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Sabina Lippman, Managing Partner at CenterPeak, highlights the delicate balance law firms must strike between centralized decision-making and partner consensus in today's competitive market. She noted that unilateral decisions by firm chairs typically result in departures from leaders who felt excluded from consensus-building, while having "too many cooks in the kitchen" makes it difficult to execute transformational change. Lippman identifies the optimal approach as having six to ten firmwide leaders make major decisions while involving practice group and office leaders for sign-off, with the chair serving as the "thought and decision leader" who builds consensus to prevent "breakage" when implementing significant decisions like mergers or compensation changes.