Get set for an insightful exchange as host Donna DiMaggio Berger dives into the world of effective leadership with guest, Gary C. Rosen, Managing Shareholder and the commanding force behind Becker & Poliakoff. Donna and Gary discuss what leadership truly means, and the qualities one must possess to successfully influence and inspire others to work toward a common goal or vision. Throughout their conversation, they look at Gary’s transition from a litigator to a top leadership role, while focusing on the differentiators that set Becker apart from other law firms.
Embracing change is never easy, it's a tale as old as time. Donna and Gary look at Becker’s transformative journey, including some resistance when Becker moved its headquarters, and how Gary faced the winds of change head-on. In this episode, they illuminate the valuable lessons that can be gleaned from these experiences, from leading a law firm during a global pandemic to cultivating positive changes within the community.
Fasten your seatbelts as they unravel the nuances of running a successful community association practice, emphasizing adaptability, teamwork, and staying abreast of changing laws. They also discuss the importance of understanding client expectations and the vital role of recreational activities in managing stress. Prepare yourself for an episode brimming with unforgettable insights and experiences!
Conversation highlights include:
BONUS:
Get set for an insightful exchange as host Donna DiMaggio Berger dives into the world of effective leadership with guest, Gary C. Rosen, Managing Shareholder and the commanding force behind Becker & Poliakoff. Donna and Gary discuss what leadership truly means, and the qualities one must possess to successfully influence and inspire others to work toward a common goal or vision. Throughout their conversation, they look at Gary’s transition from a litigator to a top leadership role, while focusing on the differentiators that set Becker apart from other law firms.
Embracing change is never easy, it's a tale as old as time. Donna and Gary look at Becker’s transformative journey, including some resistance when Becker moved its headquarters, and how Gary faced the winds of change head-on. In this episode, they illuminate the valuable lessons that can be gleaned from these experiences, from leading a law firm during a global pandemic to cultivating positive changes within the community.
Fasten your seatbelts as they unravel the nuances of running a successful community association practice, emphasizing adaptability, teamwork, and staying abreast of changing laws. They also discuss the importance of understanding client expectations and the vital role of recreational activities in managing stress. Prepare yourself for an episode brimming with unforgettable insights and experiences!
Conversation highlights include:
BONUS:
Before we begin our episode, I want to let you know about an upcoming webinar we are hosting on.
Speaker 1:November 2nd from 1 to 2 pm Eastern Standard Time. The webinar is called Fixing Florida's Property Insurance Crisis. If you're one of the millions of Floridians impacted by astronomical insurance increases, you won't want to miss this. For more information, go to wwwbeckarlawyerscom. Forward slash fixing florida. Now on to our episode. Hi everyone, I'm attorney Donna DiMaggio-Burger, and this is Take it To the Board where we speak Kondo and HOA.
Speaker 1:Leadership can be best described as the ability to inspire, guide and influence others to work towards a common goal or vision. Effective leadership involves vision, communication, empathy, decisiveness, accountability, adaptability, the ability to delegate as well as to inspire others, and integrity. Leadership is not confined to a particular role or position. It can be demonstrated at all levels of an organization or community. Effective leadership can drive innovation, foster growth and create a positive impact on individuals and society as a whole.
Speaker 1:Today, I'm going to be talking about effective leadership with the leader of the firm that has been my professional home for many years the Becker Law Firm. Gary Rosen has been the managing shareholder and chief executive officer of the Becker Law Firm since 2012. The Becker Law Firm has more than 300 employees with growing multi-state practices in Florida, new York, new Jersey and DC. Before taking on this role. Gary was a successful and, frankly, very intimidating litigator for years, starting with construction defect litigation at Becker for a decade, before focusing more on commercial litigation and intellectual property litigation. Gary continues to handle complex litigation for clients in the public and private sectors.
Speaker 1:Gary is board certified in business litigation law, is recognized as one of South Florida Business Journal's ultimate CEOs, which is reserved for the 15 top executives in Miami-Dade, broward and Palm Beach counties. He has been recognized as a legal elite, a super lawyer, attorney of the year, a power leader in law, and is the recipient of a host of other awards and acknowledgments. He is the immediate past chair of the United Way of Broward County and serves on the executive committee of the Broward Workshop. He also chairs its governance committee. Gary received his JD from Catholic University and his undergraduate degree from Brandeis University. We'll put a link to Gary's bio in the show notes because it's a lot more extensive than what I just ran through. So, gary, welcome to take it to the board.
Speaker 2:Thank you, donna, glad to be here.
Speaker 1:So let's start out, gary, if you could describe the management structure at our firm, becker, and whether or not it's typical structure. I mean, what are some of the management structures for larger firms like ours?
Speaker 2:So our firm management structure is one that is led by a management committee. The management committee of our firm serves as the firm's board of directors. We're not a partnership or a corporation, and so we have a board of directors, and that is the management committee. Management committee is composed of seven equity partners in the firm. We use the term partner and shareholder interchangeably here. Those eight people, including myself as the managing shareholder of the firm, make policy decisions for the firm. The executive function is that of the CEO and managing shareholder, and that's been me since 2012,.
