Many Teams, One Firm

McGuireWoods Consulting (MWC), founded in 1998, sought to offer a new approach to lobbying efforts. First, the firm was an exercise in cross-promotion. The lawyers with McGuireWoods, LLP, were so often promoting outside lobbyists that partner Frank Atkinson decided to form a subsidiary to perform the complementary non-legal services. Rather than offering a team of advisers from different disciplines, often trying to outdo one another, MWC sought to offer synergy through coordinated teams. Originally, the teams were Government Relations and Issue Management, Business Expansion and Relocation Services, and Public Relations. Today, the teams are state Government Relations, Advocacy, and Economic Development. Furthermore, MWC is a bipartisan firm, so there is an emphasis on working across the aisle on most projects. MWC is headquartered in Richmond, Virginia, but has offices in Florida, Georgia, Illinois, North and South Carolina, Texas, and Washington D. C. Additionally, there are two offices abroad in Brussels and Bucharest.

MWC is officially chaired by Mark Bowles, a Richmond Law graduate, and former Governor of South Carolina, Jim Hodges. Beneath the firm chairs, the Advocacy division is led by Steve Horton, Economic Development by Chris Loyd, and State Government by Chris Nolen. All of these individuals are Senior Vice Presidents (SVP).

Beneath every SVP, there is a team of Vice Presidents (VPs). VP’s have a large amount of autonomy. Each VP conducts their own business, and they are evaluated on how many clients they can retain or expand and the quality of lobbying service they can provide. Occasionally, when lobbying for an initiative requiring bipartisan support, a SVP or VP may ask an associate from the opposite political party to help out. VP’s do technically report to SVP’s, but the structure is more decentralized and less formal. VP’s will report to whomever necessary at a given time, but they are not micromanaged. Everyone around this office holds influence and some form of leadership role, so it is invaluable to have a high degree of trust among associates. MWC highly values collegiality as I discussed in my post on organizational culture, and this is because of the amount of interdependence between associates when pursuing legislative initiatives. SVPs certainly rely on the support of VPs and vice versa.

As interns, we were brought on by Davis Rennolds, a VP of State Government Relations. Davis and Laura Hutson, the administrative assistant, are our direct points of contact. Davis and Laura are the ones who introduce us to all of the associates, inform us of firm policy and culture, and also answer any questions we may have later down the road. There are only a handful of other interns ranging from undergraduates to law students, so we work together as a tight knit-team when we aren’t working on projects we’ve retained individually. The other interns and I are seated at an intern suite in the middle of our floor that we affectionately call “The Fishbowl”. Throughout the day, firm associates will enter the fishbowl to tell us about their area of work and offer opportunities for us to help them with their projects. If we complete our tasks, we’re encouraged to introduce ourselves to other associates and request projects. Interns are not micromanaged, and often times associates are excited to teach us about their work.

I’ve observed the decentralization of authority and high level of respect among associates regardless of rank to be refreshing, and a strength of MWC. A weakness would be that the who-does-what and the who-reports-to-whom might get confusing for an outsider, but most people around here seem to have the hang of it.