Melanie Chaney & Scott Tiedemann | Passing the Torch: Tips for Seamless Leadership Succession

Elise Holtzman: Hi, everyone. It's Elise Holtzman here, a former practicing lawyer and the host of The Lawyer's Edge podcast. Welcome back for another episode.

Leadership transitions at law firms can be tricky and sometimes downright messy. I'm joined today by two leaders who are doing it right—a long-term managing partner and his successor—who share what it takes to plan ahead, pass the baton gracefully, and build a stronger partnership in the process.

Before we dive in, today's episode is brought to you by the coaching team at The Lawyer's Edge, a training and coaching firm which has been focused exclusively on lawyers and law firms since 2008. Each member of The Lawyer's Edge coaching team is a trained, certified, and experienced professional coach and either a former practicing attorney or a former law firm marketing and business development professional.

Whatever your professional objectives, our coaches can help you achieve your goals more quickly, more easily, and with significantly less stress. To get connected with your coach, just email the team at hello@thelawyersedge.com.

My guests today are Scott Tiedemann and Melanie Chaney, co-managing partners of Liebert Cassidy Whitmore, a firm of about 115 lawyers in five offices focused on representing public agencies, educational institutions, and nonprofits across California in their labor, employment, and education matters.

Scott first joined LCW as an associate in 2000 and became a partner in 2004. When his tenure as managing partner concludes on September 30th of this year—after which I’m guessing he will breathe a sigh of relief to some extent—he will be focusing his energies again full-time on his practice representing public safety agencies and building the firm’s private investigations practice.

Melanie is an experienced labor negotiator and litigator and served as the managing partner of the Los Angeles office before moving into her new role managing firm-wide.

Scott and Melanie, welcome to The Lawyer’s Edge.

Scott Tiedemann: Thank you very much.

Melanie Chaney: Thank you, Elise.

Elise Holtzman: Absolutely. I'm excited to have you here. So I met both of you, I should say, at the Managing Partner Forum’s event in Atlanta this past May. I was particularly fascinated by the idea that you were managing partners who were in the process of changing the guard, if you will, that Scott is rolling off as managing partner and Melanie, you are taking over as managing partner for the foreseeable future.

How did this come to pass? Does your firm have a particular philosophy or approach to leadership succession planning? Because we know that many firms don’t, right? It’s all of a sudden, “Oh my gosh, we need to change something. We haven’t really thought about it. We haven’t been grooming successors to our firm’s leadership.” So what’s going on over at your firm?

Melanie Chaney: This, Elise, is the fourth firm I’ve worked at in my career and the second where I was a partner. One of the things that struck me when I started here 17 years ago is how thoughtful the firm is about leadership and transitions and all of these things.

So the firm’s been around since 1980. I will be its fourth managing partner. Each managing partner before me did it for 15 years each.

One of the things that I have appreciated about the transition is the long runway, if you will, for me to be able to learn from Scott. So maybe two, three years ago, something like that, Scott kept reminding them, “Listen, my tenure is coming up. We need to figure out what we’re doing next.” He did an excellent job of working through the process, which we do by consensus here. So there’s no vote, but we do it by consensus in terms of who would be the next managing partner. So he worked through that. Then last year—last May—we announced that I would be the next managing partner.

Then we spend a year, a full year, full fiscal year co-managing together. Then I take over solo starting October 1st, 2025, which is the beginning of our next fiscal year. So it’s a long runway, a long process, and everybody has buy-in. Then there’s time for me to learn what’s happening and what’s going on and learning all the great things from Scott, who’s done it for 15 years.

I am thrilled that he’s not going off into the sunset, that he will still be two doors down from me for a while as I’m making the transition.

I have to tell you, this has been a very smooth transition. You don’t know what to expect in terms of a transition, but for me, this has been very smooth. I’m sure Scott can talk to you about when it was transitioned from the managing partner before him, who, by the way, is also named Melanie.

It went from Melanie Poturica to Scott to me. So we have an associate named Scott, and I told him, “You better get on deck.”

Elise Holtzman: He better. Yeah. Exactly.

Melanie Chaney: The next one. There you go.