Speaker 2:As you described, I can't say that our management structure is typical, but it's not unusual. Firms, especially as they grow into what I think would fairly characterize our firm as bit size and larger, tend to move into a more corporate type of structure, a more formal type of structure. We did that probably some 15 to 18 years ago. Time is flying so I can't pinpoint the exact date that we migrated into this current management structure, but it has been one that's been very successful for us. There are some firms, especially smaller firms and our firm in its early years, that ran under what could sometimes be described as a benevolent dictatorship. You had a managing partner who basically served all executive functions of the firm, made all important decisions of the firm and would, on occasion, when the mood struck him or her, talk to the other shareholders of the firm about those decisions, but more often than not, made them unilaterally. Once we navigated our way into our current management structure, we're a much flatter decision-making structure now at the policymaking level and it's worked very, very well for us.
Speaker 1:Questions about the management structure ever come up during recruitment.
Speaker 2:Occasionally, some particularly thoughtful and insightful applicants, especially those who are laterals and who have been around to a few firms, do ask about that because it does matter. People who have worked at larger firms and have had experience sometimes not so happy experience in other firms, especially multi-office and multi-practice firms will ask about it because it can impact their ability to happily practice whatever firm that they choose to go to.
Speaker 1:I can imagine the benevolent dictatorship model is not one that most people considering joining a firm would be happy about.
Speaker 2:I guess, Spencer, who's the benevolent dictator, how benevolent they are. But when a firm grows to a certain size, they tend to outgrow that particular business model and move into a flatter structure.
Speaker 1:At the time we were transitioning from the prior founding partners to this new, flatter management structure. Were there any other management models that were considered?
Speaker 2:I don't think so. The process we went through was really fascinating. I wasn't a part of it. The firm formed a strategic planning committee chaired by my partner, steve Lesser, and there were probably about eight or nine shareholders who participated in that effort. It took a year, with the help of a consultant who was experienced in this particular area of law firm management. From what I understand, there were many, many ideas that were kicked around Over the course of that year. They narrowed it down to the structure that we ultimately come to, which has since been tweaked.
Speaker 2:The style of the management committee, the role of the management committee today is not precisely what it was when we formed it 15 to 18 years ago substantially similar, but there are some differences as we grew and adapted it to our particular organic needs as a law firm. Every law firm is different. Every law firm has its own personality, its own character, its own culture. When I talk to other managing partners at other firms throughout the country, and especially here in South Florida, one thing we all agree on whatever it is that you do with regard to certain important policies and decisions, with respect to the management and operation of the firm, it has to be organic, it has to be authentic for your firm. It has to fit the culture of your firm and the people and the personalities in it. That's what we've done and it's worked well for us.
Speaker 1:I said in the introduction, gary, you were a litigator. Look, I want to say you were very intimidating. You were very energetic, aggressive. I do want to ask you because I know you speak a lot with other managing partners. It's interesting to me, I wonder how many managing partners were litigators prior to transitioning into leadership roles, as opposed to transactional or other type of attorneys? I also want to ask you about the process you went through transitioning from an active, very successful litigator into your leadership role.
Speaker 2:Well, let's see how much time do we have? Yes, I was a litigator and trial lawyer and I can't speak to how intimidating I was, but I certainly took my job very seriously and pursued it aggressively and zealously on behalf of my clients. I enjoy litigating, enjoy trying cases. It's what I did exclusively until becoming managing shareholder of the firm and I like to think that I was fairly good at it. It was a major transition for me and not an easy one. Other than those firms that are exclusively litigation boutiques, where the managing shareholder or managing partner necessarily must be a litigator, other than those firms, it is very unusual, very unusual, for a litigator to become a managing partner of a firm. Multi-practice firms typically will look to a transactional lawyer, either a real estate or corporate or other type of transactional lawyer, to be their managing partner.
Speaker 1:But why?
Speaker 2:Yeah, why doesn't ask why. So if you think about it, the personality description that you described to me is not unusual for a litigator. Those are not exactly the personality traits that you would want to find in a role that requires someone to build consensus, to listen to a person far more than they speak, to be compassionate, to be understanding, to adapt and adjust their approach to different personality types, different egos, different requirements throughout the organization. Those kinds of attributes you typically find in a transactional lawyer as opposed to a litigator. So you might say that the transition that I had to navigate was somewhat of an abrupt and screeching one From that of a full-time litigator to managing shareholder.
Speaker 2:There were certain adjustments I had to make. I made them quite consciously. I was at least self-aware enough to understand that there were certain tendencies and reflexive reactions that I might have as a litigator that I would have to tamp down, if not entirely repress, in a role as a managing partner. Managing partners necessarily have to wear many, many hats. One of them is chief psychologist. Clearly, psychology is not an unknown or invisible attribute for a litigator. You're going to go in front of a jury. You have to understand people. You have to understand the power of persuasion and what it is that moves people to your position and your argument. But it's taken to a whole different level when you're managing an organization, especially one our size.
Speaker 1:You had a BA, what was your major? I never asked you this question before Brandeis.
Speaker 2:American studies, with an emphasis on American history.
Speaker 1:History can actually be a really good guidance tool.
Speaker 2:I find it so. I still consider myself a student of history. Still read extensively nonfiction related to history. I tend to read a lot of historical novels. Big fan of Ken Burns and his documentaries that focus on different aspects of American history and literature. Huge fan of his work, which are incredibly in-depth, well done and consistent with the reading that I do.
Speaker 1:Sometimes when you read something in history, you think you know if Churchill could get through it. If Churchill could get through World War II, we could probably get through what we're going through here. But I imagine, gary, some of your experience as a litigator has served you well. They have.
