How I Made Managing Partner: George Ogilvie Shares Leadership Advice and Insights

Law.com produces a law firm leadership series titled “How I Made Managing Partner.” In a feature Q&A published on January 31, 2025, George Ogilvie, Managing Partner of McDonald Carano, shares his advice and insights on the questions listed below. George’s Q&A is provided below and available here as a PDF.

George was promoted to Firm leadership in 1994, the same year he was promoted to Partner. He joined McDonald Carano in 1992, and in 1994 was elected to the partnership of the Firm, and became the Managing Partner of the Las Vegas office and a member of the Executive Committee. In 2019, George was elected to serve as Firm Managing Partner.

1. As a law firm leader, what impact would you like to have on your firm?
2. Were there any surprises you faced after becoming a leader at the firm?
3. What’s been the biggest change, day-to-day, in your routine since becoming a leader at the firm?
4. What do you think was the deciding point for the firm in elevating you to your current position?
5. What advice would you give to someone whose goal is to ascend to firm leadership?
6. Who had the greatest influence in your career that helped propel you to your leadership role?
7. Knowing what you know now, if you had a chance to advise or mentor your younger self, what advice would you give to yourself and/or what would you do differently?
8. What is the one behavior or trait that you have seen derail more leaders’ careers?
9. Do you have a prediction on how the legal industry will evolve over the next several years?
10. Please share with us any firm or industry initiatives that you are working on as well as the impact you hope to achieve.
11. How do you utilize technology to benefit the firm/practice and/or business development?

Q&A: HOW I MADE MANAGING PARTNER

1. As a law firm leader, what impact would you like to have on your firm?

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 thirty years ago. McDonald Carano has a proud history, and I want to do my part to continue that history for the next generations. I am driven by a sense of duty, loyalty, and appreciation, and I treat the role of Managing Partner with the utmost humility, respect, and integrity. I have been elected to continue moving an institution forward that many others have helped create, build, and sustain. I understand and admire the Firm’s history to become the Firm I inherited and with which I am entrusted to carry forward. McDonald Carano celebrated its 75^th Anniversary in 2024. I am honored to serve as a custodian of the Firm’s past 75 years and a steward of its future opportunities.

2. Were there any surprises you faced after becoming a leader at the firm?

Before becoming Managing Partner, I understood the position would require an unwavering dedication to the Firm and defending the interests of the Firm above the self-interests of any quarter. I also envisioned leadership responsibilities that would require setting benchmarks and leading by example in every component of the Firm. What I did not fully appreciate, perhaps naively, was the degree to which consensus building would play a part in daily decision-making. Certainly, from observing prior managing partners, I was aware of the need to build consensus, but I was surprised to learn that the process of decision making is nearly as important as the decision itself. Law firm management can get it right every time, but, without transparency and collaboration, even relatively insignificant determinations can become contentious issues that undermine not only the decision at issue but the judgment of those making it. Thankfully, building consensus is a quality that is recognized by others at the Firm in their managing partners; otherwise, the partners would not have placed their colleague in the role of Managing Partner to begin with. And it is a skill that can be honed with some effort.

3. What’s been the biggest change, day-to-day, in your routine since becoming a leader at the firm?

The biggest change in my daily routine since becoming Managing Partner is change itself. The scope, scale, and pace of change seems to rapidly increase every year. Change has always existed, and change is positive and healthy for an organization, but interpreting, managing, and shepherding change has become an ever-growing part of every day. The nature of change has also changed. In prior years, the changes I dealt with can generally be described as relating to “running a business,” meaning external changes in the economy, client industries, and market competition, or internal changes such as implementing new technology across the firm. Today, the changes I deal with also extend to navigating the Firm through the impacts of social, cultural, and political factors that previously traditionally existed outside the walls of business. The changes I deal with today are also truly transformational to both the business and practice of law, such as AI and COVID’s introduction of a remote workplace and workforce. The other biggest change in my daily routine is that so much change makes it increasingly difficult to establish a daily routine. While leading a Firm requires a focused, strategic, and well-planned long-term outlook, the actual day-to-day activities can often seem more like an endless series of nuanced and unexpected challenges that require urgent attention and resolution. In essence, the biggest change in my daily routine has been to be ready for more change and function with less routine.