Elise Holtzman: So Scott, I am curious, is this something that happened when you were taking over the reins, or is this a new protocol that you put into place because you felt that it would be valuable?

Scott Tiedemann: No. I wish I could take credit for it, but I really just executed on what was in place when I became co-managing partner myself in 2009. So the last Melanie—Melanie Poturica—asked me at one point in time, prior to May of 2009, “Would I be interested in being the firm’s next managing partner?”

Then they announced it similarly in May at the attorney meeting. Then on October 1, she and I began to co-manage together. So we did that process of co-managing, and I basically replicated the process just 15 years later with Melanie.

Once we went through the process of selecting Melanie—and if you want, I can speak to that—but we went through the process of selecting Melanie, announced it to the firm, and then Melanie and I, beginning October 1 in 2024, began a process of co-managing.

And I guess I’d add that in January of this year, I think it was probably noticeable to Melanie and noticeable to our executive director, Ronnie DeCesare, I made a concerted effort to really begin to back out so that where I may have been the person with maybe the slight foot forward, Melanie, starting in January, really took the reins and effectively has been our managing partner now for six months, and I’m in the background as support.

Elise Holtzman: It sounds like you have a real process in place. I do want to go back for a minute and ask you—as you started to offer—to talk about the process of choosing a managing partner. What were some of the characteristics that you, as a partnership or as an executive committee, were looking for consciously in a managing partner?

Especially with you having been in the role for so long and you knowing what the job entails, what were you looking for? How did you make a determination that Melanie—or perhaps some of the other folks that you considered—might be in the running?

Scott Tiedemann: The process was one of deliberation. So Melanie said that about three years before the end of my tenure, I really began to remind the partners, “My tenure is coming to an end.” I actually think it was probably about four years ago.

Melanie Chaney: Four years, yeah.

Scott Tiedemann: I started to talk to them and get through that process, which is inevitable. It'll happen with Melanie too. People say, “Really? Do we need to make a change? We don't need to make a change, everything has gone fine.”

Then getting people adjusted to the idea there's going to be a change. Also getting people to be thinking about—and that was really the significant part of reminding them that I’ll be stepping back—was to get them thinking about who they thought would be good candidates to be the next managing partner.

Then I had conversations first with the owners and then more broadly with all the partners over the course of a couple of years leading up to the decision. And I met with them one-on-one just to ask them who they thought would be the best next managing partner of the firm.

So I really did a lot of listening, and everybody had their own reasons. I think if you ask me what was the number one factor, I think the number one factor was the ability to effectively communicate with people across the firm, within the partnership, amongst the attorneys, amongst the staff.

The partners, if there was one thing, I think the ability to effectively communicate and motivate people was the number one factor. The second, I think, was somebody that had really bought into the firm’s values and culture and that they thought would effectively carry on that culture after I stepped back.

The really fortunate thing for me was, at the end of it, we didn’t just have one candidate who was the person that could do the job. We had actually multiple people that partners thought could do the job, but Melanie was the consensus pick of the partners.

As she said, we don’t vote. So I had to have the trust of the partners to identify for them, “This is the person that you chose through consensus,” without actually saying, “All right, well, 50.1% of you voted for Melanie, and so therefore she’s the next managing partner.”

Elise Holtzman: Yeah. One of the things I think is interesting that I’m not hearing you say—and I want to point this out because I think it’s so important—is I’m not hearing you say, “Well, we really wanted somebody who was ready, someone who understood all of the economics of the firm or somebody that really did this or that.”

You weren’t really talking about what we might consider to be what we used to call hard skills. You’re talking more about what we could call soft skills, or what I call essential skills. It’s communicating and holding the mission and the vision of the firm and the culture of the firm.

Presumably, some of these other day-to-day type things that a managing partner needs to know about can be learned. I’m sure there’s other stuff, business savvy and all of those sorts of things come into it, but those were not the first two that came to mind for you.

I think that that’s interesting. And I think it’s something that law firm leaders should be thinking about, right? That’s not what it’s all about, especially when you’re talking about a long tenure like the ones that you and your predecessors have had, those sorts of things are very important.

Scott Tiedemann: I think you're right. EQ, I learned to call it, was something that was very important I think in my selection as managing partner, and I think it was the overriding consideration, that ability to effectively communicate with people when Melanie was selected.

