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 INTRODUCTION

PART ONE Recognition of Lawyer Value, Job Satisfaction and Retention of Best Lawyers who are engaged in the practice will increase client base and secure client loyalty, make the practice more profitable and more likely to prosper.

Chapter 1. Intellectual Capital.
Every night, an organization’s most important assets walk out the door and go home. In today’s market place, more than capital assets or real estate, the most valuable thing a business has is its intellect: good old American Know How. A law firm epitomizes that structure. A law firm or department is only as good as its lawyers. The goal of every individual lawyer is to be Difficult to Replace/High Value Added.

Chapter 2. Law is a Vocation.
A lawyer is called to the profession. His desire, skill and dedication are the very essence of who he is. Yet, that calling, like any other talent, must be nurtured, supported and respected.

Chapter 3. "Free Agency" Free Agency is a concept that has come to apply to all "knowledge workers," and most especially lawyers. This presents a challenge to law practices that must be addressed and understood because lawyers are not just intellectual capital, they are the practice’s only real asset.

Chapter 4. General Dissatisfaction and Malaise.
After five or more years of practice legal work often loses its luster and life seems so much more satisfying anywhere else. Its often "the conflict" that lawyers are most dissatisfied with, although conflict resolution is the sine qua non of lawyering. A successful practice is built by a voluntary association of lawyers with a common goal or mission.

Chapter 5. The "Brain Drain."
Experienced lawyers are leaving their practices and, in some cases, the profession. This trend results, in part, from an unproductive view of lawyers, their jobs and their roles in society.

Chapter 6. Culture and Personal Style.
Culture may be the most significant issue facing law practices today. Many practices don’t know what their culture is, nor how to blend a lawyer’s personal style or lateral hires into the existing culture. Resolving style or culture dissonance may make more of a difference in retention and job satisfaction than any other single issue.

PART TWO
Solutions are easier to articulate than to implement. Solutions require an ability to change and adapt to the current business environment, a commitment to the concepts and willingness to assist and allow lawyers to develop to their full potential.

Chapter 7. Best Practices: How to Attract, Train and Retain Best Lawyers.
Assuming an organization wants to improve lawyer retention there are fairly concrete steps that can be taken to achieve improvement in retaining the best lawyers in various stages of practice, regardless of the size of the organization.

Chapter 8. Best Lawyers: Career Design and Career Building.
To improve personal job satisfaction, lawyers must be vigilant in taking charge of personal career development at every stage of practice.

Chapter 9. Lawyer Engagement.
To increase retention, surveys have found that workers in any type of enterprise must be emotionally "engaged" with the business. The major issue here is trust in leadership and a stake in the outcome. Lawyers will stay with a group if they trust its leaders and if they feel there’s a common goal.

Chapter 10. Flow: Optimal Experience for Lawyers.
Take responsibility for personal happiness. Set clear goals; develop skills; become sensitive to feedback; know how to concentrate and get involved. Have an overall context within which to live. Job satisfaction for lawyers is primarily related to making satisfaction a goal and how successfully the lawyer addresses the five elements of time, money, personal style, conflict and professionalism.

Chapter 11. Quality of Life.
People first, Lawyers second. Although lawyers generally believe they are essential to their clients’ lives, much of the joy and the sorrow of law practice centers on lack of balance between personal and professional goals. Happy lawyers feel joy in work and time to enjoy life is an essential factor. Successful practices address the needs of the whole person in the areas of balance, ownership, renewal, lawyering and time management.

Chapter 12. Personal Responsibility. Responsibility for designing a successful legal career is the lawyer’s alone. Career Design and Career Building are the lawyer’s best strategy for avoiding boredom and burnout. Understanding the five stages of a legal career will assist lawyers in analyzing their needs. Lawyers must communicate their needs and seek their own individual solutions.

Chapter 13. Flexibility.
The one sure way to keep lawyers and keep them happy is, to paraphrase W.C. Fields, "give the people what they want." It does no good to insist that systems are "fair" or "reasonable" if they are not satisfactory to the lawyers who work with them.

Chapter 14. Innovation.
Lawyers and Practices must engage their right brain thinking, be flexible and learn to manage their practices in creative ways. Consider that it might be possible to think differently than you do.

Chapter 15. Generation X.
Managing Generation X presents its own challenges, but those challenges are equally present in Baby Boomers. The resume building and learning characteristics of Generation Xers supply creative management solutions for all lawyers.

Chapter 16. Abundance of Graduates. Because we graduate significant numbers of lawyers, many of whom have difficulty finding jobs out of school, does not mean that we will have a large number of productive partners in our law firms ten years hence. Indeed, associate attrition statistics and the declining population suggest just the opposite.

