Celebrating Over 75 Years of Serving Nevada’s Legal, Business, Government, and Civic Communities
Five Principles of Law Firm Management:
A Managing Partner’s Perspective
The Business of Law is the theme of the September 2025 issue of Nevada Lawyer published monthly by the State Bar of Nevada. George Ogilvie, Firm Managing Partner of McDonald Carano LLP, authored an article titled “Five Principles of Law Firm Management: A Managing Partner’s Perspective” in which he shares his advice, insights and experience. George’s article is provided below and available as a PDF here.
Five Principles of Law Firm Management:
A Managing Partner’s Perspective
McDonald Carano, a Nevada-based law firm founded in 1949, has maintained a tradition of long-serving leadership with only four managing partners during its 75-year history. I’ve had the privilege of being part of the firm for more than 30 years, serving in various leadership roles since 1994 and as firm managing partner since 2019. Drawing from this experience, I offer five principles that have guided my approach to law firm management.
Be an Institutionalist
While the histories, cultures, and needs of each law firm create unique requirements for selecting the Managing Partner, some criteria generally apply, including personal characteristics, such as consensus-building and decision-making, and professional qualifications, such as leadership skills and business acumen. Of utmost importance, the partnership must have confidence the Managing Partner will serve as an institutionalist committed to placing the best interests of the firm above all else. A Managing Partner’s most critical role is to be the uniting voice of the firm and serve as the protector of the institution’s legacy and future.
Managing a law firm requires consistently demonstrating the ability to evaluate and act in a transparent, objective, and fair manner on behalf of the firm as an institution. The partnership needs to trust the Managing Partner will not favor one person, office, practice, or department, and all stakeholders’ interests will be considered and valued. At McDonald Carano, my primary management goal is to motivate toward the big picture and make sure everyone keeps the same big picture in mind. To maintain individual engagement and collective momentum, I focus on my most important daily commitment as Managing Partner – create efficiencies and clear obstacles so attorneys can concentrate on client service and excel at the aspects of their profession about which they are passionate.
Respect Consensus
Managing a law firm requires understanding and accepting that the Managing Partner role is a position of authority, but it cannot be executed in an authoritarian manner. Instead, it must be conducted with diplomacy in an environment that emphasizes consensus-building yet simultaneously being prepared to make difficult decisions when a majority cannot be achieved. Law firm management involves the reality that the business of law is individualized. Lawyers make their own decisions about their practice areas, preferred clients, and strategies for client matters. A lawyer also develops a book of business through years of individual relationships with clients and referral sources. As a result, Managing Partners lead a generally independent and sometimes autonomous constituency. Fortunately, building consensus is a skill that can be learned and honed.
In law firm management, it is also important to recognize that the process of decision making is as important as the decision itself. Without transparency and collaboration, even relatively insignificant determinations can become contentious issues that undermine the decision at issue and the perceived judgment of those making it.
Balance Leading and Managing
Despite the title, a Managing Partner’s success depends more on leading than managing. Leadership establishes what ultimately needs to happen; managing is hands-on control about the detailed steps to make it happen. Leaders set the stage with encouragement, optimism, and support. Managers direct and supervise who should do what, when, and how. For example, the strategic plan is the road map for achieving a law firm’s vision of where it wants to be, but exactly how to get there should not be determined by the Managing Partner. Instead, the Managing Partner steps aside to lead in a guiding role as each office, practice group, and administrative department figures out its own best path to achieve its portion of plan.
Stepping aside also enables others to develop innovative approaches and solutions. A leader who manages too much could inadvertently stifle an organization. A Managing Partner can also become frustratingly exhausted if they believe they need to know everything and solve every problem.
Embrace Change
Managing a law firm requires being ready for the constantly expanding scope, scale, and pace of change. Interpreting, managing, and shepherding change is an ever-increasing part of law firm management. The nature of change is also changing. In prior years, change could generally be described as relating to “running a business,” meaning changes that come from external factors, such as the economy, client industries, and market competition, or changes that come from internal factors, such as implementing new technology. Today, change extends to navigating the firm through the impacts of social, cultural, and political factors that previously traditionally existed outside the walls of law firms. Today’s changes are also truly transformational to both the business and practice of law, such as generative AI and COVID’s introduction of a remote workplace and workforce.
While managing a law firm requires a strategic and well-planned long-term outlook, the actual day-to-day activities of a Managing Partner can seem like an endless series of nuanced and unexpected short-term challenges that require urgent attention and resolution.
Give Back to Your Firm
My style of managing McDonald Carano reflects my fundamental sense of duty, loyalty, and appreciation to the firm, and I treat the role of Managing Partner with humility, respect, and integrity. I have been elected to continue moving an institution forward that many others helped create, build, and sustain. I understand and admire the firm’s history and how it became the firm I inherited and with which I am entrusted to carry forward. McDonald Carano celebrated its 75th Anniversary in 2024. I am honored to serve as a custodian of the firm’s past 75 years and a steward of its future. Serving as Managing Partner is my opportunity to give back to a firm and its people who have given so much to me starting the day I joined McDonald Carano more than thirty years ago.
About McDonald Carano
In 2024, McDonald Carano celebrated its 75ᵗʰ Anniversary of serving Nevada’s legal, business, government, and civic communities. More than 60 lawyers and government affairs professionals serve Nevada, national, and international clients from our offices in Reno, Las Vegas, and Carson City. McDonald Carano provides transactional, litigation, regulatory, and government affairs services to startups, corporations, private companies, trade associations, nonprofits, public entities, high-net-worth individuals, and family offices throughout Nevada. We are deeply committed to supporting local communities by volunteering our time, resources, and services, including pro bono legal services, to nonprofit organizations, charitable foundations, and public service entities. We are proud to be your Nevada law firm since 1949.
Media Contact
Mark Buckovich
mbuckovich@mcdonaldcarano.com
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