People asked me, "Does Melanie have the business acumen to run the firm?" The good thing was that Melanie had been on a leadership kind of runway where she had at first assisted me with managerial tasks in the LA office. Then she had become the LA office managing partner.

So I could tell people with confidence, absolutely, she has the business acumen. I’d been in the room when she’s made difficult business decisions. So it was important to them, but their overriding consideration tended to be her ability to effectively communicate with people so that they felt good about their experience working with the firm.

Elise Holtzman: Melanie, from your perspective, what was this process like? Do you feel that you are being adequately prepared to take this over? Do you feel that you had the characteristics that the firm was looking for? Do you feel like you’ve got to learn some things? What is this whole process looking like from your end?

Melanie Chaney: Let’s go back to four years ago when Scott started saying to the partners, “Hey, I’m going to be stepping down. We need to figure out who’s going to be the next managing partner.” I thought to myself, “Yeah, who is that going to be?” Because literally, this was not my plan.

I didn’t grow up going, “I’m going to be the managing partner of a law firm one day.” I never really thought about it in those terms. I was a practicing lawyer. I enjoyed being a practicing lawyer. It didn’t really occur to me.

I started doing some of the leadership tasks, and luckily for the firm and for me, I enjoyed it and I was good at it. So it was sort of a natural progression.

So four years ago, when he’s mentioning this, I’m thinking, it was a process for me too in my head. I had to think about it. So my first question was, “Can I do this?” Because yes, this is a different job from practicing law. It’s a different job. I am now a CEO of a multimillion-dollar private company. That’s what I am now.

It is different, and there are plenty of things that I’ve never had to consider before. “Are we going to renew this lease in a different office?” All these kinds of things that I’ve never had to think about before.

So my first question was, “Could I?” And I suffered from a little bit of the impostor syndrome and thought, “I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know.”

Then I got past that and I was like, “Yeah, I can do this.” So then the next question is, “Do I want to do this?” Because everyone else has done it for 15 years at a stretch. Scott and I are the same age. Well, he’s two weeks older than me.

So I had to think about, “Okay, do I want to do this? How long do I want to do this?” All these sorts of things. Then I resolved that and was like, “Yes, I can do it. I want to do it. I think I would be good for the firm,” right?

So, those were my three considerations: “Can I do it? Do I want to do it? Is this going to be a good thing for the firm if I do it?” The answer to all those questions was yes.

So I had that conversation with Scott. So I guess that’s effectively sort of putting my hat into the ring for it. Then he went through his process, and then he circled back and he was like, “Great. If you want to do this, yes, we have consensus.” And I was like, “Yes, I’d be honored.” And that’s where that came in.

To answer your second question about, “Do I feel like I had enough time and training?” It’s what I said to you in the beginning, the long runway made it good. So, yes, I had time to get ready.

Plus, it was four years ago when we were having those conversations. So I was kind of already like, “Okay, what can I do to prepare myself, should it be me?” If it’s not me, I still need to know these things because I was managing the LA office and I need to know these things anyway.

So I had a long time to think about it, to prepare, to shore up the places where maybe I didn’t have as much knowledge.

The last thing I want to just say is I trust in our executive team. We have a great executive team that has been put together and cultivated over many years. So where I don't have the expertise, I have other people that I can rely on. That made me feel comfortable.

Elise Holtzman: That's another one of those non-linear, non-brass-tacks terms that I think can be very important for leadership generally and leadership change, which is trust. To be able to have that trust in your team and to know that they are going to teach you and train you and lead you in the right direction is huge.

For both of you, what are the specific steps that you took during this year that you’ve been doing it, or even before that, where you’ve been co-managing partner or in that runway that Melanie references? What are the specific steps you took to help onboard Melanie? You've already mentioned one of them, which is the most recent piece of it, where Scott is stepping back and Melanie is stepping forward. So he's not just leaving you there without training wheels, but he's starting to let go a little bit more and have you feel what it feels like to run the firm on your own.

Scott Tiedemann: I wish I could give a really impressive answer and say this was the concrete step or steps we took. I think it boiled down to Melanie was in the room for every single thing that I did as managing partner.

