Super Idea

How to understand "lawyer's professional life"? 

How to understand "lawyer's professional life"? Let's read some real stories first: 

Story 1: Lawyer A, 63 years old, once a household name of the legal profession for many years and his law firm reached a certain scale. However, the old-timer's firm now has less than 10 lawyers and the old-timer is basically in a state of idling about. He may has accepted the reality and told his friends many times that he is ready to fade out of the law industry, but with loneliness and unwillingness on his face. Does he want the law firm he founded survive? How many such law firms with one influential figure as their core have vanished with the aging of this influential figure? 

Story 2: Lawyer B told me a few years ago that he went to a famous law firm with a long history and hoped to transform the firm and prepared to turn it into one with integrated management model. However, in the end, he was forced to give up and leave, because several founders of the firm told him that although they approved the reform direction he proposed, they felt that it would take long time to achieve it and they would be old when the reform was successful. Just imagine whether integration solves all the problems or not? If the restructured firm has always been associated with these founders, will the outcome be different? 

Story 3: Lawyer C, 45 years old or so, is in his prime, earning about RMB 10 million a year and working as a partner in a firm with pure commission system. Recently, for family reasons (children studying abroad, and wife going abroad to see a doctor), the lawyer was forced to suspend his practice. A small number of clients were taken over by his assistant team, but other business can only be given up. He is not optimistic about whether he can come back to continue practicing. In several exchanges, two sentences have been mentioned frequently by him: The difference between law firms is too great. It is a pity that these clients accumulated over the years have been lost. What kind of firm can make his business lose as little as possible and his income not plummet? 

These are three seemingly unrelated stories. 

However, it reminds us of several similar problems: How do law firms inherit? How will the firm's founder’s or partner's interests be reflected and continued after retirement? How can law firm partners reduce losses under special circumstances because of the firm's mechanism? 

These problems all point to the topic of how to expand and extend the lawyer's professional life. If a lawyer's professional life depends only on the existence of an individual and the maintenance of his or her professional ability (including time), then there is no expansion or extension. Only by relying on law firms can it be expanded and extended. 

These problems really need to be solved by the whole industry. We just have some attempts to share and discuss with you. 

How can law firms ensure the expansion and extension of lawyers' professional lives? 

First of all, we hope to use the equity partner system to solve this problem. As mentioned earlier, our partners are for human resource cooperation at the first level, that is, they are all business partners. However, on this basis, some of our partners are for capital cooperation, that is, they have made equity investment in the firm. This equity investment will not change as the status of practice changes. Equity partners will always have a certain proportion in the income distribution of the firm, and this equity share can be transferred, repurchased or inherited. 

As we have said before, our equity partners are divided into two levels: equity partners in DOCVIT headquarters and equity partners in various offices. In the income distribution of our law firm, the two-tier equity partners enjoy a certain proportion in the headquarters and offices respectively, and the equity partners in both headquarters and offices can get double distribution. 

In DOCVIT, the status of an equity partner is related to the status of lawyer in DOCVIT, not related to anything else. This has completely changed the pattern that once a partner withdraws from a partnership firm, he will have nothing to do with the earnings of the firm. Although after retiring from practice, equity partners will gradually lose the distribution of income generation and business undertaking. However, there will always be equity distribution. Only the distribution ratio will be adjusted with the change of total equity and the return and years of holding equity. 

In addition, according to the general situation of the firm and the situation of each office, we will evaluate the equity of the firm as a whole and each office every year. The valuation will reflect a comprehensive evaluation of the firm's size, brand, quality, growth, competitiveness, revenue and other factors. The valuation will affect not only the consideration for new equity partners to obtain equity, but also the price when equity partners withdraw or transfer. This system design provides the basis for equity value determination, change and realization. 

A partner, as long as he has a share of DOCVIT’s equity, will be bound up with DOCVIT’s interest for life, and this equity can be inherited. If the heir is qualified to practice and meets the requirements of DOCVIT partner, the identity right and the property right of the equity partner can be inherited together. If the heir cannot meet the identity condition, the property right can be inherited. 

Perhaps, the equity partnership system can, to a certain extent, allow law firms to better pass on. 

Secondly, we are trying to solve this problem by using partner point-counting system and seniority points. As long as he is a business partner in DOCVIT, he will get points, which are comprehensive evaluation index of the partner's qualifications, abilities and contributions, and sign of the partner's level. The seniority points are the points corresponding to the number of years each partner has been in the firm. The partner points and seniority points are the base for partners to obtain the surplus distribution except for the equity distribution in income distribution, or the base for partners to obtain the "DOCVIT Home Fund" after retirement. 

The point-counting system is a great invention. For lawyers accustomed to rule consciousness, the "fuzzy mathematics" of point-counting system can be regarded as a subversive design. Perhaps only point-counting system can bring lawyers together closely. However, the point-counting system is not fully applicable to all law firms under corporatization or integrated management, because the development history, partner structure, law firm culture and management objectives are quite different. 