4. What do you think was the deciding point for the firm in elevating you to your current position?

Electing a Managing Partner involves assessing a myriad of personal characteristics, including consensus-building and decision-making, as well as professional qualifications, including leadership skills and business acumen. Most requirements apply to Managing Partner candidates at all law firms and additional criteria reflect the unique needs of the specific firm. While I was not privy to what might have been “the deciding point” for being elected to Managing Partner at McDonald Carano, I believe a primary factor was the confidence among the partnership that I would serve as an institutionalist committed to placing the best interests of the Firm above all else. A Managing Partner’s most important role is to be the uniting voice of the Firm to uphold the ultimate responsibility for serving as the protector of the institution’s legacy and future. Throughout my three decades at McDonald Carano, I consistently demonstrate my ability to evaluate and act in a transparent, impartial, objective, and fair manner on behalf of the Firm as an institution. The “deciding point” at any Firm is that 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.

5. What advice would you give to someone whose goal is to ascend to firm leadership?

Ascending to law firm leadership, particularly Managing Partner, requires the understanding and acceptance of the fact that it is a position of authority, but it cannot be executed in an authoritarian manner. On the contrary, it must be conducted with an innate and acute sense of diplomacy. Those interested in leadership should be confident in their ability to operate in an environment that may seem contradictory in that it relies on consensus-building while simultaneously being prepared to make difficult decisions when a majority cannot be achieved. Managing Partners need to navigate the reality that the business of law is individualized by nature. Lawyers make their own decisions about the areas of law they practice, clients they prefer to serve, and the strategy for each matter. A lawyer’s book of business is individually developed through years of one-on-one relationships with clients and referral sources. As a result, Managing Partners lead a generally independent and sometimes autonomous constituency. Energy, drive, and confidence are valuable characteristics of independent people. Managing Partners need to figure out how to harness those characteristics on behalf of the Firm. The key is focusing on motivating toward the big picture and making sure everyone keeps the same big picture in mind.

6. Who had the greatest influence in your career that helped propel you to your leadership role?

McDonald Carano celebrated its 75^th anniversary in 2024. I have been at McDonald Carano for three decades and it is an honor and privilege to serve as one of only four Managing Partners in the Firm’s history. One of those Managing Partners, Leo Bergin, has had the greatest influence on my career — not only because he hired me, but also because he served as our Managing Partner for 30 years. Leo dedicated extraordinary professional commitment and personal sacrifice as our Managing Partner from 1972 to 2002, and he continues to come into the office every day. Leo personifies our Firm’s foundational culture of respect, concern, and care for all employees. Upon joining the Firm, Leo took it upon himself to create the sound financial structure that enabled the Firm to finance and construct its own office building less than one year later. That is only one example of major milestones in our Firm’s history that were engineered by Leo. He is more than an influence; he is a mentor and an inspiration.

7. Knowing what you know now, if you had a chance to advise or mentor your younger self, what advice would you give to yourself and/or what would you do differently?

When I look at the current state of civility in the legal profession and the image the public holds of our profession, it is something I never imagined would have happened when I was in the early stages of my career. However, looking back on my formative days as a lawyer, I remember observing practitioners in and outside the courtroom demonstrating an intensely unwavering commitment in the representation of their clients. In hindsight, I recognize what I would have advised myself at that time – be cautious and careful not to become so consumed in my representation that I lose my perspective and exhibit behaviors that are not ideal. Looking back, I wonder if I could I have been more humble or collegial in times when I faced extreme stress or overwhelming challenges in a case – or was so fixated in ensuring my client’s victory. Moreover, did I ever respond to opposing counsel’s inappropriate behavior with equally inappropriate behavior? We have a duty not to cause the fray and we have a duty to rise above the fray. We have an obligation to instill civility and consummate professionalism in ourselves and our mentees. My most important advice would have been that effective representation never requires or justifies incivility.

