Political career for lawyers: opportunities, motivation and possible consequences for their professional profile

Natalia Khomyshyna

Lawyers are representative of one of the most public occupations of the world. Many lawyers eventually become professional politicians. This provided due to education, logic, public speaking, arguing capacity and communication skills.

No one has yet compiled statistics on what is the occupation from which the world’s heads of state most often come from. In principle, it is difficult to find a field so professional, from whose bowels a president, a chancellor or, for example, a general secretary, would not emerge. One thing can be firmly said: there were quite a few lawyers among rulers in all historical times.

Many believe that political experience may carry benefits for the lawyer and his/her firm. Work in public sector allows obtaining good contracts and better understanding internal proceedings of state institutions. This is very important particularly for lawyers specialized in public law or governmental relations.

In my opinion, taking the decision of starting a political career, a lawyer must be prepared for this process. First of all, it is appropriate to plan this transition and start working with enough time in the personal Brand, not only in the legal aspect, but also as a public figure.  Second, I would recommend to prepare a reputational crisis management plan to be ready in case of possible informational attacks, which are pretty frequent in this area. The best crisis management is to prevent it.

Also, the firm has to consider and prepare in case a partner in charge of a relevant practice area leaves the firm, although for the time, because this may affect such practice management and the perception of clients.

It all depends on the political situation of each country

When evaluating if changing a legal practice into a position in the public sector or not, the political situation of the country must be considered. Experiences can be totally different in different parts of the world.

In my opinion, the United States of America is the country where almost ideal conditions have been created for lawyers to obtain important governmental positions. A possible explanation of this phenomenon is the existence of special American political traditions in which politicians are required to have qualities that are mainly for lawyers. In addition to skills in working with law, in which lawyers will give advantages over any other professional, the legislator in the United States requires the ability to defend his/her point of view.

In countries where there is a different party tradition, especially in states with a parliamentary form of government, the percentage of lawyers in senior government positions is much lower. To become head of state, a politician needs not so much personal charisma as the ability to properly organize party work, in which people of various professions can succeed.

I began my career in the legal market in Ukraine, where there was always a lot of movement of lawyers to the public sector. Working with Ukrainian lawyers, I usually had concerns about possible damage to the reputation of the lawyer and his/her firm in case of transition to the public sector. Political situation was always very complicated in the last 15 years and there was a lot of competition not only between the parties but within each political force. From my experience I can confirm that the majority of lawyers who were in politics have felt negative consequences for their firms, private practice and/or professional reputation. The business was always the first point to attack in negative media campaigns, especially in the case of founders or former partners of the firms.

I am observing different situations in some Latin American countries. In many cases it is the absolutely normal practice: to go from the firm to politics and return after a few years with new experience and contacts. In other cases, you have to be very prepared to mitigate possible risks.

The most important is to always evaluate the current situation of each country and possible consequences for a firm and a lawyer.

Motivation

I had experience working with lawyers who feel happy because they can offer their experience and knowledge and can collaborate to improve the well-being of their country. There are different possibilities for this: someone goes to the government, someone to voluntary projects. In other cases, lawyers actively participate in the development of various bills. It is clear that this is unpaid work, lawyers invest their time, sometimes taking it away from their clients and their families, to do a good project for the country and its reputation.

Usually, lawyers are the first to see the success of their clients when they acquire or sell their business, receive funds for the development of new directions, expand an existing business. But in the same way, they are the first to see the warning signs when their clients lose a lot of money due to arbitrary power, corruption, unpredictable regulatory policies, an unfavorable economic situation. Therefore, due to the specifics of business, lawyers are among the first to register changes in the investment climate and the level of corruption in each country. No wonder many aspire to start changing the situation for the better with their own hands.

Natalia Khomyshyna is a consultant in legal marketing, crisis communications and political communications. She has almost 20 years of experience in marketing and public relations in different industries, including 15 years in management roles in the legal sector.

She provides assistance in law firm strategic planning, business development and marketing planning. She assists law firms in media relations, event management, participation in legal rankings, CRM, digital marketing campaigns, among others. Natalia has extensive experience in crisis communication. She has managed various projects related to politically sensitive issues and government relations, including Litigation PR projects for law firm clients.