Speaker 2:I mean to be an effective litigator. You have to be persuasive, you have to stake out a position, you have to form an argument and you have to advance that argument persuasively. In law firms or businesses, there are some distinctive qualities to law firms that are different than other businesses, but there are a lot of similarities. And in business, strategy is obviously a critical element. Strategic thinking is a very, very important part of effective litigation and trial advocacy. Strategic thinking clearly is essential sounds. Strategic thinking is essential to advancing the business goals of an organization, especially one as large as ours.
Speaker 1:So 11 years have passed. You were named back in 2012. I imagine when you first agreed to take on this role, you had a certain perception or perspective about what it was going to look like. 11 years later, what do you wish? Maybe you had known back then when you first agreed to take on the role. And has it played out the way you thought it would? Have the challenges been what you expected? Just tell me a little bit about whether or not the reality has matched up with your perception back in 2012.
Speaker 2:Actually, I'm glad that I didn't know then what I know now, because if I had, I probably wouldn't have taken the job. So sometimes ignorance is bliss. In this case, that's true. It's very interesting because Alan Becker, one of the two founders of the firm, was the immediate preceding managing shareholder to me, and Alan was, I guess you could say, trying to groom me for the role for at least a year, probably more than a year before February 1, 2012. He and I spent an enormous amount of time together in that year year and a half period while I was trying to learn the job, and I thought that by the time February 1, 2012 rolled around, that it would be a seamless transition. It would be. I had been fully prepared and I would take the reins of the firm and there would be no hiccup, no surprises, no issues, whatever Boy was I wrong? When February 1, 2012 rolled around, it was like getting hit by a truck.
Speaker 2:Your entire psychology and mindset changes in an instant Because now you're it, you're the one in charge and everyone looks to you for all the decisions that have to be made and some of them are large and some of them are small and many, many of them are difficult Decisions about hiring and firing, especially difficult decisions.
Speaker 2:With regard to firing, I like to say sometimes you have to add by subtraction, and we did some addition by subtraction in that first year or two because things did need to adapt and some things needed to change.
Speaker 2:I had my own ideas and my own vision about what this firm needed to become and how it needed to evolve and change, and there were many, many changes that I needed to put into place In the year proceeding by taking the reins of the firm. I imagined that there would not be a tremendous number of significant changes and then, within that first 12 months, I came to realize as I stepped into the role that there actually were quite a number of things that needed to change in a big way and it took a while to enact all those changes. But I'm very pleased to say that, because I have wonderful partners and they have confidence in me and we generally make our way through things by consensus that we navigated our way through all those changes and almost every one of them has been extremely positive, with absolutely no regrets, and they've gotten us to the place that we are now.
Speaker 1:One of the first changes or challenges you took on was you decided to move the headquarters of the firm. It had been in Hollywood Florida. For how many years, gary 25. 25 years so. In 2013, remember, you're named managing partner in 2012. And then 2013 sees the firm moving from a three standing building in Hollywood Florida to a high rise. You're taking up the top three floors of a high rise in downtown Fort Lauderdale. I can't imagine that was, you know, an easy, easy process, even though it was a relatively quick process.
Speaker 2:From the outside, looking in, it probably seemed like it was a quick process, but it was not and it was anything but easy.
Speaker 2:We moved from a suburban building which many of the law firm partners owned as part of a building partnership, so there were many partners who had a financial interest in staying exactly where we were in that suburban environment, close to the home of some of our equity partners in the firm, and moving to a downtown environment in a high rise.
Speaker 2:And I have quite a number of stories that I could tell which I probably best not to tell in this environment.
Speaker 2:But yes, it was a very, very lengthy decision making process to get my partners and the management committee to agree with my vision for the firm to move us from a 25 year old building that leaked, that was designed a quarter of a century earlier for the needs and requirements of a law firm 25 years earlier, into brand new space that was designed for the needs of 2012 and that put us in the thick of the legal and business world in downtown Fort Lauderdale.
Speaker 2:And you think about it, in the 25 years that passed while we were in Hollywood, downtown Fort Lauderdale had grown up tremendously huge sea change in what Fort Lauderdale was then to what it was in 2012, and certainly what it is now. I mean, when we moved in in 2013 and look at the skyline outside of our 17th, 18th or 19th floor windows, we see cranes everywhere. We see growth, we see development, we see the coming of age of the city of Fort Lauderdale and I think most people would agree in a very positive way. I suppose there's always room for some disagreement, but even the doubting, skeptical and dug in and most stubborn of my partners have very quickly come to us. That's since this was the right move for the law firm.
Speaker 1:Convincing people to embrace change is difficult, just as a starting point. But lawyers in particular, I find, are very resistant to change and it's funny what some focus on. I started my career with Becker at that Hollywood office. Here's one thing I remember the parking lot was not covered. Okay, so we're in a rainy, we're in rainy South Florida, and I remember getting soaked and then you're walking up the stairs to get into that building.
Speaker 2:That wasn't even the worst of it, donna, because not only did you get soaked, but the parking lot didn't drain, and so it's so. It was actually a sadistic sport of some of our lawyers to look out their window and watch people have to make their way from the parking lot into the building by rolling their pants up to their knees and taking their shoes off to get through a flooded parking lot to get to the first floor of the building. Any time you had any kind of a moderate to heavy rain, that's what happened, and it was, I can say I don't miss that for sure.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I remember one of the criticisms or concerns was you know, we have on-site parking for clients and then you're downtown and it hasn't been a problem at all. We have covered parking and it's funny, some of the things that people focus on as a potential negative actually turn out to be a positive.
