SC Lawyer, September 2005, #5. Ethics tips from business leaders.

• Author: By John Freeman

South Carolina Lawyer

Ethics Columns.

SC Lawyer, September 2005, #5.

Ethics tips from business leaders

South Carolina LawyerSeptember 2005Ethics tips from business leadersBy John FreemanMost of what we learn in life is not imparted to us in a classroom. Most of the useful information we pick up comes from our interaction with others. Sometimes this useful data consists of ideas we can use to become more effective or avoid making errors.

The March 21, 2005, edition of Fortune featured tips from prominent and successful business leaders who were asked to relate "the best advice I ever got." Among the members of the all-star cast of advice receivers and repeaters were Jack Welch, formerly of GE; Warren Buffet of Berkshire Hathaway; and Andy Grove, Intel's chairman. In many cases, the tips presented related to attitude and ways of interacting with others. Often, the advice carried a nugget of insight directly applicable to law practice or legal ethics.

For example, Jim Collins, author of the best-seller Good to Great, passed on this guidance given to him by business management legend Peter Drucker: "The real discipline comes in saying no to the wrong opportunities Saying no is hard." What a wonderful insight! You need to say no to "the wrong opportunities." So many lawyers end up with grievance or malpractice problems because they accepted a job, an "opportunity" that should have been turned down due to a conflict of interest or inability to do the job properly because of insufficient time or a lack of expertise. Collins and Drucker teach not to feel bad about saying "no" even though rejecting work cuts against the grain for lawyers who are trained to be problem-solvers.

Computer chip-maker AMD's CEO Hector Ruiz offered this insight: "Surround yourself with people of integrity." You do not have to live too many years to realize that some people who work in law offices are prone to cut corners, fib, pilfer and/or look for the easy way out of problems. These folks make up a low percentage of the professional population, but they are out there and they are a menace. People who cannot be honest about their professional dealings are toxic to a law practice. You cannot work around them and their problems; eventually their problems will become yours. The lawyer or staffer you catch lying or stealing needs to be fired. In the case of the thieving lawyer, a grievance needs to be filed. Period.

Dick Parsons, CEO of Time Warner suggested this: "[A]lways remember this is a small business and a long life." South Carolina is not a small business, but it is a relatively small state. Good news about lawyers' professional accomplishments may not travel far or fast, but news about your monumental blunders is apt to be widely circulated, traveling at lightening speed. How you treat people matters. Over the years, your behavior gets noticed and your strengths and weaknesses become known far and wide. What goes around definitely does come around in South Carolina's legal community.

Another insight offered by Mr. Parsons was this: "[H]ow you treat [people] on each individual transaction is going to make an impression in the long haul. When you do deals, leave a little something to make everyone happy instead of trying to grab every nickel off the table." This advice is applicable to lawyers only in part. In negotiations, it is the client, not the lawyer, who has the final say on terms. No ethical lawyer would ever advise his or her client to take less than is fairly due them so the lawyer could curry favor with the other side. Nonetheless, having empathy for the other side's needs in testy negotiations is the hallmark of an expert negotiator.

South Carolina's Joe Rice was instrumental in negotiating the biggest legal settlement in history, involving the state AGs versus Big Tobacco. One press report quoted Joe comparing his negotiating style with an opposing lawyer's: "Meyer has a similar negotiating style to me," says Rice. "He realizes the only way he fixes his problem is to fix the other guy's too." Alison Frankel, After the Smoke Cleared, Am. Lawyer, Jan.-Feb. 1999, at 48. The message from Messrs. Parsons and Rice: Tuning into the other side's needs when trying to resolve disputes is a way to earn respect and become more effective. If you do not find a way to help the other side address its needs, your client may end up ill-served.

An ivory tower academic, Clayton Christiansen of Harvard Business School, offered this down-to-earth insight: To grow, "what you need is a fundamental humility - the belief that you can learn from anyone." The smart lawyer knows that learning by attending CLEs or by reading the advance sheets offers necessary, but insufficient, supplements to professional understanding growth.

Tied into the need for humility preached by Professor Christiansen is this nugget offered by Starbucks Chairman Howard Schultz: "Recognize the skills and traits you don't possess, and hire people who have them." Implicit in Schultz's comment is a truism that the best among us well understand: nobody is good at everything. We all have faults and weaknesses. The knack in professional life is being able to find work that draws on our strengths and doing that work consistently well while passing on to others opportunities we cannot handle. Or as Peter Drucker advised, we need to be good at saying no to the wrong opportunities.

Anyone reading the Fortune article is struck by the common refrain from those perched at the upper echelon of our corporate culture. Each preaches in favor of self-awareness and respecting and drawing upon others' abilities and insights. My own view is that the happiest lawyers I know are those eager to learn. And learning opportunities abound. We learn daily from those around us, be they clients, staffers, fellow lawyers, you name it. Caring lawyers share their insights and are generous with their praise. Few of us have ever forgotten a compliment we received from a respected fellow lawyer. What have you done recently to reach out and encourage others and to help them work more effectively?