So going back even years, every performance review, she's been there. Every prep meeting, getting ready for the various different partner meetings, especially since May of 2024, she's been there. So she's literally physically been in the room for all those meetings to see either how well or how not well I handled various different things.

She’s been there and effectively been part of the decision-making. Her input was really valuable to me. It's been fun having her in the meeting. So I think that's the big step. That’s the point of our co-managing roles, is that she has been there for everything.

I learned that from my last managing partner, Melanie, in 2009. We flew everywhere together. We were always on planes together, in cars together. Melanie and I had less travel, I think just the nature of the business has changed. Video conferencing is more prevalent. The last managing partner and I did everything together, and so I tried my best to replicate that, and it seems to have worked.

Elise Holtzman: It's no secret that many law firms don't survive into the second generation, let alone into their fourth managing partner after a long period of time. Your firm was founded in 1980, and you're still going strong. What do you think is the top reason for the firm's long-term stability or long-term ability to thrive?

Melanie Chaney: I'm not sure I know the answer to that. I think it’s numerous things all put together, but mainly, it is a partnership that is all rowing in the same direction.

At my previous firm, where I was a partner, it didn't feel so much like a cohesive partnership that was all rowing in the same direction. It felt more like little fiefdoms of attorneys that sort of just happened to be practicing and sharing admin, basically. But each sort of had their own practice and their own associates that they dealt with, their clients that they dealt with. It was kind of more isolated.

That firm has since pretty much broken up. One of the things that I thought was notably different here is that we don't operate that way. We operate all together. We're rowing in the same direction. Clients are the firm’s clients—not any particular partner’s clients—and we all buy into that.

I think that helps us row in the same direction and think firm first. I think that's one thing. That’s probably the biggest thing. Because of that, everything that we do flows from that, we're rowing in the same direction with one goal.

Then secondly, I would say, sort of related to that, I think that affects what the culture is like. Because the partners aren’t at each other’s throats and we are all cooperating and moving along, that is the culture that we're setting for our associates, staff, everyone.

No place is perfect. There's always going to be some conflict. But that's the other thing, when there is conflict, we don't sweep it under the rug. We don't act like it didn't happen. We address it and we try to move forward. So I think those are the things that stick out to me.

Elise Holtzman: What about you, Scott?

Scott Tiedemann: I'd agree. I'd say the culture is the number one thing. Melanie said the two words, firm first. Every generation in the firm’s history has committed to that value.

We have firm core values, which are really important. We talk about them at the meetings. People make decisions based on them. But they can be boiled down to “firm first.”

The first generation of partners—meaning the name partners, Liebert, Cassidy, and Whitmore—all made decisions to give up their ownership interests in the firm in the interest of the next generation of firm partners and to establish a compensation system that would lead to what Melanie and I have benefited from.

I think the firm probably ultimately would have perished if they had done what so many other law firms have done over time, which is to establish a compensation system that benefits people long past their most productive years and long past their hardest working years.

Here, we've set up a compensation system. Everybody's rowing in the same direction, as Melanie said. It’s firm first. If you're going to be an equity partner in this law firm, you work hard to the last day.

Then, at that point, people are actually willing to give up their share, their stake, in the interest of the next generation. Like, for example, we have a rule: you have to announce when you're going to be leaving the equity partnership five years before you do.

That’s a very hard decision for people to make. It requires a lot of advanced planning, but people do it because it's in the best interest of the firm.

I think about when I first became managing partner. I was 39 years old, and I was leading the people that had hired me. And they put firm first. They could have told me to pound sand. They could have told me, “I'm not going to listen to you. You can tell other people what to do, but not me. I was your boss.” Not a single one of them ever did that.

It was an illustration of putting the firm first. They knew that they needed me to succeed. I think there are ongoing examples where people continue to put the firm’s interest first, which I think has ultimately ended up causing everybody in the firm to benefit.

Melanie and I talked about it, that's going to be, I think, one of Melanie’s top challenges. When I became managing partner, I think we were about 40–45 attorneys. We're now 115. When I became managing partner, we were three offices. Now we're five.

