Yesterday morning, while rapidly scanning the far too numerous RSS feeds that I receive daily and for some reason can’t bring myself to limit, I was struck by the juxtaposition of one blog posting and two articles capsulized in the feeds. The blog posting was written by Nathan Koppel at The Wall Street Journal’s Law Blog and was entitled “The Rise and Fall of Jenkens & Gilchrist.” The first article also was from WSJ, also was written by Koppel, and was entitled “How a Bid to Boost Profits Led to a Law Firm’s Demise” - also about Jenkens. The second article was a “Viewpoint” article by Bill Syken at Sports Illustrated on-line under the tag “Don’t wash over athletes’ criminal acts by calling them off-the-field-problems.”
Immediately upon reading all three, comedian Bill Saluga’s refrain started dancing through my head:
Ahh, ya doesn't has to call me Johnson! You can call me Ray, or you can call me Jay, or you can call me Johnny or you can call me Sonny, or you can call me RayJay, or you can call me RJ... but ya doesn't hafta call me Johnson.
Why? Because Koppel’s blog posting and WSJ article captured the legal industry’s version of the essence of Syken’s article. Syken began his article with a classic exchange from Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland:
Humpty Dumpty: When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less.
Alice: The question is, whether you can make words mean so many different things.
Humpty Dumpty: The question is: which is to be master – that’s all.
Syken goes on to explain that he referenced
[T]he above passage because there are a couple of phrases that sports fans and media figures need to become masters of again. These phrases, through repeated usage, have acquired meanings they were never meant to have.
Those phrases would be: “off-the-field problems” and “character issues.”
Those phrases should only be used to refer to misdeeds that are not criminal. For example: being late for meetings, not showing up for mandatory autograph sessions, insulting teammates in the press, mouthing off to your coaches, and taking a coach’s assigned parking lot.
You could even include a few things Terrell Owens hasn’t done.
But the terms “off-the-field problems” and “character issues” should not be applied to, say, accusations of inciting a fight that leads to a triple shooting. Nor should it apply to intimations that someone is supporting a large dog-fighting operation.
These are not “character problems.” They are something worse.
. . . When you stop and take a moment and picture the crime being talked about, the phrases “off-the-field problems” and “character issues” are far too kind. Their vagueness is a mask. . . .
Anytime we’re talking about a situation that involves a felony crime, use “criminal behavior” rather than “character issues” or “off-the-field problems.” It’s simple, concise, and it means what we’re talking about.
In the legal industry, the phrase often used that is far too kind and whose vagueness is a mask is “profits per partner.” Lawyers and media figures need to become masters of “profits per partner” again. It is not a behavior, an action, or a disease – it simply is a performance metric. “Profits per partner” is a measure of the amount of profit being paid to the owners of the firm – “neither more nor less.”
Unfortunately, profit per partners “through repeated usage has acquired meanings it never was meant to have.” It typically is used today as a buzz-word that vaguely masks underlying behavior that people find offensive but are unwilling to talk about openly. Koppel’s articles engaged in this “mis-speak” by laying the blame for Jenkens' conduct with regard to the tax opinions that led to its demise at the feet of “profits per partner” – a term he used three times when discussing the decision to hire the Chicago tax group and in discussing Durbin’s management tenure in the WSJ article. In the Law Blog article, Koppel stated, “As it grew, firm leaders became increasingly focused on boosting its profits per partner, that all-important metric.” Koppel’s articles about Jenkens aren’t unique in this regard – they’re just the most recent examples. For example, my last posting came about indirectly as a result of a Law.com article, Is Shedding Partners the Right Way to Improve Profitability? where “profits per partner” was the focal point of an article about growing volatility in the partnership ranks. And, in an earlier posting, Sometimes Lawyers are Great Mimics . . . But Would Be Even Better Mimes, I took lawyers to task for the incorrect use of business terms, particularly when they’re talking about the business of practicing law. This is just a variation on that same theme: when it comes to using “profits per partner,” its use often is a far too kind substitute for the real underlying behavior.
Let’s call the behavior what it is - pure, unadulterated, Gordon Gecko-like greed. Use that term – greed – when talking about behavior influenced by an almost insatiable desire for the long-green. “It’s simple, concise, and it means what we’re talking about.” Greed has wrought bad behavior and brought out weak character and lack of integrity, poor management decisions, and idiotic public relations blunders long before Jenkens made its mistakes – and unfortunately greed likely will do so again in the future. Jenkens made the bad decisions that led to its demise apparently because its lawyers were greedy. The metric “didn’t make them do it” – it looks like the desire for more cash did. Why won’t people talk about greedy behavior openly and candidly? I guess it’s just an off-shoot of today’s obsession with political correctness – a phenomenon that I believe history will record as being the death-knell of common sense and logic. But, regardless, let’s stop giving profits per partner – a simple performance metric – a bad name. Ahh, ya doesn’t has to call me profits per partner! You can call me greedy, or you can call me foolish, or you can call me Gordon, or you can call me Gecko. . . but ya doesn’t hafta call me profits per partner.
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