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RETENTIONWITH A
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT PARTNER©  Most management teams feel
their practices are great places to forge a law career and that they offer excellent job
opportunities to lawyers. Management, bewildered and
a little offended when lawyers don’t seem to understand or appreciate opportunities,
can develop effective methods for communicating to lawyers and publicize flexible support
for lawyers’ career plans with a Professional Development Partner.
The thrust of our philosophy is that lawyers must take personal responsibility
for the development of their own careers. In the context of law firm life,
this generally requires management to help lawyers understand how they can have successful
careers at the firm.
Most lawyers now accept that cases can be won or lost on identical facts;
it’s the presentation of those facts that makes the difference.Thus, jury consultants
and jury research are common weapons in the trial lawyer’s arsenal. Not because
the lawyers don’t know the case, but because they need help to present the case in an
effective way that jurors will accept. Similarly, when presenting the firm to its lawyers,
management must understand and effectively address their perceptions. How the message is
delivered matters.
Most firms can
accommodate lawyers’ needs and are willing to do so, if clients are appropriately
served. But lawyers are often unaware of options within their firms and do not
perceive they can be successful in their present environment, even where management
believes it has adopted and publicized appropriate policies.
Often, junior lawyers have little experience
designing a legal career and busy senior lawyers have little time to teach them.As a
result, when recruiters call with what sounds like an enticing opportunity, lawyers change
jobs.Often, the new job is no more satisfactory than the old one.Our Career Design process
helps lawyers determine what they want to do and then encourages them to work within their
current practice to satisfy their career goals.Many practices have made job satisfaction
and lawyer retention a goal, but don’t realize they
aren’t publicizing that goal effectively. Consider naming a credible
person as accountable for lawyer retention, with a title such as “Retention
Partner,” or “Professional Development Partner.”
To jump start the process and be sure management understands the views of
those “in the trenches,” hire a consultant to do a climate/attitude survey of
individual lawyers, discover their level of job satisfaction, formulate a retention plan
and make recommendations to the firm for retention efforts. This will
encourage candor from lawyers as well as demonstrate to the practice in a visible way that
the firm is serious about this effort.Climate surveys should be completed anonymously and
a report on the results should be made to the entire firm or practice area.
Emphasize and publicize what the climate survey reveals is RIGHT with the
practice.Lawyers are risk analyzers.They tend to focus on problems. Try reminding lawyers
of the good things about the practice and focusing on those while the practice begins to
resolve whatever problems are identified.
Implementation efforts on identified problems should begin within days of
receipt of the recommendations.Actual progress toward these recommendations must be
promptly apparent and publicized.
Next, market to lawyers and prospective lawyers just as you market to clients
and prospective clients. Provide positive reasons for lawyers to choose your practice over
other alternatives. |
What the practice is
currently doing right is also the backbone of its mission and vision. Lawyers know what
they want the practice to be and where they want it to go, but that knowledge may not have
been reduced to writing, publicized and implemented. Lawyer
development responsibilities within successful practices do not stop just because an
associate becomes a partner. Indeed, many practices have more partners than associates
now, or are about evenly divided between associates and partners. Career building is a
life long process.
No matter how exciting the first two stages of
law practice are, after about five years most lawyers are looking for something more. They
want greater challenges and greater rewards. They want neither to be bored nor
burned out. Help lawyers get work and clients that will keep the lawyers challenged
and engaged. This, of course, means greater challenge and reward to the practice as well.
Lawyers just want to have fun, too.
Lawyers want to be challenged, to learn things,
to help people and to make a difference. Lawyers thrive on difficult tasks
and complicated problems. But lawyers also want and need praise and affirmation, laughter,
lightheartedness and camaraderie. Lawyers need demonstrated appreciation. A client that
thinks paying the bill is thanks enough is not a client many lawyers will stay with long.
PeopleWealth can assist your Professional
Development staff on a regular or consulting basis to communicate effectively with lawyers
and to help lawyers design and build successful careers. If you would like further
information about PeopleWealth or our services, please contact our office or e-mail us:
info@PeopleWealth.com Or visit our web site at www.PeopleWealth.com
©PeopleWealth
January 2000 |
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