People Interview: Shuffling the Deck
Under the leadership of Managing Partner Paul Irving, venerable L.A. law firm Manatt Phelps & Phillips revamps while remaining close to its political base.
By AMANDA BRONSTAD
Staff Reporter
In his two years at the helm of Manatt Phelps & Phillips LLP, Paul Irving, chief executive and managing partner, has seen revenue grow to $120 million from $84 million in 1999. He also has overseen expansion of the firm’s Westside headquarters with a $40 million, 73,000 square foot addition.
Irving, who graduated to top management after 15 years at Manatt in corporate finance and banking, streamlined the number of departments into two groups: a litigation and advocacy group and a business and transactions group.
The firm long has a tradition of political involvement, with founding partner Charles Manatt being a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee and U.S. ambassador to the Dominican Republic. This month, the firm plans to introduce a new consulting business, Manatt Jones Global Strategies LLC, and embark on a new marketing campaign.
Question: What’s it like running a large law firm?
Answer: I do serve as the chief executive of the firm but, as a practical matter, it’s much more of a collaborative exercise than other businesses. It’s different people but with common goals and common aspirations. Sometimes it’s like herding cats, but this happens to be a lot of cats I like an awful lot, so it makes the process fun.
Q: What do you do all day?
A: I talk to clients, I talk to partners, I talk to associates, and I talk to staff. I walk the halls and I get on the phone with lots of balls in the air. I try to have a good time. I assume anyone who has this job has to balance business considerations with the importance of getting to know and motivating people and dealing with problems and opportunities that tend not to arise at the vision level, but at ground level day in and day out. My typical day is 8 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.
Q: Why did you go into law?
A: It seemed like a good thing to do at the time. I wanted to work with smart people and be in a challenging and changing environment. I didn’t have a lot of role models in law, so I didn’t have a specific sense of what I was getting into. Sometimes it’s frustrating, and sometimes it’s really boring. But I like being in an atmosphere of change, being in a job that’s really stimulating.
Q: Manatt traditionally has been a political hot house, with guys like Charles Manatt and George Kieffer. Will the next generation include this political focus?
A: It’s not only seen as something we still value, but it’s a defining part of what our firm is all about. It will be something this firm is always known for, but we’re very quickly growing an extremely powerful litigation presence throughout California. Nationally, our corporate practice is growing nicely with clients from venture stage to large capital companies.
Q: How do you plan to maintain that political history?
A: In a variety of ways. We remain actively involved on both sides of the aisle in terms of client representation in California and Washington D.C. We give actively, we’re involved actively in political issues and activities, we have a culture here that encourages and rewards people for being high profile in the communities in which they’re involved. It’s one of the things that’s embedded in our culture. We tend to attract the kinds of people who understand that policy and politics can be an important tool in achieving client objectives, and we encourage people to be involved.
Q: You are in the midst of a marketing campaign in the form of more recruiting efforts, a new Web site and additional forums to be planned. What is driving this?
A: We want to make it simpler and clearer to understand who we are and what we can do. Lawyers, probably including me, have a tendency to use a lot of words. We want to use fewer words and have better clarity in terms of our message to the community about what we can do and what we want to do. At the end of the day, clients don’t care about words on the page or fancy brochures or mission statements. What they care about is effectiveness and simplicity and clarity. And we’re change-oriented, not only in society but in business that operates as part of society and the business community. We’re in a growth mode, not just in revenue but in professional size.
Q: How would you compare your firm with the other big firms in town?
A: We’re a California-focused firm. A number of the largest firms in town are dominated by the culture of their New York offices. For our firm, ranked often as No. 5 in the city, you’ll have a sense of the cultural change. Our belief is we should be and want to be the most influential firm in California. We embrace our California culture and that creates differentiation from our competing firms.
Q: What does it mean to have this California culture?
A: There are industries indigenous to California. We tend to be concentrated on those businesses that populate the community, like technology and entertainment, but also healthcare and financial services. And we have a significant California government practice, real estate and land use, energy and natural resources, that affect our state. The other thing is culture. We’re still pretty informal and frankly, we still don’t take ourselves too seriously. We understand that attitude and formality and fun don’t in any way conflict with the notion of doing superb work and at the highest professional level.
Q: You’re planning to introduce your consulting business this month. What’s that about?
A: This is a product of how we add value, how we solve problems. When we do the best stuff for our clients, it’s often stuff that has nothing to do with the fact that we went to law school. It has to do with our special understanding of our clients’ business and environment in which they operate. Creation of relationships, introduction to financing sources, development of strategic alliances that’s the stuff I think we’ve always done better than some of the law firms.
Q: You’ve made some changes in departments since you came on board. How did those changes contribute to the firm’s financial growth?
A: What it does is create a better culture of accountability in the firm. It enables our lawyers to do what they do best: Practice law. We have a number of people in significant practice areas involved in leadership. At one level we consolidated, and at another level we broadened. Below our division chairs we have four emerging leaders, eight in total. These are the next generation of leaders of our firm. One thing I’ve been focused on is generational change empower and train and encourage those coming up through the system to understand our goals. I’m trying to create a pool of management talent for our future.
Interview: Paul Irving
Title: Chief Executive and Managing Partner
Organization: Manatt Phelps & Phillips LLP
Born: Los Angeles, 1952
Education: Juris Doctorate, Loyola Law School, 1980; Bachelor of Fine Arts, New York University, 1975
Career Turning Point: Joining Manatt Phelps & Phillips in 1985
Most Admired People: Wife and son
Personal: Married, one teenage son
