Teaching old dogs... I mean lawyers... new tricks!

Photo by John Cameron on Unsplash

There is a lot of value in this post.  I know you can pull it off - because you have to.

One of the most challenging parts of my business these days is leading "well established" law firms into changing their corporate culture in order to retain and attract staff. Perhaps its my geographic market? The demographics of my market? I don't really know the reason for the resistance to taking a look at firm or corporate culture and updating it, but it must be done.

What I have outlined here will seem elementary to firms with stable structure and progressive firm culture but it needs to be outlined nonetheless. We wouldn't be talking about it if it wasn't a thing.

I recognize it can be tricky for lawyers because their focus is on the practice of law and we have been doing things a certain way for a long time.  It is easy to become complacent in an environment where we are not forced to keep up - but now it's game on.  We all know how much opportunity is out there. 

Onboarding Process:

Do you have an office policy and procedure manual?  Has it been updated?  Is there a streamlined and consistent process that you use to onboard all of your staff?  Has the firm provided any updated training or refreshers?  Do you have monthly or quarterly staff meetings or ongoing education processes that are actually focused on updating firm policy, legislated changes, legal education, and staff retention?

If your onboarding process is streamlined, consistent and documented, anyone should be able to do staff training. If someone quits, your onboarding process should not miss a beat.

Internal Staff Training:

Do you have your current staff completing staff training? What is their role in the firm?  Are they specifically tasked with training?  Are those people current in their own training?

What about the bookkeeper and other lawyers? If it is the general and trust accounts that are part of the required training who is providing that training and do they have a solid understanding of the regulatory issues surrounding trust accounting?

If your onboarding process is streamlined, consistent and documented, anyone should be able to do staff training.  Again, if someone quits, your onboarding process should not miss a beat.

Setting New Hires (and old ones too) Up For Success:

Do you have a process that sets your new employees, and continues to direct your current and longstanding employees, in the direction of success?

Or is your process to throw them in the deep end and hope they figure it out?  Are you really setting up your new hires for failure?  We never think we are doing that; but if we take a good look at our process then we often discover that is exactly what we are doing.

Do you allow staff to take personal development or "soft skill" development courses as part of their continuing education component? Wouldn't that encourage a healthy firm culture with people who want to lead and mentor?

Do you even have a continuing education component?

Firm Culture:

Which bring us to firm culture. Again, I recognize it can be tricky for lawyers because their focus is on the practice of law and we have been doing things a certain way for a long time.  It is easy to become complacent in an environment where we are not forced to keep up - but now we have to. Gone are the good old days. Some of our new and emerging leaders have grown up with Me Too and Times Up. How do you want that to go in your firm?

If you don't believe your current staff are appropriate for providing training and onboarding new staff, why is that?  If you are having a lot of staff turn-over in a short period of time, why is that?

You are lawyers. Has a pattern of behavior been established that is indicative of the general culture of the firm? If I were part of a regulatory body investigating your firm, while assessing your documentation, what else would I find if I took a deep dive into your corporate culture?

If one person were to make a formal complaint, will that cause a landslide of formal complaints?  In order to be proactive, how do we change now to prevent that?  Do you have a non-punitive reporting practice? Or any reporting practice?  Does anyone know about it?

You might have to break it and put it back together in order to remain competitive.

Responsibility as an Employer:

The responsibility still lies with the partners and the office manager or HR manager as the employer, and the leaders of the firm. We all know at the end of the day; this responsibility falls to the partners - full stop. This responsibility does not, and should not, fall to "the girls" or "the staff" - EVER.

Again, I recognize it can be tricky for lawyers because their focus is on the practice of law, but recognizing the nature of this market, we have to be aware of who is setting the tone in the firm.

Who is setting the tone in your firm?

I hope it's a cohesive, committed and consistent leadership team who understand that they are not only legal geniuses, but also business leaders, and leaders of people!

Just so you know, the people part is kind of important.