"" The leadership succession plan announced by Greenberg Traurig a year ago is now complete. CEO Cesar Alvarez, who joined the Miami-based firm as its 13th lawyer in 1973, stepped aside last week to let the firm's president, Richard Rosenbaum, assume the role of chief executive.
Greenberg has touted the ultimate authority of its CEO as one of the strengths that allowed the firm to increase its head count by 450 percent since Alvarez took control in 1997, according to this March 2007 feature story on the firm by The American Lawyer's Amy Kolz.
Rosenbaum joined Greenberg in 1985 and as president became one of a handful of partners who handled key strategic decisions for the 1,775-lawyer firm. He has worked in three of the firm's 30 offices located throughout the U.S., Europe and Asia.
Rosenbaum, 55, will be resident in the firm's New York office. He had worked from the firm's core offices in South Florida in the early part of his career.
Alvarez now takes the title of executive chairman. (Former Greenberg CEO Larry Hoffman will remain chairman of the firm, while Miami real estate partner Matthew Gorson will now serve as the firm's sole president.)
In an interview with The Miami Herald on Monday, Alvarez reflected on his tenure and opined on the future of the legal profession and that of his firm.
Alvarez told the Herald that his biggest mistake while leading Greenberg was underestimating how important the culture of a firm was. As noted in Kolz's feature, the actions of a few former Greenberg partners, including lobbyist Jack Abramoff, suggested a fast-and-loose atmosphere at the firm. (Greenberg also has been unfavorably tied to the Allen Stanford scandal.)
"When I started, I said culture is a nice thing, but unless you drive success, culture won't mean anything," Alvarez told the Herald. "In fact, I know now that it is the opposite. You need to drive the culture, and culture will drive success. It took me a couple years to figure it out."
Despite those shortfalls, Alvarez said he's proud of the growth of the firm over the course of his decade-long tenure as CEO. A blind compensation system whereby only Greenberg's CEO knows what each partner makes allowed the firm to grow without the politicking between different committees, he told the paper.
"We had incredible growth and got to be one of the top 10 firms in the U.S.," Alvarez said. "We were not even on The American Lawyer [Am Law 100] firms at the time I became CEO. I don't know that anyone else has been able to lead that kind of change."
Greenberg hasn't stopped growing. The firm was extremely active in the lateral partner market last year, even launching a London office in June with former Mayer Brown vice chairman Paul Maher.
Alvarez told the Herald that as executive chairman he'll continue to oversee moves to new offices and looks at ways to streamline certain practice groups, but that any final say will now be with Rosenbaum.
As for the future of law firms and the effect of the economic downturn on the law firm business, Alvarez told the Herald that the legal industry's problems first started in 2000 when only one of the "five key drivers of profitability" -- increasing hourly rates each year -- was working properly.
"The hourly business is not going away but that will be diminished," he said. "There are new ways of billing and doing things creatively and efficiently. Firms that can figure that out will survive."
This article first appeared on The Am Law Daily blog on AmericanLawyer.com. ""
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