ONE Connection | Joe Sims: The Death of Culture?

Read the full issue of ONE Connection.

By Joe Sims

Editor's Note: This article originally ran earlier this month in ONE Week, Jones Day's internal newsletter for our lawyers and staff.

My first Jones Day Partners Meeting was in November of 1981, at Quail Hollow Resort just outside of Cleveland. My most distinct memory of that event is seeing Erwin Griswold, the longtime Dean of Harvard Law School and former Solicitor General of the United States, standing on the first tee of the golf course with light snow falling, wearing a trench coat and getting ready to hit his tee shot, seemingly oblivious of either the conditions or his unusual appearance.

I believe I have attended every Partners Meeting since that time 45 years ago, although perhaps I missed one or two that I have forgotten (age is not good for memory). They used to be annual until the cost and logistics became so significant they were moved to every other year. I don't know how many Partners Meetings there were prior to 1981, but not many; Quail Hollow was the first since I joined the Firm in October 1978, and Jones Day lore says that Jack Reavis held only one Partners Meeting in his 26-year tenure as Managing Partner, when he announced Allen Holmes as his successor.

Of course, things were different then. During most of Reavis's tenure, and even after my arrival, all the Cleveland lawyers were on a single floor—a very large floor—of the Huntington Building in downtown Cleveland. (I believe Squire Sanders was on the floor below.) The vast majority of partners were in Cleveland, with a relatively small number in Washington and even fewer in Los Angeles (which had opened just two years before Reavis stepped down). Slightly more than 100 Jones Day partners gathered at Quail Hollow, and even though I had been at the Firm for only three years, I think I actually knew most of them, at least by name.

Things have changed. In San Diego this year, about 900 partners were gathered, and while the fact that I have been retired now for nine years is certainly relevant, I have to admit I did not know virtually anything about many of them. But there is one thing that has clearly not changed in those 45 years: the commitment that we are all in this together—what I like to call the D'Artagnan Principle, all for one and one for all—that is at the core of Jones Day. Let me unpack this, both institutionally and personally.

The American Lawyer recently published an article titled "Modern Law Firm Strategy is Destroying Culture." The basic point was that, in aggressively chasing size and profits, the only culture likely to survive in large firms was "a rich culture of partners pilfering deal credit and clients from one another…." The end result, argued the author, was that "most Big Law firms are pursuing scale in a way that has relegated culture to a secondary concern, or pushed it past the post of consideration entirely … [so that they all] start to look more like vereins: autonomous offices that, beyond name, brand and possibly décor, share little in the way of culture or attitude."

Proudly and Defiantly Different

There is a lot of truth in this perspective, as many of our current partners who came from other firms will tell you. But anyone who attended the San Diego meeting of this Firm's partners—all 900 of them—knows this is about as far from a description of Jones Day as you can get. And the reason is that we are not simply chasing size or profits; we are absolutely not just about the money. Jones Day is certainly part of what people think about when they talk about "Big Law," but it proudly and defiantly doesn't act like it. We are something different.

In any event, I hate the term "Big Law," which seems to me overly flip and completely lacks nuance. After all, what exactly does the term mean? Is it the 100 largest firms, or the 200 largest? Or is it any firm with more than 150 lawyers, which the AmLaw author cited as the limits of the size in which humans "can maintain stable social relationships … because [a]ny larger, and the population tends to fracture into subcultures, tribes with their own leaders."

I wonder: Do any of you think we are unable to maintain "stable social relationships"? When we did the Surrey & Morse combination in 1986, we were the largest true law partnership in the world at around 600 lawyers; were we Big Law then? I guess so, and at 2,500 or so today, most people would say Jones Day is a "big" law firm. But we are absolutely not one of the firms the AmLaw author was describing.

And as evidence, I refer you to Greg Shumaker's plenary talk at the San Diego meeting. I thought Greg's initial address to the partners when he was named Managing Partner was one of the best such addresses I had ever heard in more than almost half a century of listening to such talks, but this one was even better. And it was virtually all about culture—not fake or pretend culture, but the actual culture and philosophy of this unique institution. I seriously doubt that there are many managing partners of large law firms who become visibly emotional when addressing their partners, and I am certain I was not the only one in the room who had to dry their eyes on a couple of occasions during that talk.

