In his younger days, David Foltyn could be found playing bass in various rock bands.
It was never going to be his profession and when he talks about it now he acknowledges he’s “living in the past.”
He does have a son who is a symphonic bass player – “He’s really good,” Foltyn said – but for Foltyn it “wasn’t so much a talent as a hobby” that he hasn’t picked up in 45 years.
So, while a career as a musician may not have materialized, Foltyn has done pretty well for himself. Since rising to become Chairman of the Board and CEO at Detroit-based law firm Honigman LLP, a multiple Best and Brightest Companies to Work For winner. Foltyn has led the firm – already the largest in Michigan – to becoming one of the largest in the country.
Honigman, with eight offices and more than 350 lawyers scattered around the country, counsels clients on complex issues in more than 60 legal practice areas. Foltyn himself advises clients on mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, financial transactions and public offerings.
Foltyn sat down to talk about business issues during the most recent episode of “CEO Thought Leadership Series on LinkedIn Live,” the discussion series hosted by the National Association of Business Resources.
Produced in conjunction with the Best and Brightest Companies to Work For and Corp! Magazine, the series is hosted by NABR CEO Jennifer Kluge and features business leaders from around the country.
Jennifer Kluge: There are forces in play currently as it relates to your industry. Give us a snapshot of what’s happening, especially with inflation and interest rates.
David Foltyn: So our ideal pace it slowed a bit. It didn’t disappear, but it slowed a bit on seller pricing and buyer pricing. In some cases, investment bankers have sort of oversold company earnings and performance and deals have died during due diligence. (We) see the deal pace picking up as we hit the fourth quarter.
Kluge: You see other trends as a law firm and usually law firms see things before the rest of the business world does. What do you see happening in the future as far as the business climate?
Foltyn: Well, there’s a lot of uncertainty, and uncertainty is worse by far measure than certainty. As you know, if things are going to be good, that’s great. If they’re going to be bad, not as good. But there’s tremendous amount of uncertainty. There’s a real uncertainty in the political climate.
Capital markets would expect them to. Our life science practice is growing, which is and indicator about what’s going on in the world. Real estate is down and particularly office real estate. You read the news, you know what’s happening with office space. And so that side of real estate is looking negative and the experts are predicting all sorts of negative things in the commercial office space.
Kluge: Now you have the role of chairman and CEO. Sometimes that’s good, sometimes that’s not good. Because what you need to do as the CEO for operations isn’t always in the best interest of chairman and vice versa. So how do you create synergy between the strategic needs of both groups?
Foltyn: Our governance structure is very CEO-centric, but the way I’ve operated is I walk around a lot. I probably have lunch … two or three days a week with my colleagues. We do rely on thought leaders. We do talk things over and I try to listen at all levels. Even our newest people have something and we’re very active in lateral hiring people that come to us from another firm.
I like to know what’s worked for them, what doesn’t work, what they see working with us. Right now, we’re in the middle of a strategic planning process here. We have a committee of about a dozen or so important thought leaders in the firm, and then we probably have another 20 or 25 initially who we polled and surveyed and chatted with.
With lawyers, it seems that everybody has an opinion. And so it’s sometimes a challenge to get all these very smart, right-thinking people around one concept. We really try hard to open up decision-making and conversation. But of course, the buck stops here.
Kluge: There are stereotypes of attorneys and lawyers out there. It’s mostly painted as a non-diverse world. And I know that you personally have taken steps to address this issue of diversity, equity and inclusion. Tell us a little bit of your philosophy there and for the naysayers.
Foltyn: Law is a creative business. What we do, where we add value is by finding creative solutions. It’s impossible for me to imagine a creative business that isn’t diverse in all respects, not just in the traditional respects, but diversity, thought and background. It’s very difficult if you have a trial in a federal court, in a community where the jury is likely to be people of color, are women, are other minorities, it’s impossible to have four white men in the room theorizing on how to get that going.
So we really have to place it here. And I’m by heart and by nature very much into diversity and inclusion. That’s just my nature. That’s the political view. That’s how I approach the world. But not everybody votes that way. Not everybody feels that way. And I think what we’ve done is we’ve persuaded the owners of the business that, you know, irrespective of what your political view is, this is good for the business.
Kluge: What are your thoughts on artificial intelligence from a legal perspective? Are you using AI within your firm a bit?
Foltyn: It’s here and we are. You know, the legal business is, in some respects, 200 years ago. I mean, I always tell my doctor friends that if you practice medicine the way we practice law, you’d probably still be leeching blood from us. But firms like ours are all about delivering value. And that’s what we have to do.
That’s our edge. We deliver value, and part of that is creative. And there’s an element of this that I don’t think any program or machine or whatever will duplicate. It’s no different than building a bridge. It’s no different than putting a building; a lot of stuff that goes into it does not require a brilliant lawyer to do it. It’s your innovation, it’s your process. Since here we’re already using AI, we use AI for due diligence. It reads documents much quicker than humans do with much less error.
We need to learn it. There have been some examples where lawyers have used it to write briefs and it’s just made up a lot. And that’s technically not complying with your ethical obligations. There are serious ethical obligations about putting client information into the public, which some of this does.
Kluge: Talent is an issue out there right now, especially for more of the advanced degree fields and industries. How do you continue to provide exceptional service with those kind of talent demands?
Foltyn: Well, you know, this as complicated as we make it, and it’s challenging, it’s technology and … you want to have the best lawyers and you want to have the best clients. And we aggressively recruit top students. You know, I always distinguish between a business’s values and its culture.
Our values today are identical to the values we had 75 years ago, and one of the core values was get the best lawyers and pay them the best.
Kluge: What advice would you give a young person that wants a career like yours?
Foltyn: Everything we do is about money, and I help our clients get more of it and help our clients save it. And so speaking the language of our client is a huge and I had the good fortune of having degree in business before I went to law school and being able to understand the client’s objectives through the language of finance or accounting really is help.
Most of the people we hire being a lawyer is no harder than it was being the law student, at least in the first year. They work hard, do good work, and I always say make a lot of people respect you.
Everyone you interact with as a potential client. On day one, when we bring our first-year lawyers together and they all want to hear about business development, they all they all want to hear about it. First thing we tell them is, if you haven’t already started in law school, it’s too late as everybody you’re around.
Kluge: How do you personally manage stress? How do you make it fun?
Foltyn: I have a morning run during the week outside whenever possible, as long as there’s not ice. My wife, Elise, and I try to walk our dogs. That really helps. I have a wonderful marriage and I love unwinding. We have great friends. And I must tell you, there are a number of my colleagues here who are not only great friends of the family, but are fun to be around even in the most stressful situations.
Kluge: How do you define happiness?
Foltyn: It’s a great question. Being loved, family, health. My father had a great expression. He would say that a healthy man has a million problems and a sick man has one problem. Laughing, family and friends, being in the moment, doing what I do. I often stress that … if you don’t like what you’re doing, you’d better do something else.
