Practicing Belonging: Hire lawyers who will become better than you are, and care enough to make sure they feel valued.

I caught up with Michael Williams over coffee at Café Corazón. He was early, as he tends to be in all he does. Michael is a Gen-Xer, an extrovert, and one of the few Black founding partners of Kansas City’s law firms. And while I clearly needed my morning caffeine, Michael’s engaging personality arrived preloaded.

Michael grew up in a military family that pulled up roots every few years. His father served in the Army, 82nd Airborne, and his mother was a military nurse (both are now happily retired near Fort Bragg). Michael’s longest childhood stint in a single location was at Fort Leonard Wood, in the Missouri Ozarks, where his father taught at the Drill Sergeant School.

At an early age, Michael decided he would become a lawyer, with all the clarity and determination that still permeate his career. As he puts it, “You ask what’s my backup plan … do I need one?” He also remembers to this day his fifth grade teacher telling him that while 80% of life is showing up, the other 20% is what you do when you get there, so “be early, be prepared, and be nice.” And Michael developed early on a lifetime knack for strategically developing genuine connections with others. As Michael puts it, ‘”if you’re not hanging around with people who are doing the things you want to do and who make you better, then you’re doing it wrong.”

These positive attitudes propelled him through college and law school at the University of Missouri and then through the associate ranks to partnership at Lathrop & Gage, handling a wide range of employment litigation. Once again Michael was early, first-chairing a federal court jury trial as a fourth-year associate. Then, after just four years as a Lathrop partner, Michael struck out on his own, founding Williams Law LLC, which has now grown to become Williams Dirks Dameron LLC.

In every major life decision he’s made, Michael has had a mentor. Of his many lawyer mentors over the years, two stand out for him:

• Rosalee (Rosie) McNamara trained Michael to be the best technical lawyer he could be. As a former English teacher, Rosie was exacting on lawyer writing skills (“no pronouns!”), with a gusto that no doubt was familiar to Michael, the son of an Army drill sergeant. Rosie impressed upon Michael that every detail matters, and that he should treat her, his supervising partner, as his client, getting it right the first time (“I’m your partner, not your editor”). He also noticed that, while she worked incredibly hard, she might leave a bit early in the afternoon, tend to her family, and then be back at it later in the evening. This demonstrated for Michael that excellent lawyers could balance the demands of work and personal life and still get the job done for their clients.
• Robert (Bob) McKinley taught Michael to be the the best law firm partner he could be. Bob would often ask Michael whether he was focusing on the things that would build his business, by first becoming expert in what he did as a lawyer, and then handling matters with clients and other lawyers in such a way that they would see the value, see that Michael cared, and appreciate what Michael did. Bob always stressed “you’ve got to be who you are, as you genuinely help people.” Also, “don’t be transactional in dealing with people – they can see right through that.”

Beyond his law practice, Michael somehow carries a herculean load of leadership responsibilities in professional and civic organizations. He currently chairs the University of Missouri Board of Curators, serves on the Board of the Kansas City Metropolitan Bar Association … and frankly, a list of his association memberships and responsibilities would be longer than this blog post. Reading between the lines of that list, one can see both his leadership expertise and also his drive to collaborate with others in building the value of these organizations.

Practicing Belonging

To Michael, professional belonging means figuring out how you can be happy at work and how you fit in your ecosystem. At first the “ecosystem” is one’s small group or team, and as time passes, one expands outward by being valuable to others. Michael told me “if I find a group of people who are happy and who are supportive of me and each other, then I’ll feel like I belong.” This squares with this blog’s definition of Belonging: “Belonging is your sense that you are part of something greater than yourself that you value and need and that values and needs you back….”

So, the law firm’s role in fostering Belonging is to meet that need. Michael’s approach for practicing Belonging is straightforward. Hire people who are smarter than you and who one day will be better lawyers than you. Then, don’t be transactional with them – care enough to find out what makes them feel valued.

Michael is convinced that “people don’t leave a high-paying job – they leave a bad manager.” The partner, team leader, or law firm needs to ask what makes their lawyers feel valued, then listen, and then do their best to deliver. And Michael understands that what makes one feel valued will differ among lawyers. For some, it’s simply compensation, but for others it may be something else, such as consistently being home before their children’s bedtime, or having enough time off for a new baby.

And caring enough to listen and respond with a tailored solution is key. Michael recalls an associate telling him that the associate wanted to know more about what’s going on at the Firm. Michael’s response was “OK, great – you’re now in charge of scheduling our new monthly Firm lunch!”

This all sounds so obvious, and one might assume that this is effortless for someone like Michael. But dig deeper and you find the real lesson. Clarity, commitment, discipline, consistent effort, follow-through, and personal accountability are required to actually live these notions. Be early. Be prepared. Don’t be transactional with people’s needs. Care enough to ask what makes them feel valued. Listen, and then deliver. That’s the hard work that pays off over time. And just as it works in building a law practice, it will work in building a culture of Belonging.

The words are easy to say, but not to live by. Michael lives these things. We should all be so committed.