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Managing Partner Magazine presents:

THE FIRST 100 DAYS-
Master Class for the New Managing Partner

A unique master class designed to help you hone critical skills and develop a plan for a
successful transition as you move into your role as your firm’s new leader

August 26th, 2008
University of Chicago Gleacher Center
Chicago, IL

This Master Class will be
facilitated by:

Patrick J. McKenna, Principal, Edge International and
Brian K. Burke, Chair Emeritus, Baker & Daniels, LLP

It may not be fair, but it’s true: Your first few months as Managing Partner or Law Firm Chair—the time when you are just starting to grasp the dimensions of your new job—may well turn out to be the most crucial in setting the stage for a tenure that hopefully should last for years.

In spite of how well your peers might claim to know you, during those first few months, your formal decisions, informal behavior, and symbolic acts will be closely scrutinized. Everything you do and say will send messages, set tone, establish expectations, and communicate direction about what is of importance to you.

While these first 100 days will present a unique window of opportunity, they also hold potential for others to misunderstand you. How quickly you swing into action as the new leader, for example, might provide a basis for your peers to characterize your management style as rash, purposeful, or indecisive. Your selection of colleagues within the firm for consultation on your early decisions will fuel others' notions that you’re inclusive, authoritarian, or even playing favorites. Your colleagues might rush to label you as fair or arbitrary; a visionary or a cautious bureaucrat. Some might even try test your authority in the early going.

Your early decisions will shape perceptions of you that may persist for years. In addition, the breakneck pace at which the world moves today will afford you little time to adapt to your new role. These six steps to your ‘First 100 Days’ will help guide your efforts:

Begin Before The Handoff
Plug Your Gaps
Establish Performance Standards
Seize Your Day
Set Your Agenda
Exploit Early Successes

Ark Group/Managing Partner Magazine’s First 100 Days, Master Class for the New Managing Partner is a highly interactive, next-generation forum researched with and developed exclusively for new Managing Partners, Firm Chairs who want to learn how to be effective in their new roles, learn how to work effectively with their peers and explore where to direct limited and precious leadership time in order to maximize their impact.

This meeting will be held at the University of Chicago Gleacher Center - located at 450 North Cityfront Plaza Drive Chicago, IL 60611— conveniently located in the heart of Chicago's business community just blocks away from the Loop and steps away from Magnificent Mile shopping, restaurants and hotels. For information regarding rates at nearby hotels please contact Peter Franken at Pfranken@ark-group.com or at 773 281 4275. We hope to see you there!

To read what the managing partners who attended previous master classes have had to say about their initial leadership experiences, download the following article

About Your Master Class Leaders

Patrick J. McKenna (www.patrickmckenna.com) is an internationally recognized authority on law practice management.  Since 1983 he has worked with the top management of premier law firms to discuss, challenge, and escalate their thinking on how to manage and compete effectively.

He is the author of numerous works including Herding Cats: A Handbook for Managing Partners and Practice Leaders (1995); and Beyond Knowing: 16 Cage-Rattling Questions To Jump-Start Your Practice Team (2000).  One of the profession's foremost specialists in practice leadership, his book (co-authored with David Maister), First Among Equals: How to Manage a Group of Professionals, (The Free Press, 2002) topped business bestseller lists in the United States, Canada and Australia; has been translated into nine languages, is currently in its sixth printing, and received an award for being one of the best business books of 2002.  In 2005, the book Management Skills (John Wiley) named McKenna among “leading thinkers in the field of management;” and in 2006, his e-book First 100 Days: Transitioning A New Managing Partner (NXTBook) earned glowing reviews and has been read by leaders in 63 countries.

His published articles have appeared in over 50 of the leading professional journals, newsletters, and online sources; and his work has been featured in Fast Company, Business Week, The Globe and Mail, The Economist, Investor’s Business Daily and The Financial Times.

McKenna is the founder of Edge International, one of the top three highest rated management consultancies serving law firms. He did his MBA graduate work at the Canadian School of Management, is one of the first alumni of Harvard’s Leadership in Professional Service Firms program, and has professional certifications in both accounting and management.  He has served at least one of the top ten largest firms in each of over a dozen different countries on issues associated with strategic differentiation, improving profitability, client service excellence, and effective firm management.

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Brian K. Burke is Chair Emeritus at Baker & Daniels.  Brian's civil litigation practice concentrates in the areas of business torts and unfair competition, employment, intellectual property, securities and products liability. He is also a Certified, Registered Civil Mediator in Indiana.

Burke is a frequent speaker at law firm management seminars and conferences. His presentations include: "Cultivating the Client-Focused Firm Through Proactive Leadership at the Strategic Business Unit," Keynote Speaker, Practice Group Leadership Forum, Managing Partner Magazine Seminar, Chicago, 2007; "Ask the Client — A Program for Assessing Performance," Best Practices for Law Firm Management Conference, Miami, 2006; "Empowering the Firm's COO and CFO to Run the Business of the Firm Like a Business," The Law Firm Leadership Institute Conference, 2005; "Law Firm Governance," Lex Mundi Managing Partners' Conference, London, 2003; and "Using Compensation Systems as a Management Tool," The Law Firm Partner Compensation Summit, Chicago, 2002

Brian completed his 18th year in a leadership position at Baker & Daniels in 2007. Elected to the Management Committee in 1990, the firm appointed him Managing Partner in January 1993. In his 15 years as Chair and Chief Executive Officer, Brian led Baker & Daniels' expansion geographically across Indiana and around the globe, as well as doubling the number of lawyers and consultants practicing from offices in Indiana, Washington, D.C. and China. B&D Consulting, a division of Baker & Daniels, also grew in numbers and services, providing a national multidisciplinary team of government affairs, health reimbursement, media and public relations professionals from its office in Washington, D.C.

In addition, Burke helped conceive and implement initiatives to improve and expand service to clients, accommodate more flexible work schedules for the firm's attorneys, raise the firm's visibility in the marketplace, enhance the firm's support of the communities in which its offices are located and strategize for the future needs and interests of Baker & Daniels, B&D Consulting and their clients.