Speaker 2:When it's raining, as it frequently is in South Park, especially in the summer. We've been in this building now for almost 10 years nine and a half years and I could tell you almost every day when I'm coming in or leaving the building and it's raining hard outside, I actually think back to my days on Sterling Road in Hollywood and feel so fortunate that I can make my way to the car without getting soaking wet. Sometimes it's the little things in life that really make the difference, and that's one of them.
Speaker 1:So you moving the firm to downtown Fort Lauderdale certainly changed our trajectory, but it also changed, I have to say, a trajectory for downtown Fort Lauderdale there was this was remember. You moved back in the end of 2013. I remember the grand opening. It was early 2014,. I think January 2014. There was a significant homeless problem in downtown Fort Lauderdale, mostly focused around the Broward County Library and the park surrounding it. I know you were heavily involved with a project to assist and re-house those people and it seems to have been a great success. What can you tell us about that project?
Speaker 2:So that was a project that was a joint enterprise of United Way, which I've been involved with for many, many years, and the local chambers of commerce, the Fort Lauderdale Alliance and others. We formed a business council and we saw that the homeless problem in downtown Fort Lauderdale was a detriment to the further growth and stability of business in downtown Fort Lauderdale. We embarked on a program called Housing First, which calls for the placement of homeless people in ideally permanent shelter surrounded by services, services that were funded partially by United Way and heavily by Broward County. Autonation, a major publicly traded company, is housed in its headquarters in a building that I'm looking at right now outside my window, and they're a major employer and a major landmark employer for Broad County and Fort Lauderdale. Because of the homeless problem, autonation was threatening to move its headquarters out of downtown Fort Lauderdale. That motivated a lot of people very, very quickly and so, putting all of these resources together that I described, almost 100 homeless people moved into permanent shelter surrounded by social services in order to help, continue to keep them housed and off the streets.
Speaker 2:You know most people don't appreciate that the great majority of homeless people in any urban environment, whether it's Fort Lauderdale or Miami or Los Angeles or Chicago or New York. They've got significant mental health issues and they either have substance abuse issues and or other mental illness issues. These people cannot simply be, you know, left to their own devices once you put them in some kind of shelter. They need support, they need assistance. Many, many of them are very troubled and society has a choice to make. We can turn our back and ignore it, simply walk away from the problem, or we can accept the fact that, as a caring society, as a humanistic society, that we should do something to try to solve what is a very, very serious problem. There are lots of different perspectives on homelessness with regard to what to do about it, how to solve it and when I say solve, I don't mean 100% cure, because there is no 100% solution for homelessness, but at least significantly mitigate the homelessness problem, and it's growing in America.
Speaker 2:You read newspapers, you watch the news, especially in connection with our major urban areas, and some of our cities are really dying right now because of homelessness. It's hollowing out the urban core and causing businesses to leave and undermining the economic fatality of those cities. It's an American tragedy. It's not necessary, it's not inevitable, but a consensus has to be built in this country in order to help solve it. We put a very, very small dent in it with regard to the issue that you identified across this week from our building, but homelessness is by no means solved in Fort Lauderdale or Broward County, or South Florida for that matter.
Speaker 1:Are other counties and cities around the country using what Broward County and United Way did your public-private partnership there as a model? Are they reaching out and try to figure out how you all did it? Some?
Speaker 2:are. Many aren't, Unfortunately, and my view of this may not be entirely fair, but in my view, there are some cities that have chosen to characterize homelessness as a lifestyle choice, and when you have that point of view and you believe that homeless people have the right to continue to live in the street homeless and you view it as a lifestyle choice, you're never going to solve the problem. It's only going to get worse. I disagree. I don't believe that homelessness is a lifestyle choice.
Speaker 2:These are largely very, very troubled people, people in need. Many of them were perfectly well-functioning members of society or a good piece of their life, and then something happened. Something went wrong. They fell into homelessness. Now there are certainly a not insignificant number of homeless people, including families that have lived paycheck to paycheck. One large bill hits them and they can't afford to pay rent and they find themselves in the street. That really is a tragedy. You know they don't have the underlying issues that I was describing a moment ago, and those people are only too happy to be lent a hand up in order to put them back into permanent housing. But it's a complicated problem. There are no simple or easy solutions, but I think you have to start by rejecting the notion that it's a lifestyle choice and that these are people who need help.
Speaker 1:I agree. I agree. I was in LA visiting my daughter and people hear the skid row and they think it's one street. It's not one street, it is blocks and blocks.
Speaker 1:And I recently read a story and it was about a family that has a genetic component for early dementia and I think it was six of the nine siblings had the gene. And if you had the gene, you were 95 percent certain to get early onset dementia and two of the siblings wound up homeless. So these were not people who were on drugs, these were not people who were criminal. These are people who had a gene that virtually guaranteed that they were going to experience dementia in their 40s. So you're right, it does. It does take some empathy when you're looking at this. Not some empathy, a lot of empathy when you're looking at this issue. So I want to talk about another significant change you bushered in and that was the rebranding of the firm from Becker and Polyakov to Becker. Now I imagine and I know a lot of firms do this it's been a growing trend over the last decade, but I imagine there were a lot of moving parts scary to that rebranding.
