Are there certain personality characteristics that drive people to succeed as large law firm lawyers? As consultants, we often hear lawyers suggest that management techniques and strategy approaches that work in other industries just do not apply to law. “Lawyers are unique,” we’re told. Is it true that lawyers, and large law firm lawyers in particular, are a different breed? We recently set off to find out by personality-testing nearly 1,500 lawyers in four large international law firms.
The personality test we used was an instrument developed by Hogan Assessment Systems, a company whose tests are widely employed across industries to identify and develop leaders who will thrive in various organizational settings. As part of a larger assessment program, the Hogan Personality Inventory (HPI) measures an individual’s strengths in seven key traits [see "About the Traits, below." ].
