Q&A: Dunstan de Souza – "I won't tolerate any discussion within the firm about geographic rivalry or differences"

In our latest Q&A, Colin Biggers & Paisley managing partner Dunstan de Souza discusses the importance of living out a firm’s strategic plan, how to manage growth and culture, and why his leadership team champions a ‘one-firm’ policy across its national offices.

Your firm is in a strong growth phase and the headcount of your Brisbane office alone has risen from 39 employees to more than 100 since merging with Hemming + Hart in 2013. In tough markets, how have you achieved such growth?

“The growth has particularly been in Brisbane, but we’ve grown nationally, too. We have a focused strategy and we have an aspiration to be a particular type of law practice in certain areas of practice and that has been attractive to people. When we interview potential recruits, especially at partner level, I take in a summary of our strategic plan. Everyone has a plan, but we actually live it. So that’s a point of difference. That plan focuses on strategy, culture and the sort of people we want and the sort of law practice we want to be. People are attracted to the fact that there is a plan that is in place and lived, especially in a world and marketplace where there is a significant degree of chaos – chaos caused by foreign firms entering the market, chaos caused by the power being wielded by clients, chaos caused by the significant growth of in-house legal teams and chaos caused by changing generational needs and an uncertain economy.”

Without giving away all your secrets, what’s in the plan?

“There’s nothing special about our plan, to be perfectly honest. It’s a good plan, but the beauty of it is not the words in the plan but the fact that it’s lived out. It’s not just an academic exercise that was undertaken for the sake of some bureaucratic box to be ticked.”

How do you make sure it is lived out?

“We talk about the plan all the time; it’s referenced in conversations and through written communications. We get people to own the plan, so those partners who were around when the document was drafted now own it. And when a partner joins our law practice we make sure that they know what they’re signing up to. You can’t over-articulate a plan, you can’t talk too much about a plan.”

Your Sydney practice merged with a Melbourne firm in 2012 and a Brisbane firm in 2013. Can you share any lessons about bringing new firms into the fold?

“When we went into Melbourne and Brisbane, on both occasions we knew we were starting with excellent, successful people. So the first thing was to be respectful of the local players. An important part of our way of managing the law practice is that I go to Brisbane and Melbourne most weeks and there is a lot of personal contact at a leadership level. I have an office in each of the cities. The thing that works well in a national environment is that we don’t have a Sydney-head-office mentality. For historical reasons many of the leadership functions are performed out of Sydney, but our national insurance team is led out of Melbourne, our national corporate and commercial team and our national business development team are led out of Brisbane, the bulk of our finance people are in the Brisbane office and our national events person is in Melbourne. So there’s a whole range of services and functions where people in Sydney have to go to Brisbane and Melbourne and vice versa. The second thing is that all our groups are run along national lines. All reporting is national; there is no state-based reporting internally. Most firms, for example, will tell you their Sydney and Brisbane team figures, but all our budgets are national. So the teams have to collaborate nationally to make it work, and they do. There is a strong sense of national identity among the offices. We have a mantra, ‘One CBP’, and it is still relevant today. We’re one law practice and we do things together. I won’t tolerate any discussion within the practice about geographic rivalry or differences.”

Whether it’s in Sydney, Melbourne or Brisbane, what do top lawyers want when they are weighing up their choice of firms?

“They want to know that they’re joining a good team. I interview partners all the time about joining us and there’s a consistent theme that comes across. Number one is they want to join a firm where collaboration is valued and encouraged and where other negative behaviours are discouraged. We think we are that law practice. Of course, we can improve and do it better, but we think we’re pretty good on collaboration. The other thing that’s important is the strategic plan; people want to know where the organisation is heading. All of our lawyers are specialists and they all have the aspiration of being the best in their field. So part of our plan is a focus on specialisation and the reason we are growing is that we want to be the best team in each of the cities in each of our 10 areas of practice. In some cases we are there and in some cases we are far from it. But the fact that it’s our aspiration is attractive to people.”

Colin Biggers & Paisley decided to incorporate last year after more than 100 years as a partnership. Why?

“The reason we went down that path is simply because we had a situation when we merged with Hemming + Hart that it was an incorporated entity and we had a partnership in Sydney and Melbourne. For a whole range of internal reasons, having separate entities under the one brand in three different cities was problematic. It hasn’t had any impact on our culture because even though we are a structurally incorporated practice we are still a partnership culturally. Partners are consulted and kept in the loop and, even though they are shareholders and employees, they are like de facto members of the board.”

As a managing partner, do you subscribe to any particular management philosophies?

“I find it hard to articulate to people about how they should manage situations. The only thing I can say is that leadership has to be authentic. For some people that might mean they’re calm and gentle, and for others they might be more forthright. Whatever it is, it has to be authentic.”

What do you make of the disruption in the legal sector?

“Everything is changing, whether you are a doctor or a lawyer or a street sweeper, and the pace of change is getting faster and faster. For the legal profession there is not only the issue about the pace of change, but also all the young lawyers joining the profession. For those of us in legal practice today there will continue to be good opportunities for the foreseeable future. But I don’t think there will be opportunities for all the new lawyers coming on board. The market can’t absorb that many new lawyers and, to me, that’s a shame.”

And what about the role of technology?

“I don’t think technology will be the biggest disruptor. The clients will be as disruptive as the technology, and rightly so. The profession is not immune from becoming more efficient and delivering better outcomes for its clients.”

Your practice has set up the Colin Biggers & Paisley Foundation to promote the rights of women and children and you have just launched a microsite, www.cbpfoundation.com.au, showcasing the practice’s pro bono work and community offering. Tell us about that.

“It actually matters what we do with the foundation. I know that what we do for our paying clients also matters, but there’s something that we’re doing through the foundation that is so pleasing. We only started this foundation 18 months ago and in that time we have given more than $400,000 in cash to organisations that needed assistance. We also did close to $3 million in pro bono work. The best statistic for me is that 74 per cent of our lawyers did pro bono work last year. I want this aspiration to make a difference to people’s lives to be in the DNA of not just the practice but of the individuals who comprise this practice.”

Your firm has been around for more than 100 years. What will it look like in another 100 years?

“It’s hard to know how we’ll look in 10 years. I think there’ll be a lot more specialist law firms. There’ll be a lot more automation around certain areas of practice like conveyancing and personal injury law and statutory insurance and those sorts of things. But I think there will be plenty of opportunities for lawyers to add value and do some good things.”

For more information about Colin Biggers & Paisley, visit www.cbp.com.au.