Davis Polk Chair and Managing Partner Neil Barr recently spoke with Robert Couture, a Senior Research Fellow at the Harvard Law School Center on the Legal Profession, in connection with an article looking at the role leadership strategy plays in a firm’s success. The piece, published in the Center’s publication, The Practice, examines movement in the AmLaw 100 and the differences that allowed some firms to “improve their strategic positioning vis-à-vis their competitors.”

In the interview, Neil discusses how Davis Polk thinks about firm strategy and how that has evolved. “We went through an evolution over the last decade to operate much more like a business. During that time we involved our partnership in the economics of the business, making sure performance was where we wanted it to be, and we did a bit of portfolio shaping,” Neil said.

Neil goes on to address his approach to communication within the partnership of strategic efforts and changes, noting that an important part of this communication includes framing the firm’s value system and culture “because that’s the architecture on which we are building our business.”

Looking to the future of the legal industry, Neil predicts that “the law firms that overperform going forward will do so on the basis of characteristics that are different from those of the last 15 years or so – meaning that brand and prestige will be a part of the story, but strategy, operational efficiency, and other such issues will increasingly play a role in firms’ financial performance.”

“Leading the Way,” The Practice (May/June 2023)

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