Chapter 17. Finders, Binders, Minders, Grinders.
Practices should recognize that all four types of lawyers are necessary to make the firm productive and profitable. Focusing on Finders will assure the firm has plenty of work. Ignoring the other categories will insure dissension, dissatisfied clients and reduced production capacity. Developing plans to value and retain Binders, Minders and Grinders will enhance the practice. Recognize that the top of the pyramid partners may no longer have the client control the firm assigns to them. Minders, who are often viewed as dispensable, are the true client contact and the lawyer the client views as "mine."

Chapter 18. Variable Compensation Systems. Address compensation with flexibility to accommodate all types of individual lawyers and their needs. Elements of fairness, value and the "Going Rate" (i.e. the rate that keeps the lawyer from going) must be addressed and perceived as appropriate by the lawyers themselves.

Chapter 19. Recruiting and Delivery of Promises.
Many lawyers report feeling that they were misled during the recruiting process. Lawyers make an effort to identify their concerns and address them when they take a new position. If the recruiting process is not scrupulously honest, buyer’s remorse decreases loyalty and increases attrition, with the commensurate loss of expertise and revenue.

Chapter 20. Make Good Hiring Decisions. Hire lawyers whose goals and aspirations can be met by the practice and who will enhance the practice by her presence.

Chapter 21. Profit Centers.
Recognition of existing profit centers and creation of additional ones will make the lawyer more valuable to the firm, increase individual value, and encourage engagement. Training in marketing the individual and the firm will benefit all concerned.

Chapter 22. Mentoring to Increase Satisfaction. Apprenticeship, training, support and general enhancement of lawyer value are all essential, but only if the lawyer is committed to becoming a productive partner of your practice. Firm partners should publicize the reasons the firm is an excellent place to work and encourage retention.

Chapter 23. Understand Practice Goals.
Are partners attempting to build a firm that will be valuable to its clients, the profession and future generations of lawyers? Or, is the practice a group of lawyers intending to provide a job for themselves as long as they wish to practice? Identifying the goal of the practice will dictate many of its practices and policies.

Chapter 24. Honest Appraisal and Evaluation.
This process must be value driven to insure and inspire trust, without which a practice cannot flourish.

Chapter 25. Recognize and Eliminate Lawyer Dissatisfaction. Every lawyer leaves the practice because of some dissatisfaction with the firm. This is true even in circumstances where the lawyer is accepting a "better opportunity," following a spouse to another city, or moving from private practice into government service. If the lawyer was satisfied with the firm, she would not have quit.

Chapter 26. Perception is Reality. Recognize that management’s perception of events, just because it is based on different and often superior knowledge, is not the same as the perception of other lawyers in the firm. Unless lawyers are communicating with management regularly and openly, management will have no idea what the perception of certain events is "in the trenches." Yet that knowledge is essential. The only way to get it is to realize the issue and seek the information.

Chapter 27. Be Proactive.
It’s not enough to know what lawyers want; Best Practices also do something about it. Use the information you gather to improve the practice.

Chapter 28. Apply the Platinum Rule.
Treat lawyers not just the way management believes is fair, but the way the lawyers themselves believe is fair. A satisfied lawyer will stay with the firm longer and lend her considerable talents to the firm for their mutual benefit.

PART THREE
When separation is inevitable, Separate Gracefully. This is the time to create or solidify a marketing opportunity. Every lawyer has alumni potential. The relationship between the firm and every lawyer should last a lifetime.

Chapter 29. Best Practices Separate Gracefully.
Techniques for fostering a cooperative, lucrative and lasting business relationship with lawyers who leave your practice regardless of the size of your organization.

Chapter 30. Best Lawyers Separate Gracefully.
Techniques for maintaining a cooperative, lucrative and lasting business relationship after you leave an organization with whom you’ve previously practiced.

A mission statement must be inspirational, motivational, evolutionary and revolutionary. It should excite and energize, be concise and clear, simple to understand and remember.

A vision statement is the end result of what you will have done. It is your ideal. The very moment you realize you are unhappy or frustrated with a situation is your point of power, for now you have a clear picture of how you don’t want things to be. Imagine the exact opposite of the frustrating situation and there you have the makings of your vision. Focus on the life you want and go after what you want directly.

APPENDIX D CLEARLY DEFINING A SUCCESSFUL PLAN

A successful plan requires clearly defined long and short term goals that excite you and engage your interest. Identify broad strategies and narrow tactics to move toward each goal. Prioritized daily work will keep you on track to your goals and provide optimal experience every day.

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