When a law firm begins to move away from a leadership model centered on one or two founding partners, an inevitable question often arises: How will the firm’s leaders be chosen in the future? As the organization evolves into a true partnership and leadership begins to become institutionalized, this question ceases to be theoretical and becomes central to the firm’s governance. The question seems simple, but it hides a significant problem: selecting leaders in a professional firm introduces political dynamics within the partnership, and not all firms are prepared to manage them.
Unlike a traditional company, where leadership is typically defined by a clear hierarchical structure, professional firms operate differently. It is true that many organizations today have CEOs or managing partners with more clearly defined executive responsibilities. However, the partners remain the owners of the business, control client relationships, and retain considerable autonomy. In that context, leadership can rarely be imposed from above. To be effective, it needs legitimacy within the partnership.
For this reason, many firms choose to elect their leaders through a vote among partners. The election not only determines who will hold the position but also grants the leader a mandate within the partnership. However, when firms begin to organize these processes, they often encounter a paradox: elections generate legitimacy, but they also introduce internal politics into organizations that have traditionally preferred to avoid it.
When we talk about internal politics in a professional firm, we are not necessarily referring to open conflicts. It often manifests in more subtle dynamics: conversations among partners to evaluate potential candidates, informal alliances, or differences of opinion regarding the firm’s strategy or the pace at which certain changes should be implemented. In that sense, election processes within a partnership are not so different from other elections: there are preferences, alliances, and debates about the direction the organization should take.
In our experience, a contested election in professional firms is not necessarily a sign of crisis. Sometimes the opposite is true. When several partners are willing to run for office, it usually reflects a genuine interest in the firm’s leadership and a willingness to participate in its governance. On the other hand, processes where the outcome is decided in advance may be more comfortable, but they do not always generate the same level of legitimacy for the leadership.

However, the legitimacy of leadership is rarely established solely at the time of election. In professional firms, it is established much earlier, based on how partners perceive leadership’s ability to distribute costs, make sacrifices, and protect the collective endeavor. When a crisis strikes, what is truly put to the test is not just the firm’s strategy, but the partnership’s trust in its leader.
Here lies another important difference from traditional companies. In a corporate organization, many tensions would be resolved as a management issue: the CEO decides, and the organization executes. In a professional firm, something different happens. If the partners do not feel they have participated in the discussion or that their concerns have been considered, a decision may be formally correct and yet lack legitimacy within the partnership.
While discussing this topic, someone recommended a short essay by the German philosopher Robert Spaemann on trust. In it, he puts forward an idea that is very useful for thinking about leadership in professional organizations: responsibility can only generate trust when it is personal. Trust is not placed in committees or processes, but in people who are willing to make decisions and take responsibility for them.
Therein lies one of the distinctive features of leadership in professional firms. Unlike in other organizations, the managing partner cannot simply impose decisions. Partners retain autonomy, client relationships, and real influence within the firm. For this reason, leadership in a partnership depends less on the formal authority of the position and more on the ability to persuade, build consensus, and keep interests aligned—interests that do not always coincide.
Tony Angel, who was a managing partner at Linklaters, once used a phrase that aptly describes this challenge: “seeking clear blue water.” With that phrase, he sought to convey the idea of carving out a distinct space between the firm and its competitors, avoiding getting caught up in direct market competition. Ultimately, that is precisely what a strategy should do: define where the firm wants to compete and, above all, where it decides not to compete. But in a professional firm, strategy is not implemented through hierarchical orders. The true challenge of leadership lies in getting the partnership to adjust its behavior and practices to make that strategy possible.
When studying the history of many professional firms, a fairly clear lesson emerges. Firms can survive economic crises, difficult market cycles, and even misguided strategic decisions. What they rarely manage to rebuild easily is the cohesion of the partnership. As long as the partners continue to believe in the common project, the firm can weather difficult times. But when that trust weakens, the stability of the model becomes much more fragile.Ultimately, when a law firm asks itself how it will choose its leaders, it is actually grappling with a deeper question about its governance model. Elections do not merely determine who leads the firm; they also determine what kind of firm it wants to be in the future.

Antonio Gómez Montoya – Partner at Black Swan Consulting