Speaker 2:Yes, you could say that it took I would say, probably took the better part of two years to make our way through that transition. It wasn't just simply the change of the name from Becker and Polyakov to Becker and, by the way, a corporate name remains Becker and Polyakov PA but the rebranding was a very lengthy process. With the assistance of outstanding consulting from a well-known firm out of New Jersey that does this sort of thing for enterprises. We undertook a lengthy process that involved probably 20 to 25 members of the firm at different levels, different job functions, different titles came together and had lengthy meetings with the consultants to work our way through looking at the firm identity, looking at the different aspects of the firm identity, so that what we would arrive at would be something that was authentic to us as a firm, that at the time we were probably 44 or 45 years old.
Speaker 2:We celebrated our 50th anniversary this year, but a 40 or 45 year old firm, you know, builds up a certain amount of genetic material. Our DNA is well established and we needed to self-examine that DNA in order to come up with a website, branding materials and a name that was authentic to who we were as a law firm. It was a fascinating process. I had never been through anything like that before. I was extremely impressed with the consultants that we used and I think everyone who participated in it really enjoyed it and felt empowered by participating in it, and the result, I think, was one that was right for us and has been very positively received by the community and by our clients.
Speaker 1:It's like the move from Hollywood to Fort Lauderdale Once you make it, you can't imagine how long it took you to make it and you can't imagine going back there. It's the same thing with the branding, our messaging, even our color scheme. You can almost can't imagine going back.
Speaker 2:It's true. It's true and who knows, maybe the next managing partner will go through that again some years down the road. But it was a very positive experience and worked really really well for us.
Speaker 1:Look, I liked it because I had a lot of apparel that matched the color. I really enjoyed the new color because I had some dresses that looked perfect with it. So I want to talk about a more serious topic. So COVID. So when the COVID pandemic hit, listen, I remember those first few months when we really was March 2020. I remember trying to get my kids back home. They both came back home.
Speaker 1:We didn't know what was going on. I had one in New York, one in LA. I was so relieved to see that when we picked them up in the airport, got them home, didn't know there was no vaccines yet. We didn't know how big this thing was going to be, how dangerous it was. It was going to be and this is not the blow of smoke up. Your proverbial took us, but it was reassuring. You immediately got on and having those conversations where you kept everybody. I was at weekly that we were talking to the Zoom and we were saying what was going on. Where did you get the guidance on how to manage that crisis, particularly because there was so many conflicting ideas about how to manage the crisis in the initial days?
Speaker 2:Crisis is a test of leadership and a test of character, and March of 2020 was a crisis, a mammoth crisis, for every business, every enterprise, every government in the world, and so it was, I guess, of some small comfort that we weren't alone experiencing this crisis, but every organization was called upon to figure out how to tackle it and to do what they thought was the right thing to do, and there were thousands of different decisions that were made. The decisions that I made in my approach was what felt right and authentic to me and to the management of the firm, for our law firm. So, right off the bat, I knew that everyone was going to be in near panic or panic over this, and one of the primary things people were going to panic about was whether they were going to keep their job. I knew that, reflexively, it was entirely logical and commonsensical that that is what was going to go through people's minds, and so, as a result, without really even thinking about it all that long, I knew that I had to have regular communication with the entire organization by Zoom. I just knew instinctively that there had to be constant communication, that they needed to hear from me.
Speaker 2:Crisis requires leadership, and I knew that people were going to be looking for leadership, and so, whether I liked it or not, that was my job. And for a number of months, we had weekly Zoom calls. Sometimes there was nothing new to talk about. Sometimes there was, but I wanted people to hear what I was thinking, what management was thinking and what we were doing. And for those first several weekly Zoom calls, my primary objective was to try to calm people down, try to talk them off the proverbial edge. Don't worry, no one's losing their job, we're going to figure this out. Did I know how I was going to figure it out? Absolutely not. But sometimes it's important to convey confidence, whether you feel it or you don't, and I made a commitment to the organizations a whole that one way or another, people are going to keep their jobs.
Speaker 1:So in the early days, gary, it was certainly economic concerns, but it was also health concerns, real health concerns, before a vaccine was available, before we knew more. I remember talking to our partner, joe Adams, on a podcast episode recently about him trying to lead in the aftermath of Ian while also being concerned with his own family. The same is true for our leaders here. I mean, I know you had to be concerned about your own family while you were going through this and trying to lead. You know, I think we have more than 300 employees now, so the families of 300 employees.
Speaker 2:It was a wait. It was a multifaceted anxiety but, like businesses all over, we went remote immediately and so people weren't gathering. Decisions became more complicated when a vaccine came out and there were questions and decisions about whether we were going to bring people back to the office and under what circumstances, and what kind of policies and restrictions with regard to spacing and masking and all kinds of issues. And again, different businesses, different organizations, different governments making different decisions. It was, to say the least, a mess not easy to navigate. Yes, of course I was worried for my family. Of course I was worried for all employees and I emphasized in every one of those weekly Zoom meetings the need for people to take care of themselves and take care of their families. First and foremost, I wanted people to know that the management of the firm was concerned about them not just as employees but as people. I think that that resonated. I think that that, in some respects, was a shining moment for the law firm.
Speaker 1:It was reassuring. I can tell you that, and it's a perfect segue into my next question, which is you mentioned, gary, a few minutes ago that this is our 50th anniversary. We just had a nice party, but a lot of law firms never make it to 50. Why do you think that is?
