Only a handful of firms nationally have nonlawyers in the most senior management positions, most of them focused on business operations. The Pepper Hamilton announcement seems to take that approach one step further by naming a nonlawyer to take responsibility for both operations and strategic planning.
"This is another step on a continuum that began decades ago in which law firms began to look more like their clients," said Ward Bower, an analyst at Altman Weil, a legal consulting firm based in Newtown Square.
The decision followed a yearlong analysis of the firm's business and organizational structure, said Nina Gussack, chair of Pepper's executive committee.
"We did not set out to look for a nonlawyer; what we looked for was the skill set that we wanted," she said. "This is truly a strategic position. Clients who have shared their views say this makes so much sense."
Pepper has broken the mold before. Gussack is one of the few female law firm chairs in the country. Another, for a time, was Christine Lagarde, who chaired the Chicago-based Baker & McKenzie law firm before returning to her native France to serve as finance minister and then head of the International Monetary Fund.
The announcement came as law firms in Philadelphia and around the country have shaken off and adjusted to the fallout from the legal-market collapse of 2008 and 2009, when firms shed thousands of lawyers, canceled incoming classes, and greatly trimmed their administrative staffs. That retrenchment has triggered an industrywide reevaluation of traditional law-firm organization and management techniques, all in an effort to bolster profit while assuring clients their money was well-spent.
