Patagonia is perhaps the ultimate example of a humanized company: Its approach to human resource management is characterized by its flexible working policy known as “Let My People Go Surfing”; its founder, Yvon Chouinard, was known for his “MBA” (Management-By-Absence) style of bottom-up leadership; it features in the Fortune 100 Best Workplaces for Diversity with 50% women in the workforce and 50% women executives; its declared primary purpose is not the generation of wealth for its owners and investors, but to “build the best product, and not only to do less harm but more good”; and its unconventional marketing strategy tells customers, “Don’t buy this jacket” (Chouinard Y, Let my people go surfing. Penguin Books, New York, 2016).
Is the traditional law firm the antithesis of Patagonia? Although the pandemic forced the hand of law firms, suddenly making flexible working acceptable, many have returned to business-as-usual, literally driving their workers back into the office [Hyde J (2021) Law firm workers say they are being forced into the office, Law Society Gazette. Available via
https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/law-firm-workers-say-they-are-being-forced-into-the-office/5107050.article.]. Partner leadership style is persistently top-down with key decisions being made behind closed doors. In Germany, women make up only 35% of all lawyers (According to the statistics available from the Bundesrechtsanwaltskammer, as of 1 January 2021. Available via
https://www.brak.de/fuer-journalisten/zahlen-zur-anwaltschaft/.), and the percentage of female partners is around 14% (Authors’ own calculation based on a review of the websites of the top 10 law firms in Germany, as ranked by Juve.). Even as the world continues to reel from the financial hardship caused by the pandemic, the AmLaw Top50 US law firms reported nearly 15% growth in profits per equity partner [Strom R (2021) The Richest Law Firms Are Hiring More Partners After Record 2020, Bloomberg Law. Available via
https://news.bloomberglaw.com/business-and-practice/the-richest-law-firms-are-hiring-more-partners-after-record-2020.]. And can you imagine a law firm telling a client, “don’t buy this service”?
Can law firms learn from Patagonia? In this chapter, we will consider whether the philosophies and values of the ultimate humanized company, Patagonia, can be transferred to the business of law: In particular with regard to (1) law firm culture, diversity, and values; (2) leadership and change; (3) finance and purpose; and (4) sustainability. Can law firms, in the words of Patagonia, “save our home planet”?