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8 THE AUTONOMY IMPERATIVE Legal organizations have specific cultural characteristics that make governance particularly challenging. Understanding them is essential for making progress. Lawyers view autonomy as basically sacred. Their professional identity centers on independent thinking, questioning assumptions, and making their own decisions. When your information governance policy mandates "classify all documents within 24 hours," "use only these approved communication channels," or "follow this retention schedule exactly," it implies that the people tasked with following the policies cannot be trusted to make good decisions about information. I have watched this play before. Members with 25 years of experience using their own client organization system can find anything in seconds. Then, the information governance team rolls out new policies requiring a standardized taxonomy and folder structure. For practice members, the whole thing feels like someone saying, "Your proven system that's worked for a quarter century? It's not good enough, so we made you a new one to follow. And we didn't include you in conversations about the policies because we know how to do this part of your job better than you." Experienced lawyers do not refuse to adopt IG policies because they are lazy, stubborn, or incapable of understanding why it matters. THE BILLABLE HOUR WITHIN THE CULTURAL ETHOS The billable hour shapes how people think about literally everything they do. There's a constant mental calculation: "Is this generating revenue?" And information governance activities, like classifying documents, applying retention holds, updating matter records, sitting through security training, all read as "non-billable" in that calculation. The cultural message becomes crystal clear: Governance is overhead. Time spent on governance is time not spent on what actually matters. Real work is client work. This thinking intensifies with seniority. A junior associate might spend 15 minutes properly filing and classifying documents. They need to look diligent by billing as much time as possible. But the same 15 minutes managing documents feels wasteful to a partner with a packed schedule and major clients. Frivolous, even. Whether you say it out loud or not, the fact remains that as lawyers become more valuable to the firm, governance matters less. PARTNERSHIP DYNAMICS AND ACCOUNTABILITY Partners are peers, not subordinates. And that professional dynamic creates an enforcement vacuum. In a typical corporate hierarchy, a manager can require compliance from their team. But the firm's general counsel or CIO? The IG team can make suggestions, advocate for new policies and processes, and build business cases. But they typically cannot compel partner compliance. The managing partner might support the governance conceptually. But spending political capital to enforce it? That's a different conversation. Moreover, practice group leaders usually see governance as outside their domain. Whether you say it out loud or not, the fact remains that as lawyers become more valuable to the firm, governance matters less.

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