Law firm leadership is often about aligning interests. This is particularly the case for managing partners of offices where your headquarters is elsewhere.
Many of the firms I work with are either headquartered in the UK or the US, and I work with leaders outside these regions who have to align with the strategic direction of the firm, but also work within a domestic market that might look very different to the one in which head office works in.
How this plays out is dependent on the region you are in, and the type of domestic work your office does – is it a full service domestic firm? or one that services international clients? – and how open to listening to domestic challenges is head office?
The best firms rely heavily on domestic insights and knowledge, but there is often still a need for influence when the strategy, or indeed the metrics, or even the business model, needs adapting (the one partner and associate model of a US firm doesn't work so well say in Asia where they might need to leverage a team to be more profitable).
Nuance often needs a good level of influence to be factored in. It's a form of managing up and down. Where this works well, domestic nuances and market insights need to be couched in terms that speak the language and strategy of the global perspective.
The similarities of regional challenges play out regardless of region. I've seen this in APAC and Europe, but also in smaller US offices.
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