Gary Sasso Interviewed in Law.com: “Law Firm Disrupted: Why Some Big Law Leaders Outlast Corporate CEOs by Years”

Gary Sasso was interviewed by Law.com for an article on why leaders in Big Law tend to stay longer than their counterparts in the corporate world.

Sasso will have served nearly 22 years as president and CEO of Carlton Fields when his tenure wraps at the end of 2027. “It was working for me and working for the firm,” he said, noting that while he’s served through a series of six-year terms, he serves at will, with no contract. “The board could have asked me to step down at any time. I’ve always asked myself whether I’d used up my ideas and had anything left. I would have stepped down myself if I thought I’d used everything up.”

In a signal of how critical the partner compensation question is to success in the role, the board at Carlton Fields opted to build a 15-month runway for Richard Choi to replace Sasso in part to get accustomed to that process. “The end of year, with partner compensation, is a very sensitive time. They wanted my successor to go side-by-side with me through that process, and see how and why I was doing what,” Sasso said. “There’s a lot of moving parts.”

Asked about his strategy for avoiding burnout, Sasso said, “Stay focused on the horizon. You’re walking on a tightrope across a canyon. You can’t look down, you’ve got to look ahead. It is an arduous job, there is a lot of stress, you have to be resilient and have the right attitude about to handle it.”

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