Five Leadership Principles Behind SKH’s Longevity

In celebration of SKH’s 40th anniversary, Shareholder Laurel Hook shares 5 leadership principles that have helped shape the firm’s longevity, growth, and unwavering commitment to our clients.

What leadership principle has been most important in helping SKH remain successful and relevant over the years?

SKH leaders are competitive. We are a firm of leaders with a winning mentality and a keen sense of strategy to achieve the best results for our clients, with the client experience at the center of everything we do. We require all our attorneys to demonstrate excellence, strive for the best results, and work towards win-win resolutions when possible. We are skilled negotiators who are always prepared to litigate when necessary. One of our favorite comments from a longtime client and friend of the firm is that SKH “doesn’t know how to lose.” This competitive confidence drives our ability to work as a team that delivers consistent results.

At the same time, we believe exceptional service goes beyond legal work and is reflected in the care we bring to every aspect of the client experience. We provide a gourmet chef for clients and staff, offer convenient free parking, and take every possible step to protect the confidentiality of clients who are visiting our offices. Staying relevant does not mean abandoning what already works. For us, it means preserving the values that have always defined SKH while continually finding new ways to go the extra mile. SKH has endured by keeping our values consistent, allowing our methods to evolve, and never losing sight of the clients and communities we serve.

How have you balanced staying true to the company’s original values while adapting to changes in your industry, customers and workforce?

We have learned to distinguish between values and practices. Values should be durable; practices should evolve. Our commitment to exceptional legal work, strong relationships, integrity, and finding creative solutions for our clients while always putting them first has remained consistent throughout SKH’s history. How we deliver on those promises has changed considerably.

Technology has transformed communication and legal practice. Client expectations have changed. The workforce has changed, and people increasingly expect workplaces that offer mentorship, flexibility, opportunity, and meaningful connection to the communities they serve. We have responded by evolving our technology, expanding our services and geographic reach, developing future attorneys from within the firm, and continually looking for better ways to serve our clients and our communities.

Our goal is not to preserve SKH exactly as it was, but to protect the values that made it worth building in the first place while giving each new generation the freedom to make it even better.

What have you learned about making decisions that protect the company’s long-term success, even when the short-term choice might be easier or more profitable?

Some of the most important business decisions do not produce an immediate return. Investing in people, developing future leaders, strengthening culture, protecting your reputation, and expanding into new communities can all require patience and a willingness to accept higher short-term costs for greater long-term value.

One example is our decision to maintain 6 offices across Oregon and Southwest Washington: Portland, Bend, Vancouver, Astoria, Eugene, and our Southern Oregon location opening in October. Having a physical presence in the communities we serve increases overhead, but it also allows our attorneys to build stronger local relationships, better understand the people and institutions in those communities, and serve clients as part of the community rather than as an outsider. That connection leads to stronger trust, better insight, and ultimately better results for our clients.

We have learned that trust and reputation compound over time. A shortcut that improves this quarter’s numbers but weakens your people, your culture, or your clients’ confidence can be costly in the long run. We ask ourselves: will we still be proud of this decision 5 or 10 years from now? At SKH, we build for the long term by investing in the firm we want to become, rather than focusing only on today’s results.

How do you build and maintain a leadership culture that can carry the company forward beyond any one individual leader?

An enduring company cannot depend on one personality, one rainmaker, or one generation of leadership. We intentionally develop people who are capable of carrying the organization forward, and then we give them meaningful opportunities to lead. Our strength comes from a leadership team with complementary, distinct skill sets and the humility to work collaboratively toward consensus, often reaching unanimous decisions.

Strong leadership cultures also distribute responsibility. When people throughout an organization feel ownership over its standards, client experience, culture, and future, leadership becomes institutional rather than individual. That is ultimately what allows a company to outlast any one person.

Looking back, what leadership decision or philosophy do you believe had the greatest impact on the company’s ability to endure – and what would you tell other leaders who want to build a company that lasts?

One of the philosophies that has had the greatest impact on our longevity is the belief that every day we are building the next version of SKH, and that version must continue to earn our clients’ trust. After 40 years, we know we cannot simply rely on what made us successful in year 5, 15, or 30. Client needs and expectations change, and each generation of leadership has a responsibility to honor what came before while continuing to improve how we serve the people who depend on us.

That means investing in people before you need them to lead, building relationships before you need something from them, protecting your reputation when no one is watching, and never becoming complacent about the client experience. For us, exceptional client service means listening carefully, communicating clearly, keeping our promises, and being genuinely available when clients need us, day or night.

Every SKH client has their lawyer’s personal cell phone number because we believe direct access and responsiveness are essential to building trust, especially during difficult and uncertain moments. We don’t wait until Monday to deal with a Friday problem. We face challenges head-on when our clients need us.

My advice to other leaders is to think beyond succession and focus on stewardship. Build a company whose values are strong enough to endure, but whose people and processes are flexible enough to evolve with the needs of its clients. When clients remain at the center of that evolution, longevity becomes the result rather than the objective.