The firm had grown past the point where decisions could be made in conversation, but resisted the bureaucracy it saw elsewhere. The engagement wrote down a short set of principles, then tested them against real cases until partners trusted them.

The situation

Nineteen offices, a doubled partnership, and a decision culture that had depended on knowing everyone. Partners could not say which calls were theirs and which belonged to the council, so consequential client decisions queued behind a monthly meeting.

The firm’s real objection was not to structure but to being managed. That constraint shaped the work.

How the work ran

Seven months. Rather than draft a delegated authority manual, the engagement wrote five principles and then ran them against thirty real decisions from the previous year, in the open, with partners disagreeing about the answers. Admissions review was addressed last, once the standard the principles implied was visible. The underlying argument appears in the work on judgement at scale.

What changed

Decisions resolved below the partner council rose from 30% to 72%, and time to close client-facing decisions fell from twelve days to four. The principles remain one page. Discuss a similar engagement.