So trying to make sure—and she’s made this our number one initiative—trying to make sure that that culture persists in a bigger law firm is going to be a challenge.

Elise Holtzman: I think for some people listening to this episode, they're going to say, “Wow, I wish we could have that at our firm.” And it almost sounds too good to be true.

Would it be fair to say that over the years, there have been some people that haven't been a good fit for that culture? That you made hires, let's say, that were not a good fit and people had to part ways? Or there were people that had to be told, “Hey, don't forget, this is the culture of the firm. If you've got sharp elbows and you're not committed to the way we do things here, it’s not a good fit for you”? Or have you been so good at it that you've never run into any of those sorts of challenges?

Scott Tiedemann: Since I’ve been a partner, we’ve really been very lucky to avoid that. In the firm more broadly, I’ve absolutely made mistakes.

I think, in looking back, if I were to identify one of my regrets, it would be that I didn’t move quickly enough in certain instances to remove people that were either underperformers or who I knew weren’t acting consistent with the firm’s core values. I think sometimes I was probably too nice.

And I think it's really important—and that’s one of Melanie’s real strengths—and it has nothing to do with... It could come off incorrectly that I am suggesting that Melanie’s not as nice as me. But she—

Melanie Chaney: I was going to say it. I was going to say it. I'm not as nice as Scott. People think I am, though, Elise. People think I'm nicer than Scott, but they don’t know that I’m not.

Scott Tiedemann: Melanie's really committed to that, to making decisions to remove people from the firm sooner who don't act consistent with those values.

Melanie Chaney: Well, because your culture is only as good as your weakest link, right? It's not easy. I'm half-joking when I say I'm not as nice as Scott. I mean, I'm a people person. I like people. It is important to me that people feel heard and that they're given a chance to succeed here and to do all of those things.

But if it's not working and I can see that, then yes, we will work on a path out. Because keeping the culture here is important. As Scott says, the bigger that we get, it's going to be harder to do. There are going to be more times when we maybe didn't make the best choice, right? Just because there are so many. There are so many of us.

Elise Holtzman: Well, and ultimately, it's not good for the people themselves. If there's not a culture fit there, they're not happy either. While it's not easy, as both of you point out—nobody wants to let people go, nobody wants to have that difficult conversation, but as you said, in your culture, it's firm first and you've got to worry about or be concerned with what's best for the firm.

Scott, you started to mention the challenges that Melanie may face in terms of the size of the firm, the growth of the firm. What do both of you think are the top challenges that your firm—and other firms like it, firms that are growing—will confront in the coming years? What do you see on the horizon?

Scott Tiedemann: I think we're actually taking concrete steps. I think we just made an important hire to attack the first challenge. But I think one of the key challenges the firm is going to face is AI.

I just think it's going to change the nature of the practice of law. It's not here today, and I can't completely envision how it's going to change it. But it's here. It's here to stay, and I think it's going to potentially change the model that has been our model for business success.

You've got so many levers that you can pull to increase the amount of revenues, from raising your rates to increasing the number of billable hours to increasing the headcount. I think one of the things that struck me at the most recent meeting in Atlanta was how many law firms are talking about the challenge of increasing the number of hours. I don't think that's a long-term avenue for success.

So then you're left with raising headcount and raising rates. I think with AI, there's probably going to be a challenge in raising the headcount because I think so much of what we do now might actually end up being performed by AI.

I think we could probably raise our rates because we're going to be doing really, really expert work. But that base of hours that maybe a number of associates perform and generating revenues that way, Melanie and the partners will be challenged to think about how to replace that.

The other thing is, in the long run, I still think we are benefitting from, fueled by, the years leading up to 2019–2020, when we were in person and together more often. We're doing so much more remotely and there are so many more attorneys that work so many more hours from their homes or other places.

That, in the long run, I think that's going to have an impact, or it will be a challenge for Melanie, the partners, to manage that firm culture. I think in some ways, it's easier. This is incredible that we're doing a podcast and you're in New York, we're in Los Angeles, and I feel like I'm actually spending valuable time with you.

On the other hand, I don't think anything can replace being in person together. Melanie has made that a real initiative. When we are together, she's really worked hard to make sure that the time that we spend together—meaning as members of the firm—is valuable, oftentimes fun.

