Ep: 23 Andrew Glincher | CEO & Managing Partner of Nixon Peabody | Weathering the Next Crisis | Elevator Assets | Lincoln & Buffett | One Habit

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Here are some highlights of my interview with Andrew Glincher:

As a business person, the most important thing is you have to keep making decisions. Sometimes you’ll be right, sometimes you’ll be wrong. But the worst thing in the world for most businesses is not to make a decision.

I’ve got Lincoln right up in my office here along with all the Lincoln stamps and Lincoln coins. He stands for strong values and discipline in times of crisis.

You need to have a moral authority to lead. You need to have strong values. You need to be able to communicate clearly.

I think it’s important that you be empathetic to everyone and that you understand everybody’s in different positions and whenever possible you speak up for people that don’t have a voice.

One of the things that’s so great about this job is I listen and learn from my colleagues. I always learn new things.  

I’m really not looking at what’s today’s talent. If you don’t have new people and the diversity of people, then you don’t end up with new ideas and a diversity of ideas.

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***Click here to read or download the full PDF transcript, listen to the Podcast Episode***

Links referred to in this episode:

Andrew Glincher’s Web Bio

Andrew’s Twitter Handle

Abraham Lincoln | 16th US President 

Brad Stevens | Head Coach of Boston Celtics

Alex Cora | Manager of the Boston Red Socks

Warren Buffett | Chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway

The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life by Alice Schroeder

Weathering the Next Financial Crisis

Chris: Let me ask you this question about weathering storms. Everyone is asking when is the next economic downturn. How was it weathering the storm in 2008 – 2009? You basically took on the helm of the firm in a pretty difficult economic season for all law firms and yet you pick up that role. Explain to me kind of what you went through in that and how you’re preparing for the next one.

Andrew: We have no debt and I’m proud of that. I’m very fiscally conservative. I didn’t feel at the time that I had a great amount of wiggle room. You couldn’t afford to be wrong in a major way. For lawyers, if you just went by your traditional legal background, that would be a very tough thing for most people.

As a business person, the most important thing is you have to keep making decisions. You cannot do anything to delay making decisions. Sometimes you’ll be right, sometimes you’ll be wrong. But the worst thing in the world for most businesses is not to make a decision.

We were fiscally very conservative, but we still invested heavily in marketing and in knowledge management and things that would improve how we are able to service our clients and focus really on playing to our strengths. What is it that we do well? We committed to our values and that went a long way.

Chris, when you speak about the next recession, I mean that will come. Everything comes in cycles.

We are better positioned leadership-wise. One of the things that was a priority for me was leadership development. That meant bringing more people into the inner circle, giving them exposure as to how we do things, what we do. Financially, we’re in better position because we have no debt. Our client relationships are stronger than ever, though you can’t be complacent about that or take it for granted for a second because of the competition, which is intense for clients. You always have to be providing your clients with exceptional service and quality of work.

We’ve established leases in many places. Our staffing is excellent in terms of providing value but needs to continue to evolve. Economically, financially, I think emotionally, which does play a part because we deal with elevator assets, our assets go home every night. They have the choice whether or not they want to come back the next day. We need to make sure Nixon Peabody is the place people want to come back to the next day. You can’t take that for granted.

Use of Space and Planning for Change

Chris: Let’s talk about change. In the next five to ten years, Andrew, when do you see change on the horizon for large law firms and how are you planning for this?

Andrew: Change is occurring around us rapidly. People can take a look at technology and how technology has changed the way we work. Having voice mail was a big thing. Now if you leave a voice mail for somebody that’s of Millennial age, that is very uncool. They see that there is no need. My kids will remind me, “There’s no need to you to leave a voicemail. I know you called. I can see it via missed call.” Technology has obviously changed.

For lawyers, you can’t just print out a document and think that you’re going to add value for a client. It has to be much, much more than that.

We are seeing how we use space change.

2015 which really started in 2013, I started planning for single size offices for all attorneys at Nixon Peabody. I believe we were one of the first law firms, if not the first, to do this. We’ve done it now in Washington DC and Los Angeles and New York City, now Boston and San Francisco.

Originally it was a challenge. Partners were giving up large offices, corner offices. We made the corners into conference rooms. Really they’re collaboration rooms. They’re smaller rooms where people can collaborate. We’ve done all glass offices so that so the views and openness of space would lead to more people working together, closer together, collaborating closer together. It’s really enhanced the way I think that we do business. That being said, we’ve reduced our footprint by about a third for the same headcount. In the future, I think five – ten years down the road, folks are going to look and say, “Why do we need this much space?”

***Click here to read or download the full PDF transcript, listen to the Podcast Episode***