Speaker 2:You know there are a million reasons why firms dissolve and disintegrate. Many of them have to do with the inherent personality of lawyers. Many of them have to do with the inherent lack of resilience of lawyers and, as a profession, I've heard many, many times from psychologists that lawyers are the least resilient of all professions and businesses known to man. My personal anecdotal experience is that that's true. Money has a lot to do with it and at the bottom of all of those things, it's culture. If a law firm doesn't have the right culture that keeps people together, that promotes the notion that people should look out for the welfare of each other, that people should work collaboratively, should work as a team, that people should always promote the well-being and the advancement of their colleagues in their practice in the law firm, without those attributes, there are all kinds of centrifugal forces that can pull apart a law firm.
Speaker 2:Obviously, bad decisions can do it, bad management can do it, but you got to get the culture right. And I read a lot of and listen to a lot of speakers, read a lot of writers on business, not just the business of law but business generally, and I'm sure you've heard the old adage culture beats strategy every day of the week, and I'm a firm, firm believer in that, and that's why, in my view, one of the biggest pieces of my job as managing shareholder is to serve as the steward of the culture of the law firm. Are we perfect? Of course not. We got a lot of things wrong? Sure we do. But generally, if you keep your eye on the ball and you have a pretty good idea of what's right and what's not right for your organization, for the most part you're going to steer in the right direction.
Speaker 1:Well, we probably won't be here for the hundredth anniversary At least I hope not, but I think we have a shot at it. So you know this podcast, gary, is called Take it to the Board and it's based on things related to community associations. People who live in these associations serve on the boards, vendors who service these communities. I can't have you on the podcast without asking you a few questions related to associations. The first one is there's not many law firms as large as ours that has as significant and robust a community association practice group as our firm, as Becker, does. Do you think there's anything specific that a successful community association practice demands?
Speaker 2:There are a few things that it demands. One of the primary things that's required is astute selection of talent. There are a number of different skill sets, characteristics for a successful community association lawyer, and I know I'm not telling you anything that you don't know. You possess many, many of those attributes and characteristics. You have to generally like people. Okay, let's start there.
Speaker 2:There are certain practices within the legal profession where that attributes not quite so essential. It is in the community association practice. You have to be a people person. You have to be able to communicate effectively and enjoy communicating with people. It is, for lack of a better term, a retail practice and you meet and interact with people from all walks of life, from all socioeconomic backgrounds. You know we don't exclusively represent communities with multi-million dollar homes and ultra-wealthy members. We represent communities where the typical price of a home is, you know, low 100,000s up to major seven figures. That's quite a range of different kinds of people from different walks of life, so that's obviously a key attribute. You also need to be someone who is willing to learn Community association laws constantly changing. Our wonderful legislature never tires of tinkering with the basic statutes that govern community associations, and so you have to stay on top of that and have to understand the nuances and the impact of all the changes that take place on almost a yearly basis as a result of the legislature's decisions.
Speaker 2:It's important that you in our firm that you be able to work as a member of a team. You've got to be a team player. There are law firms that are managed and operate where lawyers work in silos. They kind of work as solo entities, worried only about their clients, their practice, without any interaction or concern for the practice of the lawyer in the office next to them. That's not how we've ever operated and it's certainly not how I promote the management and the stewardship of our law firm. So you have to be a team player.
Speaker 2:We have lawyers and our community association practice. In fact, in all of our practices that cover for each other on a regular basis, there are certain parts of the state that get incredibly busy, while other parts of the state may not be quite so busy in the community association practice. A perfect example of that and you know what I'm going to say is what the west coast of our state primarily Fort Myers and to some extent Naples and Sarasota, but primarily Fort Myers went through last year with Hurricane Ian. It devastated the southwest region of the state of Florida. We have a major office in Fort Myers. We have an office in Naples as well.
Speaker 2:Those two offices have taken the brunt of the demand on legal services from our clients in that region. Why? Because when community association buildings, structures are as dramatically impacted as our clients were, there is a long list of needs that those communities have that have to be served and many of those services must come from lawyers. The demand on the lawyers in those offices has been through the roof and, as a result, lawyers from all of our other offices, whether it's Miami or Orlando or Fort Walton Beach or Fort Lauderdale, have come to the aid and assistance and support of our offices in southwest Florida. And it happens without question, it happens without complaint, with no pushback. Why? Because that's the culture we've built People need help, people need to pitch in. That's what happens unflinchingly and that's one of the advantages of being a firm our size, because these are the characteristics that we look for in the people that we hire and these are the characteristics that we promote and expect of our people and our community association practice and all our practices.
Speaker 1:And I think I know the supplies across the board to all our different practice areas is it's a willingness to evolve. Gary, I think I will tell you years ago when I would meet with a potential new client. It would just be me, and since that, for the last couple of years, it's me and a team. So I like to bring in the paralegal that's going to be working with them, the attorney you know, joy Mattingly, who heads up our collection department. I may bring in one of our litigators who is going to be handling covenant enforcement. If there's a construction defect claim, like to bring in one of our board certified construction defect attorneys. So it's just definitely been an evolution.
Speaker 1:And just when I think that we've done everything, we've seen everything the community associations experience, there's always something. Now, I mean, I had an episode on drones. We even thought about drones and associations five years ago, but it's a pretty hot topic now. So so I agree with you and and what you just said doesn't just, it's not, it's not confined just to the community association practice, it really applies to a lot of our practices. I think what sets community associations apart a little bit is we may need to do a little more hand holding with the volunteer board members.