8. What is the one behavior or trait that you have seen derail more leaders’ careers?

To be successful, leaders in all professions need to understand the difference between leading and managing, and know when to be one instead of the other. Leadership is more akin to establishing what ultimately needs to happen, while managing is more hands-on with direct 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. In my experience, despite the actual title, a Managing Partner’s success depends more on leading than managing. For example, the strategic plan is the road map for achieving a 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 and not telling everyone what to do or how to do it also enables others to develop innovative approaches and solutions. A leader who manages too much could end up inadvertently stifling an organization. A leader’s career can be derailed or become frustratingly exhaustive if they believe they have to, on their own, know everything and solve every problem.

9. Do you have a prediction on how the legal industry will evolve over the next several years?

The difficulty of predicting the evolution of the legal profession was demonstrated by the COVID-19 pandemic and the overnight transformation to remote operations and a remote workforce. Before COVID, the legal profession was not pontificating or envisioning a short- or long-term remote – or even hybrid – business model and workforce. COVID was the legal profession’s stress test and many were unsure we could survive. Our profession underwent revolutionary, not evolutionary, change. However, COVID demonstrates what we can predict and that is the legal profession is remarkably creative and resilient in the face of the unexpected. In addition to future unknowns, the legal profession’s ongoing evolution will reflect our response to factors of change of which we are already aware. Those evolutionary changes begin at the start of the profession, including admissions programs that bypass the LSAT, states creating their own bar exams, and alternatives to attorney licensing such as apprentice plans for those who do not pass a bar exam. Current evolutionary changes also affect the business model of providing legal services, including litigation finance, nonlawyer ownership in organizations that provide legal services, non-attorneys providing limited legal services, and the increasing number of global law firms surpassing $3 billion in revenue. And perhaps the most profound evolutionary change will be determined by the recent partisan politicization of the legal profession and its role in democracy, combined with a polarized society’s respect for and trust in, or lack thereof, the rule of law and the system of justice.

10. Please share with us any firm or industry initiatives that you are working on as well as the impact you hope to achieve.

In 2020, McDonald Carano formally created a Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Committee to help integrate DEI throughout the Firm, position the Firm as a DEI leader in Nevada’s legal profession, and advance inclusion throughout the state’s legal community. The committee’s fast progress is demonstrated by numerous awards and recognitions. Less than two years after the committee was created, the December 15, 2022, issue of The State Bar of Nevada eNews featured our firm in an article titled “McDonald Carano Values Diversity in All Functions.” In 2023, the State Bar of Nevada launched a new DEI recognition program and McDonald Carano proudly received the first “Partner in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” medallion in recognition of our DEI initiatives. In November 2024, McDonald Carano received the Law Firm of the Year Award from the Las Vegas Chapter of the National Bar Association, an association of predominantly Black American legal professionals. These public recognitions of our accomplishments help us achieve the ultimate impact we hope for, which is to serve as an inspiration for other firms and to provide an example of what can be achieved through a DEI Committee that involves participation from everyone at the firm, including Executive Committee, Practice Group leaders, office management, administrative departments, and all levels of attorneys and professional staff.

11. How do you utilize technology to benefit the firm/practice and/or business development? 

As Managing Partner at McDonald Carano, my top priority is to clear obstacles and create efficiencies so attorneys can concentrate on client service – a priority that benefits clients, attorneys, and the Firm. My goal is to provide our attorneys with an unobstructed platform that helps them excel at the aspects of their profession about which they are passionate. Technology has proven to be the greatest tool in achieving this goal. Throughout the Firm, we leverage technology in how we operate our business, practice law, and serve clients. Years ago, it would have been possible to identify one or two examples of how a law firm uses technology. Today, I cannot think of any aspect of our Firm that does not take advantage of technology. In the past, technology was often viewed as ancillary to the practice of law. It was seen as a periodic tool to streamline a specific administrative task or process on an incremental basis. In contrast, today’s technology advancements such as generative AI are boldly entering the heretofore protected sanctuary of substantive legal research and law. The legal profession is entering an era that other businesses, industries, and professions have been confronting for decades – truly disruptive technology.

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