding and all that kind of thing. But in the end, people can also just take the information in their heads and call somebody up and say, “Hey, I heard XYZ.” So, we just move ahead believing that it’s going to be shared at some point.

Jennifer Simpson Carr: So, if I’m hearing you correctly, the real theme is consistency across messaging, even though different messages need to be geared towards different audiences. Also, write internal communications in a way that could be published on a headline.

Sarah Larson: Yeah, absolutely. And it happens all the time.

Jennifer Simpson Carr: Speaking of headlines, we have seen major partner departures make headlines and then we’ve seen other major partner departures handled with much grace and very smoothly and amicably. What are some of the most common pitfalls that our listeners can avoid when they’re handling partner departures, to mitigate to the best of their ability, being that frontline story?

Sarah Larson: As long as there’s no overarching reason for the departure itself to get out immediately, what will normally happen is the new firm that the attorney is going to will make an announcement that an attorney has just joined from their previous firm. And so, the legal writers at the legal publications who publish all those kind of roundups, sometimes features too depending on how high profile it is, will always call the firm and ask, “Why did this person leave?”

You don’t always have to have a statement ready, but it is helpful to have something ready in case you do want to say something publicly. We always tell our clients that it’s an opportunity to reinforce what your firm is doing instead of focusing on the person who left in these quotes in your external messaging.

Jennifer Simpson Carr: These have all been great tips. I know we wanted to keep this episode really quick and to the point so that our listeners could walk away and put in strategies or tactics that may not already be in place at their firm in the event that a partner departure happens. So, I will point our listeners to our show notes, where we will map out not only a transcript of this conversation, but the five key points that Sarah mentioned to help you walk through this type of process, Sarah. Thank you so much for joining me today, especially after such a late night.

Sarah Larson: I’m gonna complain to HR. [laughs]

Jennifer Simpson Carr: That’s us. [laughs]

Sarah Larson: Yep, Yep, that’s us.

Jennifer Simpson Carr: Thank you so much to our listeners for tuning in today. We welcome your feedback on the podcast format. We would love to hear what topics you are most interested in hearing about. Please contact us at podcast@onrecordpr.com. If you’ve enjoyed this episode, please leave a review on iTunes and we will see you all next week. Thanks Sarah.

Sarah Larson: Thank you. Bye-bye.

Download Managing Partner Departures: A 5-Step Communications Guide