But with so many people being apart, I think that presents a challenge to maintain a culture in the long run. Those are the two things that I think probably challenge the way that we've operated to this point.

Elise Holtzman: It sounds like you have a strong partnership. You've spoken very highly of your partners. You've spoken about the consensus model. You've spoken about this idea that everybody has similar values, has bought into the firm culture, moving ahead in the same direction.

Based on your experiences, what would you recommend to a law firm that's seeking to strengthen their partnership? Because we do hear a lot of things about partners not necessarily getting along with each other, not seeing eye to eye, having the sharp elbows where origination is concerned or decision-making is concerned.

When you talk to your peers, what are some of the things you tell them, or would like to tell them if they'd be willing to listen?

Scott Tiedemann: Over the years, we have gotten expert help at different points, and not necessarily because we were ever in a crisis mode. Meaning, bringing in consultants to take an honest look at us and what we're doing well and things that we could do better.

It was an outside consultant that helped the firm adopt the compensation scheme that it has now, that I think has really lent itself to a positive culture. So I brought in experts. I would support Melanie if Melanie said, "I'd like to bring in some people from the outside to look at what we're doing, how we're doing it, and could we do it better?"

Working on the firm culture, and maybe that would require bringing in an expert to talk to the partners in a retreat-type setting about the importance of culture and getting people to commit, I think it's a process, getting people to commit to that culture.

I would say removing—I heard a conflict resolution person talk about it recently as wedges. I think compensation schemes can be a real wedge. That honestly struck me at the meeting in Atlanta more than it had in the past, where new managing partners were talking about having to manage the expectations of other partners around who gets credit for what clients, who gets compensated at what levels, trying to figure out the decimal points.

So when you're focused on that, then you're not focused on the relationships and the trust and the culture, which all sounds corny, but it's really worked here. So trying to identify what are the wedges, and then remove those wedges.

It seems to me, in talking to managing partners over the years, one of the key wedges is often the compensation system. I think I talked in Atlanta about the fact that when people talk around the table at those meetings about compensation, we are so weird. The way that we do things, we just don't have those formulas.

I think, again, Melanie and I talked about one of the challenges we will face over time is our business model has expanded at the margins. You know, we were a labor and employment law firm that focused really on just public entities. But we've expanded to nonprofits and education law and business law. And being able to keep the fabric of the partnership tightly woven, I think that'll be a challenge over time.

But we don't have to worry about the decimal points and doing that. I think that's key. And Melanie already identified one. I do think identifying people that tear at the fabric and getting rid of them sooner than later is, I can't actually think of an example where I let somebody stay so long as they actually were able to successfully create a tear in the fabric. But I do think that I've been impressed by Melanie’s willingness to say, "We have to move past certain individuals sooner than later."

Elise Holtzman: Well, there's a saying that we should all hire slowly and fire quickly. I think that for most of us, we probably don't do it in the right proportions.

Scott, you mentioned something that was glossed over a little bit, but I think it's really important and I just want to tease it out for a second, which is that at all of your partnership meetings, you're talking about the values of the firm.

We know that many, many organizations will go through that exercise early on in the life of their organization where they all sit down and they hammer out the values of the organization and the brand promises and those sorts of things. And what I see in the work I do is that what often happens is that then gets, "Okay, we did that thing, we now throw it on the shelf," and we just move forward in any way we see fit and we forget what the values are.

Or the values that were chosen to put on the piece of paper are more in the nature of, "Wouldn't it be nice to have this?" rather than, "That's actually how we make decisions."

This is the foundation for the decisions we make, and every action we take is in alignment with these values. So to the extent that you are successfully reminding people—whether it's the entire partnership or the entire firm, including your associates and other professional staff—that this is what's important to the life cycle of the firm and the operation of the firm, I think that's really important.

Scott Tiedemann: Melanie has made that a pillar of her leadership. For example, if you walked into her office, on the wall are the firm values. It's not the picture of the eagle landing in the water catching the fish. It says, whatever. She's got the actual firm core values.