Speaker 2:That's an element of the retail nature of the practice. You have people who are not professionals serving as members of the board of directors. Clearly, a good part of the job of community association lawyers is to work with property management. Property managers are professionals, but there's some variability in a level of expertise, in quality, within that industry as well as there is in any industry, and the law firm becomes the backstop.
Speaker 1:And then we do have some incredibly sophisticated board members. I know sometimes it's challenging. We have professionals normally the retired attorneys from other jurisdictions who like to chime in. May not be as familiar with Florida Condo Law, but this is a nice segue into how do you think a law firm should approach client service and satisfaction across the board, not just confined to community associations. But what's your philosophy on that approach?
Speaker 2:You know I don't think my philosophy is terribly unique. You know we're a service business and any service business has to be client first. You have to be sensitive to, mindful of and listen to what clients are telling you. Some law firms lose sight of that from time to time but you have to understand who your clients are and different size law firms have different kinds of clients.
Speaker 2:Community associations are a distinctive kind of client. They have distinctive needs. They make distinctive kinds of demands. Within the spectrum of the types of clients that we represent within that space, given all of the different types of community associations there are, whether they're HOAs or condominiums, whether they're high rises of the beach or, you know, villas somewhere in Exurbia, they're all going to have different requirements and different needs, different characteristics.
Speaker 2:But it is a retail business. So in any kind of service oriented business it demands that you be sensitive to and constantly thinking about and listening to what the clients are telling you about what they expect. And there are times when things go sideways in that client service. You can't be defensive about it, you can't react reflexively, you have to be thoughtful and there are times when you simply can't meet the needs of every client. It happens, whether you're a dry cleaner or you're an Amlaw 50 law firm. There are going to be times when things don't go the way you want them to go and you have to make adjustments, you have to make corrections and sometimes, every now and then, you have to say our bad, we're sorry, we need to make it up to you.
Speaker 1:So that's how to keep our clients satisfied. Let's talk for a moment about how to keep our people satisfied. You've got all different generations working here. You know we laugh about the millennials and the Gen Z's and how they feel a little differently than the boomers or the Gen X's. So you've got more than 300 employees, all different generations, some you know. Everybody now tends to have more of a focus on work life balance. Do you feel like you're the complaint department sometimes?
Speaker 2:I'm frequently the complaint department. Yes, I'm the complaint department on the chief psychologist, on the recruiter in chief, and I'm the wizard with the magic. I've got these problems to go away.
Speaker 1:Yes, Well, I imagine you do customize your approach again, because what works with the millennial whether it's a millennial attorney or a millennial staff member is not necessarily going to work with the boomer staff member or the boomer attorney. How much do you customize your approach?
Speaker 2:Um, quite a bit.
Speaker 1:Maybe what I'm really asking is have I been a pain in the ass enough?
Speaker 2:You're going to be in a key study.
Speaker 1:Donna, you're going to be. You're going to be an entire chapter of the book that I write when I finally retire.
Speaker 2:Yes, okay.
Speaker 1:Fair enough.
Speaker 2:So yeah, of course you do. Of course you do. The analogy that's probably tired and worn out by now is to that of the manager of a baseball team. Right, baseball team has 25 players on the roster at any one time. I'm a Red Sox fan.
Speaker 2:There was a time back in the 60s and very early 70s when the Red Sox were notorious for having no cohesiveness whatsoever. It was also one of the least successful times in the history of the Boston Red Sox and there was a joke that when the game was over, you had 25 players leaving the clubhouse, getting into 25 different taxi cabs. So you know that's bad management. That's a manager who had to deal with 25 different personalities and was unsuccessful in bringing them all together.
Speaker 2:One of my jobs is to navigate all of the different personalities and egos of the 150 lawyers and lobbyists in our law firm, as well as senior management staff. I try to navigate the tricky pathways where there are interactions and sometimes frictions between them, try to smooth them out and understand what it is that's motivating each of them Going back to my role as psychologist in chief and modulate that approach while being honest, being transparent, as transparent as possible, so that everyone feels like they're being heard, everyone feels like they're getting a fair shake and, at the end of the day, hopefully, things work out. They don't always, but if most of the time they work out, then I feel like I've done my job.
Speaker 1:How do you stay updated on legal trends and changes in the industry?
Speaker 2:I do a number of things. I go to conferences. I read in the daily and weekly and monthly periodicals in business. Anything that's in the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal that relates to the practice of law, I read it. Sometimes it's brought to my attention, sometimes I find it myself. I read the local publications that relate to business and the practice of law. I talk to a lot of managing partners. I belong to an organization of managing partners of law firms here in South Florida and we reach out to each other constantly and I've made friends as a result of my involvement in that organization and during the pandemic, during the peak of the pandemic. That was an invaluable resource for me, and I know it was for my fellow managing partners for these law firms, some of them very large and some of them relatively small, and it was a tremendous, tremendous support mechanism. That was just tremendously beneficial to me. And into this day I pick up the phone and I speak to those people on a regular basis.
Speaker 1:I mean, the shared experience alone can help when you're encountering any number of challenges. It's the same reason a lot of associations will join these presidents' councils so they can get together and kind of bounce those ideas off with each other. But what do you do to distress, Gary? This has been a conversation, I mean I'm stressed just hearing everything you deal about. What do you do to distress?
