Making time for talent

Recession? This is the time to build stronger relationships with employees and communicate as frankly as possible. By Stephen Armstrong, John Claydon and Norman Letalik

‘People’ issues can have a profound impact on a firm’s professional and economic success, and, as our previous article for Managing Partner sought to demonstrate, the line that separates these from economic issues can be an artificial one.1

Now is not the time for ‘business as usual’ in how firms manage associates, relying on the theory that they should all be happy just to have a job. The question is not whether they will leave this year, but how energetically they will work for the firm’s benefit and, once the economy turns, whether the best will then leave. Even more important, your lawyers need to develop their skills as quickly as possible. Now – when firms are reviewing their strategy and lawyers are not as busy as in the recent past – is the perfect time to take professional development in your firm to a high level. The buildings blocks of a systematic approach to improving professional development include identifying the generic skills needed and setting out appropriate training plans (see box, top right).2

Consistency in competencies

Undertaking these tasks may appear daunting, and some large firms have undertaken multi-year projects, supported by consultants, for such a project. However, less ambitious approaches can also be effective. Many firms will already have something approximating competency lists, such as sets of performance evaluation criteria, perhaps including benchmarks for partnership admission that can serve as a foundation for the competency lists for senior associates. Other useful sources include regulatory authorities, the websites of continuing legal education providers, the professional associations of law firm education specialists, and (more recently) books and articles about competencies.3

Under the guidance of those responsible for leading the firm’s professional development program, assign one or two students/trainees or junior associates to research these sources and compile samples of competency lists. Agree on a consistent style, and have the lists reviewed by small teams (a senior associate and partner, for example) in each practice area for content and compatibility with the firm’s practice and culture. Follow the same procedure for the business category, with the assistance of people familiar with that area. Once all the competency lists have been formulated, repeat the process to develop the training curriculum and then to draft course descriptions consisting of concrete learning objectives. Implement this through external as well as internal courses.

As part of the review of your professional-development programme, you should also focus on the key elements of on-the-job training: your assignments system and your senior lawyers’ attention to coaching and feedback. Do you have a process for ensuring associates receive the range and sequence of assignments they need to develop? Do your senior lawyers step up to their responsibilities to train juniors? In particular, do they coach about ‘soft’ skills as well as technical legal skills, and do they provide feedback, not only in situations when it is unavoidable, but also at other times when it helps an associate to grow? If enough of this coaching is not taking place, consider using upward evaluations and training programmes to improve the situation. One sad consequence of law firms’ increased leverage was the decrease in informal mentoring, coaching, and conversations about careers between senior and junior lawyers. There is now an opportunity to regain some of that lost ground.

Revisit career tracks and job categories

As the first part of this article mentioned, an increasing number of firms have also concluded they need to rethink how they promote their lawyers and define their roles. This rethinking is leading to two kinds of changes.

First, more firms are moving away from a ‘lockstep’ system, in which associates are promoted and given a raise every year, and towards a ‘levels’ system. In this new system lawyers are grouped in several levels – perhaps three or four before partnership – with promotion dependent on developing the necessary skills and knowledge (and, potentially, on the firm’s need for associates at the more senior level). Firms taking this step almost always have a competency framework in place, so they can describe the skills and expertise associates need to be promoted and provide a more objective basis for evaluations. Associates will still usually receive some form of annual raise, but the significant raises may only come with a move to a new level, and the raises may be quite small or non-existent for those who stay longer than expected at the same level. Such a ‘levels’ structure, which a few firms have had in place for many years, has several potential advantages. From a client’s perspective, it provides a better match between a lawyer’s billing rate and the value he or she actually provides. From the firm’s perspective, it provides more flexibility in controlling staffing at various levels of seniority, and therefore controlling compensation costs. And from the associates’ perspective, it provides a clearer and more motivational progression through the earlier stages of their careers.4

Second, firms are becoming more willing to experiment with job categories beyond the conventional ones of ‘associate’ and ‘partner’. Some firms have hired substantial numbers of lawyers who are not on the partnership track, to perform specific tasks at lower salaries and billing rates. Some firms, primarily smaller ones, have been using ‘on-call’ lawyers to staff matters when the firm is busy, without having to add employees. Others have become more willing to embrace tele-commuting for their lawyers, especially when lawyers are able to spend enough time in the office to maintain their contacts with clients and the firm’s other lawyers. Still others have focused on how to lengthen career tracks and create flexible working arrangements for lawyers who have young children or other family obligations, so that they do not lose talented and dedicated lawyers who need to scale back their commitments for a period. At the other end of lawyers’ careers, some firms are also experimenting with new arrangements for partners who want to scale back as they approach retirement, but whose services the firm does not want to lose.

Not too late to communicate

For many firms, this advice may be arriving late in the day, but it is still relevant. Moreover, the more associates know about the economics of law firms in general, and the business of their own firm in particular, the better they will understand the decisions the firm is making to weather the tough times. In addition, and over the longer run, they will also be more likely to feel that the firm regards them not just as disposable employees, but as colleagues who deserve – and can respond professionally to – a look behind the curtain that often veils a firm’s economics from its associates.

In the year or two after associates join a firm, it should ideally begin to educate them about the business side of the law, and then report to them periodically about the firm’s performance. If your firm has not yet developed this habit the depths of a crisis may not seem the best time to begin, but it is not too late. In fact, this kind of communication can do the most good when everyone craves information because they are worried.

Think about holding ‘straight talk’ sessions with associates – not only to discuss how the firm is responding to the economy, but also to educate them about the basics of law firm economics. Whether you decide to undertake such a session depends, of course, on what you can realistically and truthfully say about the state of the firm. If its underlying economic pillars are shaky, the gloom such a presentation spreads may well outweigh the morale benefits of speaking to associates frankly and openly about the realities of your business. On the other hand, if the firm’s business is solid aside from a lack of work, costs are under control, debt is low, it does not have a lot of overpriced and increasingly empty office space, the news could be comforting, even if you can’t completely rule out lay-offs (or another round of lay-offs). Moreover, the fact that you are having the conversation may help to sustain associates’ trust in and commitment to the firm, even if you have had to undertake lay-offs and still cannot guarantee jobs for everyone.

In some firms, such an open approach to communication may feel counter-intuitive to the partners. They may be accustomed to discussing the business side of the firm only with partners, or they may fear that talking openly about difficult issues will cause people to worry more. In some firms, moreover, the leaders are accustomed to communicating only when they have something new to say. In times of great anxiety and stress, however, silence is not silent. It is the echo chamber in which rumours and fears are amplified, and it can easily be read as a signal of indifference. In these times, the firm’s leaders should be communicating more than usual, not falling silent. They should also be communicating in ways that engender dialogue, rather than through pronouncements from on high.

References

MP December 2009, page 23;
A recent survey of more than 500 partners in North American firms, conducted by the Firm Leader consulting group, provides an illuminating profile of the skills that partners believe they already have and those they lack, along with an analysis of the implications for law firm leaders. For more information, contact Steve Armstrong, one of this article’s authors (armstrong@armstrongtalent.com);
Westfahl, S., You Get What You Measure: Lawyer Development Frameworks and Effective Performance Evaluations, NALP, 2008, and Bock H., and Ruyak R., Constructing Core Competencies, American Bar Association, 2007;
See Sloan, P., B., From Classes to Competencies, Lockstep to Levels, 2002.

– jclaydon@lexmundi.com