When I became managing partner, one of the first things we did is we changed the first line of the values. Maybe because I couldn't think of anything else to talk about with my partners. But we actually talked about the fact that when I was newly a managing partner, I was also concerned about the expanding firm and whether or not we could stick to those firm core values.

So we talked about in the first line of the core values that we are underscore one firm with a singular commitment to the following firm core values. Then when people go to orientation, they learn about them. When they go to attorney meetings, they learn about them. Our staff learns about them.

If you look at our internal trainings and you look at the PowerPoints, they're usually at the beginning, and they're not usually glossed over. Melanie has really leaned into that since she's become managing partner, which I think is really important.

Elise Holtzman: So Melanie, yeah, let's take it over to you for a minute. What kind of advice would you be giving other law firm leaders at this juncture?

Melanie Chaney: To your point about, most firms know they need to do that, right? So they make their values, and then it sits in their drawer. One of the things that, when I started here, Melanie Poturica was the managing partner, and she talked about them. And then when Scott took over, he talked about them.

One of the things that I think I am learning is the importance of repetition. Because there are things that seem obvious to me that maybe are not obvious to everyone else, or we've talked about it, but now we have new partners or all of the things. So you have to just keep repeating it kind of over and over.

One of the things that Scott did during his tenure that I always really appreciated is, if we had a speaker come talk to us about wellness, he would take what that person said and then connect it to our firm values. So anything that we learn, we see how they connect to our firm values.

It's not a long list; there are seven of them. So it's like seven very core values. We didn’t do this three-page thing. It's very simple, but almost anything we do can be traced back to that.

When I see somebody in the firm—lawyer or staff—do something that is an example of our core values, I'm championing it. I'm sending out a message about that, like, "Look, this is an example of our core values."

So this past November, when we had our partner business meeting where we looked at strategic plans for the next year, I talked about our firm values and I talked about our culture and the importance of protecting our culture. One of the things that came out of it was somebody from our marketing department said, "It would be nice if the firm values were somewhere where everybody could see all the time."

So coming out of the meeting, one of the things that I did was, when you go onto our intranet now, it's the first thing you see. So you can see all the things that you can get to, but right on the right side are the seven firm [values]. So they're there.

As Scott says, I have them in my office along with a Ted Lasso Believe sign, so those are the things that I have in my office. It's in my eyesight right now. So I can look at it, and I do think about that.

So when the phone rings or somebody comes in my office and tells me something, because that's one of the things that I've had to learn, is that every day as a managing partner is different. You don't know what issue somebody is going to come to you with on any given day.

I have to go back to, "Okay, how am I dealing with this? I need to go back to our core value to figure out what it is that I need to do," and just remembering that whatever decision is made needs to be a firm-first decision.

Elise Holtzman: I think this is a huge reminder to every law firm leader—and even people who aren't leading law firms—to remind everybody, "What are our values? Are we operating in accordance with our values? Are we hiring and firing in accordance with our values? Are we serving our clients in accordance with our values? Taking on new matters in accordance with our values? Treating one another the way we expect in accordance with our values?"

I think that many times the answer to that is no. Because as you say, Melanie, even with all of the repetition that the prior Melanie did and that Scott has done and that you're doing, people sometimes aren't understanding how they can get incorporated into their everyday lives.

I want to also ask you about one another. Scott, what have you learned from Melanie? And Melanie, what have you learned from Scott?

Melanie Chaney: I have learned so much from Scott, so, so much. I know that I will continue to learn so much from Scott. But I think the importance of consensus building, the importance of leading with empathy, I think are the two things that I have learned from Scott that I think will help guide me as I move along.

Because building consensus—as we get bigger, that gets harder to do—but being able to do that and lead with empathy on all of the things that come up and genuinely listening to people.

So Scott and I don't always agree. We don't. We don't always agree on things. But the one thing I can say is, I feel like he's always taken my point of view into consideration. Even if we didn't end up where I thought we should end up, I know that I was heard, he was taking it into consideration, and he respected me. So that is something that I want to convey to people and incorporate into my leadership.

Scott Tiedemann: With regard to Melanie, I wish I had had the opportunity to work with her more closely at the outset of my managing partner tenure.

