Posted on May 18, 2005 by Larry Bodine

If a law firm were run like Southwest

Southwest_airlinesDeborah Ackerman, VP and GC of Southwest Airlines, described what a law firm would be like if it were run like SWA.

Remember that SWA has high employee productivity, low turnover, high morale, and flies 64 million passengers to 60 locations. The last time I flew on Southwest, it was great. The Chicago to Las Vegas flight had attendants wishing passengers happy birthday and passengers all singing along together. It was a fun flight.

Ackerman said a law firm run like SWA:

  • Would be the low-cost producer
  • Focus on clients as customers and not as a legal matter
  • Have no layoffs
  • Have an annual chili cook-off
  • Have a tradition of fun. Halloween is a major holiday at the headquarters, and everyone comes to work in a costume, including the CEO.
  • Relax the dress code.
  • Be family-oriented. There is no expensive artwork on the walls of SWA. Instead there are pictures of employees with their families, pets and hobbies.
  • Display "brag boards" everywhere where employees can put up notes about their own and their kids' accomplishments. Have many employee recognition programs.
  • Establish an Employee Catastrophic Fund to help employees in cases of an uninsured loss or serous illness.
  • Communicate in a timely fashion to employees.
  • Senior partners give hugs and praise from to staff as a daily occurrence.
OK, this is a total fantasy. There will never be a law firm run like Southwest Airlines, because law firms care about partner profits, not employee happiness. The employees are there to serve the partners and help the firm make more money. Law firm goals are to move up the chart of the AmLaw profitability tables.

So call me a curmudgeon: there will never be a law firm run like Southwest, but we can dream.

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The Information Dirt Road - May 23, 2005 9:58 PM
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Thom Singer - May 24, 2005 3:45 PM

It is not a total fantasy for a law firm to have some of those traits. The Austin office of Brobeck had some of those things going for it. (I know people like to knock Brobeck.....but for the two years I was there at Marketing Manager in Texas.....it was a great place to work.....so don't knock it 100%. I thought it was a great place).

If Brobeck could meet the SW criteria....or some of them anyway (they did not meet them all, see below for my report card)...then others can too. They just have to try.

Ackerman said a law firm run like SWA:

Would be the low-cost producer (ok, THAT was NOT Brobeck)

Focus on clients as customers and not as a legal matter (This was true of Brobeck)

Have no layoffs (Well, we all know what happened there..oh well)

Have an annual chili cook-off (Yes, good employee events)

Have a tradition of fun. Halloween is a major holiday at the headquarters, and everyone comes to work in a costume, including the CEO. (Yes, Halloween costumes were encouraged and the staff and lawyers could go get their kids and bring them trick or treating in the office ....all the partners had bowls of candy to give out to the kids. This was fun for everyone)

Relax the dress code. (Yes, it was pretty casual in Texas)

Be family-oriented. There is no expensive artwork on the walls of SWA. Instead there are pictures of employees with their families, pets and hobbies. (OK, they had very very expensive art on the walls, but they also had pictures of all employess....lawyers and staff...with their families and pets)

Display "brag boards" everywhere where employees can put up notes about their own and their kids' accomplishments. Have many employee recognition programs. (kinda)

Establish an Employee Catastrophic Fund to help employees in cases of an uninsured loss or serous illness. (When my four month old daughter was having her skull reconstucted at Children's Hospital in San Diego, the San Diego lawyers and staff organized to find people with "O-Neg" blood...then drove across town to donate so that we would have more than enough blood on hand for the surgery. I lived in Texas and did not really know the San Diego office folks....but we had five people, partners, associates and staff...all jump in to help).

Communicate in a timely fashion to employees. (Very good at this, until the end).

Senior partners give hugs and praise from to staff as a daily occurrence. (not much hugging of staff, but I am cool with that)

All in all, they did pretty good on that criteria. In the end, I think what they did well was treated the staff as professionals.

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