Law Firm Coach Blog

I recently spoke at Duke University to one of their paralegal classes and brought up the issue of mentoring once they got into a law firm. As I rethought my talk I realized that one of the best business practices there is in a law firm and one that develops high performance employees is to create within the firm a mentorship program.

Mentoring is not the same thing as training a new employee. Rather it is assigning someone within the firm that exhibits the qualities of the type of employee you want all employees to be to the new employee. A mentoring program applies equally to non-lawyers and lawyer alike.

When I did active law firm administration I would ask either an in-place lawyer or paralegal to become a mentor to the new employee. I would ask that they meet twice a month for lunch to discuss how the job was going and to share knowledge and experience. In addition the mentor was available to talk to as needed. The new employee was mindful that training questions went to the trainer but that the mentor was to be issued to share knowledge and experience.

Being brand new at anything, including a new firm, is hard enough without trying to figure out all the dynamics of what it means to be a lawyer or a paralegal or even one with experience but entering a new law firm culture. The ability to talk to someone with experience who sees all sides of the picture simply makes for better employees.

Word of caution: Mentors are not therapists nor are they personal confidents. Their job is to share their knowledge so others can grow. Select your mentors carefully but reward them with praise when they help you grow better employees.

We have said repeatedly that when we ask law firms if they deliver client satisfaction every lawyer gives us a resounding yes (well 98%; 2% being honest). Then we ask them how and that is where we get the deafening silence.

We were recently discussing if we could get to the same point but with a different message and we started focusing on client dissatisfaction. We put it to a test and started asking some individual lawyers what they felt they had received as dissatisfaction from a client. Ironically most candidly admitted that it was personal contact with the lawyer or lack of feeling of personal interest.

Once we saw this trend our next question was how to fix it? In other words what steps could the lawyer or firm take that would address the issue. What surprised us was that the lawyers we talked to were more motivated to fix the problem when they could identify the problem.

Our best guess is that we like to solve problems and we feel good when we do. Our marketing suggestion for this week is to have your firm keep a list (honestly) of any hints from any client of something that made them unhappy or dissatisfied. There will be no recriminations by anyone but rather an honest survey of what staff and lawyers hear. Then summarize the list and come up with five top key problems. Create an action plan to correct the problems.

Most importantly, what is your quality assurance check? Keep track of improvements. Find out if it is working. Do your QA on client complaints.

The only thing that makes law firms different is how they deliver their service. Extraordinary client service means extraordinary efforts to be better than others.

One of these things we enjoy is teaching lawyer employers how to motivate and manage their most valuable asset, their employees. We love the ah-ha! moments when something we say makes perfect sense and creates a new direction for employee performance.

We tend to find (why we have no idea) that while lawyers get to the point quickly and precisely when doing their job (delivering legal solutions to clients through verbal communication) they tend to fail at this when delivering comments to employees. We have set in on my conferences between employers and employees and we find that there is a great deal of time spent justifying the reason for having the conference versus setting clear and defined talking points (this sounds like MSNBC or Fox News..take your pick).

Feedback we get from employees is that they usually leave the conference more confused than before it started. This is whether it is a pro-active conference or one where deficiencies in work need to be discussed. Certainly we believe that any conference is a blend of what is good and what is not so good.

Here are our recommendations:

1. Write down why you are having this meeting? Don't cloud it with too many issues. It just makes the message to cumbersome to handle.
2. What key points do you want to make? List what is important to you to cover. Under each point pick 3 things you need to say.
3. What are you seeking to accomplish? Write it down. Do you want improved performance. Be specific. If you are complimenting someone, be specific. Saying "you are doing a good job" is not as effective as saying "when you talked with Mr. Jones the other day I was impressed how you.....".
4. What is the follow-up? Again write it down. What are your expectations following this meeting.
5. Allow time for the employee to talk and give you feedback on understanding. You can ask them to repeat or discuss the talking points.
6. Follow-up! I have seen too many conferences where a lind in the sand was drawn (expectations) and then it was allowed to go unnoticed until it got worse again. Employees know this.

KEEP YOUR WRITTEN LIST IN FRONT OF YOU AND CHECK OFF AS YOU COVER EACH POINT.

Finally don't beat a dead horse to death! Say what you have to say. We were doing a course oN communication skills and an employee said "I wish they would just get to the point!". Today's generation of employees want to know, want fairness, and what clarity. Your job is not to be the most well liked employer but the employer who leads the firm through defined and clear communications and expectations.