I think in general, I'm a good communicator. But the level at which Melanie is able to communicate with people—especially in those very difficult one-on-one communications—to deliver a difficult message very directly, honestly, in a way that people are never confused about what the message is that's being delivered to them and yet appreciate how they're being spoken to, if I had Melanie's example to observe earlier in my career, I think I could have benefited from that. She's a really strong communicator—something we touched on in the beginning—but I do have a great amount of respect for her ability to sit down across the table from somebody and communicate to them very directly what needs to be communicated.

Usually in a way that they end up appreciating just how direct she was with them, I really would have benefited from that.

Elise Holtzman: Fantastic. Well, this sounds like it's been a great partnership and will continue to be. As we wrap up our time here together today, I want to ask you—and I'll ask both of you, of course—the following question.

There's a phenomenon called the curse of knowledge, where experts sometimes forget that what is so obvious and natural to them is not at all obvious to others. When it comes to law firm leadership, running an organization on a day-to-day basis, what's a principle or piece of advice that may seem obvious to you, but you think is important for people to hear?

Melanie Chaney: I think it is the importance of keeping your North Star in mind, so knowing what your core values are and making sure that you're acting in accordance with them.

So that seems simple, right? That seems like a simple concept. There are only seven of them. They're not that hard. Everybody knows them. But the importance of really running everything that you're doing, how you're behaving, how you're communicating with people, through them is something that I think is really important.

That's something that I would recommend to other people, other leaders, to take stock of what those core values are and continue to act in accordance with them.

Elise Holtzman: As you suggest, easier said than done. So it could be easy to let those things go. I think holding onto those values and acting in accordance with them, even when it gets hard to do it. So that’s great. Thank you for that. Scott?

Scott Tiedemann: I think to learn to effectively delegate. So empower people and then get out of the way.

I will never forget a conversation that I had with our IT director, Jay Dover. It was in the middle of the pandemic. It was in one of those weird zombie apocalypse times where nobody was in the office. It was the evening, and only he and I were in the office. And he stopped me, and he asked me a question. He said, "How do you do it?" I said, "Do what?"

He said, "Run the firm."

I had to stop and think about it. And it was, I've got a lot of really smart people that are working very hard, and I think I let them do it. And I don't worry about it.

When I find that, even within our firm, where there are leaders that tend to micromanage and have to be part of every single decision, they reach a ceiling. But if you allow people, I think I'm an example of that principle, and I think Melanie is an example of that principle.

I think Melanie and I could both come up with the names of the people that we think are likely the next managing partners of the firm after Melanie's done. I think what we've successfully done is given them opportunities, given them the authority to make decisions, and then gotten out of the way and recognized their success.

Elise Holtzman: It's another great piece of advice that many lawyers can't deal with because they're so intent on getting things done the right way that they say, "If I want something done right, I have to do it myself."

As you say, Scott, it does create a ceiling because there are only so many hours in a day. So I think the mark of a good leader—or one of the marks of a good leader, because we've talked about so many of them—is being able to have that trust, to do the training, to not view it as a cost of time, but to view it as an investment of time, so that you can rise to the challenge and become a leader.

If you continue to be an individual contributor all the time, because you have to do it yourself, you never have the opportunity to become that leader.

Scott Tiedemann: We have one of the core values of the firm: "What can be delegated must be delegated."

Elise Holtzman: Love that, yeah.

Scott Tiedemann: We actually—on an individual scale—we have a leadership academy. And we know when we talk to people that are aspiring partners, that we think are actually getting very close to being partners, that's their number one challenge is nobody can do it as well as they can do it.

So they tend to want to do it themselves. But then they come to the realization, "If I always do it myself, then I'm going to be capped out." So that's an example of one of the firm core values.

So I would tell somebody, delegate whatever you can and let people do the work, because they'll become leaders themselves.

Elise Holtzman: Yeah, so great advice from both of you. I want to thank both of you, Scott and Melanie, for being here today. This has been a really interesting conversation. I love your partnership. I wish you continued success.

Melanie, I know this is a very exciting time for you as well, so good luck with all of that. I also want to thank our listeners for tuning in today. If you've enjoyed today’s show, please subscribe, rate, and review us at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app.

In the meantime, be bold, take action, and make things happen. We'll see you next time.