ADD MILLIONS OF DOLLARS TO YOUR BOTTOM LINE: KEEP LAWYERS ON BOARD©

Sounds obvious, doesn’t it? Keeping ten first year associates (who would have resigned) employed for an extra year adds $1.5 million to profits. Keeping two partners can add millions. Yet few firms have established lawyer retention goals. Does your practice focus on retention?

Not all departures, law firm leaders tell us, are "retention problems." Lawyers are leaving their jobs for "better opportunities" at dot.coms, to go "in house," take a government job or run for judicial office. They leave to follow a spouse to another city, be a stay at home parent, start a different practice that doesn’t fit within the firm’s goals or retire early. These lifestyle decisions, firm leaders point out, are not the firm’s fault.

Leaders seem to think that identifying a "retention problem" will publicly acknowledge a weakness, which they are loathe to do. Instead, firm leaders tell us about associates who aren’t "committed," partners who are "dead wood," and both aren’t "productive."

Regardless of why lawyers leave, why they are less productive, or what you call it, the net result to the firm is the same: reduced revenue and reduced profits.

We all know now, if we didn’t know before the wage wars this last year, that firms can’t keep GenXers on board and productive by just giving them money. Firms actually have to do something to make the firm a place where associates want to practice. When departing lawyers go, research shows they won’t tell the firm they’re unhappy, but they will tell seventeen other people. This negative publicity affects the firm in measurable ways, whether or not the firm acknowledges and addresses the issues.

One of our law firm clients recently told us that it has 30% more work than it can handle, which is a positive problem. When the firm’s lawyers are already complaining about working long, hard hours, then having too much work and too few lawyers to do it is a lost opportunity.

Although productive partners may have the ability to solve these problems, they just don’t have the time or the inclination to babysit with lawyers who should, after all, be able to mind themselves. Motivating non-productive partners to become a part of the solution is a better answer than "cutting the dead wood," which merely compounds the problem.

Recent surveys reflect that 42% of associates will stay with a firm that provides good training. Partners are looking for a new challenge, work that interests them, and profitability. Thus, to keep lawyers employed and productive, lawyers should be given training in designing and building a successful law career, setting appropriate goals and learning how to design a satisfying practice that will result in an increase in productivity and length of service.

The apprenticeship style of learning that many older lawyers were fortunate enough to experience is no longer economically viable. Today’s partners don’t have the time to tutor and today’s clients won’t pay the cost of a junior lawyer to shadow the master and learn by doing. Career design and building training must replace apprenticeships, particularly for GenX lawyers.

This project cannot be left to the discretion of busy partners because it will not get the priority it deserves. Recognizing that merely expecting busy partners to take on the additional burden for mentoring, training and payments to unproductive partners is not the answer, many firms have already hired a professional and put programs in place to help them with this project. Firms have started in-house "universities" that offer training in goal setting and career design techniques to lawyers at all levels. They offer lawyers the opportunity for individual coaching to maximize proven career building techniques.

Stressing individual responsibility for job satisfaction puts the burden of developing a satisfactory law career right where it belongs: with the lawyer. This frees up the partners’ time to concentrate on building their own careers and strategic planning for the firm.

Career building skills are designed to improve productivity, increase performance and raise job satisfaction to the point where the size of the profit pie can comfortably accommodate more partners and higher salaries. Appropriate goal setting eliminates hoarding work below one’s level of expertise as well as the temptation to accept unprofitable or undesirable work.

Career building focuses the individual lawyer and the firm on the positive aspects of the practice, eliminates the corrosive effects of negative thinking by lawyers with too much time on their hands, and brings lawyers into harmony with the higher goals of the profession.

Want to add a million dollars to your firm’s bottom line this year? Keep four experienced lawyers from leaving your practice through career design and career building. Call us. We’ll show you how.

PeopleWealth can assist your Professional Development staff on a consulting basis to communicate effectively with lawyers and to help lawyers design and build successful careers in your practice. Contact our office, visit our web site at www.PeopleWealth.com, or e-mail us: info@PeopleWealth.com

©PeopleWealth September 2000