As a further indication of how Jones Day is different, it was great to be able to distribute to the partners a preliminary version of the book (really a long essay) I have been working on for most of the period since I retired. It will be finalized later this year and made available to everyone at the Firm (and personally, I hope, to clients, potential lateral additions, and perhaps even the general public). It goes into some detail on the Jones Day culture, what I see as a very particular philosophy of how to build and operate what is a unique global professional legal institution.

The Five Pillars

Here's the short summary for those who have not yet had the opportunity to read the essay—Jones Day's philosophy is based on values that transcend economics. The money is, of course, relevant, but it's never just about the money.

That philosophy stands on five pillars: (1) a singular focus on client service; (2) the managing partner system; (3) a seamless global partnership; (4) courage in the face of controversy; and (5) loyalty. In a nutshell, these are the major elements of the Jones Day philosophy. They are how and why we became what we are today. They are What Makes Us One. (See the recent launch of the "What Makes Us One" video series.)

Other large law firms may have challenges with culture, but not Jones Day. We have many other challenges; past success is no guarantee of future success, and in what is surely the most competitive environment the legal profession has ever seen, winning requires more effort and commitment than ever before. As all of you have heard, the growing presence of AI will add even more challenges.

But here's why I am optimistic about the Firm's future: The Jones Day philosophy has stood the test of time. It has not meaningfully changed for more than a century, notwithstanding two World Wars, the Great Depression, a global financial crisis, and a global pandemic, not to mention many other smaller challenges. As long as our actions continue to be based on the enduring values that have served us so well so far, this Firm will be just fine.

The Heart of the Matter

Now for a personal perspective on the Jones Day difference. Until you get to my stage in life and work, it is probably hard to appreciate the enormous joy that comes from being able to return to a gathering of former and many new partners and be so warmly and affectionately received. Those lawyers who constantly move from firm to firm over their career because of economic attraction probably made more money than I did, but they gave up the emotional value of having a forever home.

My father was an Air Force officer; we moved constantly, and I went to 13 grade schools and five high schools. Other than my immediate family, Jones Day has been the most constant and rewarding (almost always—there are speedbumps on every road) environment in my life. In it, I found great professional satisfaction and many personal relationships that have enriched my life and will last through the rest of it. It may be hard to put a precise value on that, but to me it has been worth much more than any economic returns I might have sacrificed along the way.

So coming to events like the San Diego meeting are always special to me, but this one was, in hindsight, even more so. I had not been feeling great for a week or two before the meeting, and my Apple Watch (I am now an even bigger fan) had been giving me low heart rate warnings when I sat for a long time, sometimes down in the 20s. (You can imagine how many warnings I got during Greg's plenary address.)

That continued after I got home, and about two weeks later, I finally brought it up with my Mayo Clinic doctor. He sent me to see a cardiologist, and the cardiologist took one look at my EKG and had me immediately admitted to the hospital to get a temporary pacemaker, which I got later that day. It turns out that there are three electrical conduits from the upper heart to the lower heart, and two of mine had stopped working. Two days later, I got a permanent pacemaker, with a battery that lasts 11+ years, so perhaps I will not need to deal with it again unless my great genetics keep me going past then.

I tell you this story because I have been very lucky; this is the first health issue I have had that caused me to focus on mortality. And that has made me even more appreciative of the truly important things in life: my wife of 61 years, my daughter and her family (the youngest of my three granddaughters just started law school!), and my second and much bigger family, Jones Day. I very much expect to be around for the next Partners Meeting in two years, and assuming I am, I hope I will once again be able to see old friends and soak up the incredible environment of a "Big Law" firm that certainly (and proudly) does not act like it.

Please, appreciate what you are part of; I guarantee you it will become even more special the longer you are involved and committed. I hope you will also get to enjoy the very special feelings I have every time I come back and connect with this wonderful collection of people who remain committed to doing something important and productive. Keep it up.

After serving in the U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division for eight years, Joe Sims joined Jones Day in 1978. During the next 38 years, he helped lead the Firm's Antitrust Practice to national and ultimately global prominence. He became the Firm's Technology Partner in 2002, was Partner-in-Charge of the California Region from 2006–2016, and served two stints on the Partnership Committee, among many other duties.