News in Practice

“My partners will never go along with it”: what to show them

The question is not how to convince them but what exactly to show them, and the answer fits into thirty minutes, prepared with a little care.

For those who must secure the agreement of a partnership. What does not convince, what does, and how to prepare the session.

You are carrying the subject, you are convinced, and you know the partners' meeting will go badly. This is not a problem of personal conviction, it is a problem of demonstration. The useful question is therefore not how to convince them, which invites generalities, but what to show them, which invites precise preparation.

Why the objection is usually framed wrongly

It describes the partners as an obstacle, and that is what makes it insoluble. A partnership is not conservative on principle: it is accountable for a collective responsibility, and it has been approached, in recent years, by a considerable number of propositions most of which produced nothing.

Its resistance is therefore an acquired competence, not a character defect. It shifts through proof rather than through conviction, which is good news: proof can be prepared.

What does not convince

A demonstration on a fictitious matter. A partner watching a system handle a textbook case knows exactly what they are watching: a case chosen because it works. Their scepticism is justified and it will not move.

A promise of gain. Any quantified claim about efficiency produces a precise reaction in a partner: they work out what those hours represent in billings, observe that they do not convert into fees, and conclude the argument is not for them. They are right, and it works against whoever uses it.

The technical argument. A description of the architecture, however accurate, holds little interest for someone whose profession lies elsewhere. It also gives the impression that one is trying to impress, which is the opposite of the intended effect.

A comparison of solutions. A five-column table put to a partnership produces a discussion about the columns, never a decision, and it moves the session onto ground where nobody in the room has expertise.

Another firm's testimony, finally. It is more effective than the previous four and still insufficient, for a reason a partner will articulate themselves: that firm does not have their matters, their clients, or their organisation.

What does convince

A matter they know, handled in front of them, on a question to which they already have the answer.

Those three conditions matter equally. The matter must be theirs, or at least one of the firm's matters they have followed: that is what makes the result assessable by them, without an intermediary. The question must already have been dealt with: that is what allows them to judge the quality of the answer instantly, rather than having to verify it.

One practical detail matters here: the matter must be live or recent. A matter closed three years ago is no longer present enough in the mind of whoever ran it for them to judge without checking, and the immediacy of the judgement is what gives the exercise its value.

And the question must be difficult. An easy question proves nothing and confirms the suspicion of a staged demonstration. Choose the point in the matter that gave the team the most work.

You should plan for the result to be poor, which happens and is not a disaster. A mediocre result on a difficult question, presented without being excused, often earns more credit than a good one: it shows that nothing was arranged, and it opens the discussion about limits, which is the one a partner wants to have.

What then happens is not enthusiasm, and you should not expect it. It is a displacement of scepticism: it stops bearing on the system's capability and starts bearing on its limits, which is the right conversation.

A partner does not judge a demonstration. They judge a result on a matter they know, on a question to which they already have the answer.

Why those three conditions and no others

Each answers a specific suspicion, and that is what makes them effective.

The known matter answers the suspicion of selection: one cannot have chosen a favourable case if they chose the matter. The already-answered question answers the suspicion that verification is impossible: they know at once whether the answer is right. The difficulty of the question answers the suspicion of an easy demonstration.

An arrangement meeting only two of the three loses most of its effect. A difficult question on an unknown matter proves nothing, since nobody can judge the answer; an easy question on a known matter confirms the initial suspicion.

Preparing the thirty minutes

Choose the matter with the partner, not for them. A matter they nominated themselves cannot be contested afterwards.

Prepare nothing on that matter before the session. The temptation is strong and it destroys the entire value of the exercise: what convinces is precisely that nothing was arranged.

Check beforehand, on a different matter, that the arrangement works technically. A technical incident during the session costs six months.

Plan what you will say to the question about responsibility, which will come. It always comes, and it is the right question.

A useful variant: the problem they have not solved

There is a more effective way still of approaching the session, where you know of it far enough in advance.

It consists in asking each partner, before the meeting, what costs them the most time on their matters and what they have never managed to solve. The answers are concrete, they vary from one partner to another, and they constitute the best list of use cases a firm can produce.

The demonstration then bears on one of those cases, nominated by the person who raised it. You are no longer presenting a tool, you are answering a stated problem, and the conversation changes nature before it has begun.

What happens after the session

The worst outcome is not refusal, which leaves a discussion open. It is agreement in principle without a decision, which closes the subject while giving the opposite impression.

A partnership concluding that it needs to think about it has decided: nothing will happen. To avoid that, the session must end with a decision of some form, whatever it is, rather than with an assessment. A trial scope, a deadline, a named owner, a dated next meeting.

The most useful decision to secure is rarely deployment. It is agreement on the questions to be settled, which commits the partnership to work rather than to an opinion, and which lets you come back with answers rather than with a fresh request.

So draft that decision before the session and propose it yourself. A partnership readily adopts a precise proposal and disperses in front of an open question.

What you have to accept

They will ask about professional secrecy and about their own responsibility, in that order. Those two questions are not obstacles to be circumvented: they are the questions a partner ought to ask, and one who does not ask them should worry you more.

They will also ask, later and often privately, what this changes for the training of junior lawyers. It is a legitimate question and it deserves better than a reassuring answer: it is a real subject, it is unresolved, and saying so honestly is worth more than minimising it.

The right answer is rarely a complete answer. It is to say what has been verified, what has not, and what you propose to verify before going further. A partner gives more credit to someone who delimits what they know than to someone who answers everything.