Speaker 2:So obviously family is a tremendous support mechanism. I'm very, very fortunate to have a wonderful wife, to have two great grown kids. My daughter is a PhD organization at Psychologist. She's constantly telling me about all the things I'm doing wrong in the management of our law firm. She's. It's actually quite fascinating when you have an adult child and you have conversations with them about things that are relevant to your job and you feel like they're actually a resource to you. It's an amazing thing in life, and my son as well is incredible. You know I love my family dearly. They're a great relief valve for me.
Speaker 2:Recreationally, I love spending time in the beach. My wife and I go to the beach and sometimes we'll just sit there on a Saturday or a Sunday, take the paper and stare at the ocean, read a little bit, take a nap, relax and just enjoy some peace and quiet and watch the waves roll in. I'm a golfer, a bit of a golf nut. Most avid golfers are a bit of golf nuts, and there are a few partners here in the firm that I like to golf with. We have a great time. Golf is a tremendous outlet. It's a whole new and different thing to get aggravated about.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I was going to say I don't know. For some people I talk to, golf is not. It's actually stressful in and of itself. I won't ask what all of your handicaps are.
Speaker 2:So that varies. That varies from week to week and month to month, depending upon how much golf I play. When you have a full time job, it's really difficult to fine tune your golf game because, the truth be told, to really reach your full potential as a golfer, you need to be playing three or four times a week. That's not exactly consistent with the job that I have. I'm lucky if I get to play once a week. But when you enjoy it and you bit by the golf bug, there's nothing you can do about it. You know you're outside, you're enjoying beautiful scenery, you're enjoying the camaraderie of the buddies that you're playing golf with, you joke around, bust each other a little bit and it's a great outlet.
Speaker 1:So this episode, Gary and we're coming to a close because I've kept you longer than I should have, but you mentioned you were a history buff, you were a history major and this whole episode has been about a leadership. So whose leadership style has inspired you? And specifically, I'm going to ask one of those corny questions, but I'm going to ask it anyhow If you could sit down for a drink with four leaders, past or present, who would they be?
Speaker 2:Oh, great question, Donna. Three that immediately come to mind immediately Winston Churchill, franklin Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. I'd have to think hard.
Speaker 1:All good choices, but can you imagine you all having drinks?
Speaker 2:Well, I'm quite certain that Winston Churchill would drink me under the table, but I don't think any of the three were tea toddlers. That would be a fascinating conversation. Each had faced tremendous crisis. Obviously Churchill and Roosevelt, at the same time, but from very different perspectives and leading different countries. Churchill, much more controversial figure than Roosevelt within his own country and exited the Prime Minister's Tendoning Street not too long after he successfully led Great Britain through World War Two and before his ascendancy into the Prime Minister's role. If you know anything about the history of Great Britain, he was an extremely polarizing and controversial figure.
Speaker 1:He did not always have the support of his party.
Speaker 2:He did not get quite often to not, or the country as a whole, whether that's fair or unfair, abraham Lincoln is, to this day, my hero. I have a picture of Lincoln here in my office. You can't see it quite behind me, but it's hanging on that wood column that you see over the head. Right now, whenever the film Lincoln is on TV on cable, my wife gets quite aggravated with me because I have to tune into it to watch different pieces of it. The portrayal by Daniel Day Lewis was nothing short of genius, pure genius. Obviously, that film focused on one particular slice of time in connection with the passage of the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution to abolish slavery, but it really captured Lincoln. I've read many books about Lincoln. He was not only an incredible leader, but he was also an outstanding writer, probably the greatest writer of any president in the history of the United States. The Gettysburg Address, which is also hanging from that same column over my right shoulder, is one of the greatest pieces of writing in world history, in my opinion.
Speaker 1:What's better sweet in that movie and I love that Lincoln movie as well is you know we don't often think of lobbyist as heroes, but I love the two lobbyist figures in that movie when they're running around trying to get the votes. What's also sad is I don't know that that could happen today. I don't know that they could have convinced enough of the legislators to actually back the vote.
Speaker 2:You know we live in a polarized time right now, but that movie really captures how polarized the country was then politically, vehemently, doggedly, viscerally polarized on the question of African Americans in their place in American society. It was very, very revealing.
Speaker 1:But still perhaps a sense of honor that they had back then that maybe we don't have today.
Speaker 2:Hard to say. We certainly are open to fair criticism today with regard to that issue, but each time does have its challenges, each time does have its disagreements. That was you don't get much more basic than undergoing a shooting civil war. So, yeah, talk about a test of leadership and character, his leadership of our country, and that soul searching time was miraculous for the country, because I think it's probably fair to say that without that leadership, without his leadership, we might not be one country today. We probably wouldn't be.
Speaker 1:Well, I grew up in it In Chicago. I remember middle school it was. It was a trip to Springfield so and drove for years with land of Lincoln on my, my, my tag. So last question, gary everything you've done, everything you've accomplished, and, as I said in the outset, we're going to put your link to your CV in the show notes, because you've got too many credentials to go through at the outset. But what advice would you give your younger self?
Speaker 2:My younger self was a lot less patient, a lot less tolerant and quite a bit more rough edged than I venture to say. My more experienced and mature self, certainly more mature in terms of age. And I would probably tell my younger self take a deep breath, count to 10, think a little bit longer before reacting in this to shall pass.
Speaker 1:That's great advice. That means maybe there's a little hope for me. Gary, I want to thank you so much for joining us today.
Speaker 2:It's been a lot of fun. Thanks, Donna.