DOCVIT adopts point-counting system, but it does not take point-counting as the whole basis for partner distribution, but only as part of income distribution. Our partners’ points ranging from 5 to 100 with two steps are adjusted every year (mainly upward), and will decrease year by year when they retire or meet certain conditions. The points will go down to 5. 

There is nothing special about seniority points. It is a record of the time when partners enter DOCVIT. 

Point-counting and seniority points affect not only the income distribution before retirement, but also the receipt of "DOCVIT Home Fund" after retirement. 

"DOCVIT Home Fund" is accumulated from a certain proportion of profits every year. As a fund that every DOCVIT builder can share, it is used to reward special contributors and allow partners to receive supplementary pension after retirement. 

With such a system, partners will share the profits of the firm even if they do not invest in the firm's equity, and will always be a member of the firm. 

Finally, we hope to solve this problem with institutional innovations such as business division system, internal professionalization and mandatory cooperation mechanism, business-undertaking senior partners, as well as Senate of DOCVIT. Except for the Senate system, others have been introduced before and will not be repeated. The equity partner system, and point-counting and seniority points system mentioned above basically solve the problems of maintaining the relationship between partners and the firm at the non-business level and extending the professional life of partners, while these systems solve the problem of extending the professional life of partners at the business level. 

We do not allow the existence of a single commission lawyer. Partners must form or join in a department. If they don’t belong to any department, they must choose a large business division for trusteeship. This is not only to solve the problem of business digestion and bearing of partners, but also to solve the problem of cooperation among partners. Even if a partner cannot practice in the frontline for a period of time or gradually fades out of the business undertaking, the business can be maintained continuously due to such a system. 

Our internal professionalization and mandatory cooperation mechanism can enable all business to be digested by suitable people. For those partners whose professional functions are gradually weakening but whose market functions are still maintained or even strengthened, many internal professional partners and business teams are the best guarantee to digest their market resources. 

Our business-undertaking senior partner system has solved the problems of business digestion and extending professional life of partners. In many law firms, lawyers who are mainly engaged in business but not good at generating income are at best salary partners or consultants. However, in our law firm, they can be the top in theory. Their existence and stability are very good supplements to those partners who are only willing or able to maintain market functions. 

Our DOCVIT Senate is home to all senior partners who no longer practice in the frontline. Through various forms and mechanisms, it plays its role as a think tank, resource and cultural heritage. They are priceless treasure of DOCVIT. This arrangement not only respects them, but also extends their professional life. 

The “Anti-U-Shaped Development Path Chart" of people in DOCVIT 

Just imagine that a lawyer becomes a partner at the age of 30 and his status at different times in DOCVIT is as follows: 

At the beginning, he may be just a business partner, without rights and interests in the law firm, with relatively low points and relatively low seniority, and basically earns money from income generation and business undertaking. With other assumptions being ignored, he is at the stage of double distribution. This period is generally 1-3 years after becoming a partner. 

Entering the development period, a partner can acquire the rights and interests in the law firm through subscription and equity incentive, and with the increase of partner points and seniority points, he slowly enters the stage of triple or quadruple distribution. This period is generally 3-10 years after becoming a partner. 

In the prime of his life, a business partner can earn money through both income generation and business undertaking. If he is also an equity partner, he can enjoy the equity distribution in the income distribution of the law firm. Of course, he can also enjoy the part of distribution that belongs to the point-counting distribution and the seniority distribution, which is the stage of quintuple distribution. Profit generating, undertaking, rights and interests, counting by points and seniority will bring the earnings. This period is generally 10-20 years after becoming a partner. 

After stepping in recession from the peak years, the profit generating ability will be maintained or slightly increased or decreased but the undertaking ability will certainly be appropriately reduced irreversibly. Of course, these partners may further increase their rights and interests in the law firms, with the point counting still in the high position and the increase of seniority as well, and they will still be in the state of quintuple distribution within a time period but they will fall back to the stage of quadruple or triple distribution as they gradually give up undertaking and slowly reduce the profits generated. This period is generally 20-30 years after becoming a partner. 

After entering the retirement period, they will no longer conduct undertaking and no longer generate profits basically but they will still have the rights and interests in the law firms so they will always have the income distribution. Their point counting and seniority will no longer participate in the income distribution but may participate in the distribution of “Docvit Homeland Fund”. They will always be involved in such distribution although it is decreased year by year, and they will enter into the triple, duplicate and even single distribution stages. This period is generally 30 years after becoming a partner. 

If a lawyer is in the stage of single distribution before he/she becomes a partner, the lawyer’s track in Docvit will be a process from 1 to 5 and then from 5 to 1. That is the “Anti-U-Shaped Development Track Map" of people in Docvit. 

It can be said that the lawyers will be likely to have the lifelong relationship with the development of Docvit as long as they are the partners of Docvit. 

In this way, we hope that we can appropriately extend the practicing life of the lawyers.