LawCrossing’s 20 Most Popular 2015 Articles for Law Firms and Firm Managers

Law firm managers face a host of issues, from attracting top talent to implementing succession strategies to inspiring attorney innovation. In 2015, LawCrossing addressed each of these topics and more. What follows is a list of our 20 most popular 2015 articles for law firms and law firm managers:
 

1. Effective Law Firm Interviewing Skills: How to Avoid “Off Limits” Questions but Still Get Information You Need to Make Good Hiring Decisions

You want to know as much as possible about your potential new employees, but without violating any laws or needlessly intruding into sensitive areas. This article explains topics to avoid during interviews, such as questions about age, date of birth, and national origin/ancestry. It also gives you alternative ways of asking certain question so you still get the information you need to make good hiring decisions, and also provides advice about effective interviewing techniques.
 

2. What Causes Associates to Leave Law Firms?

This article covers everything you need to know about associate attrition. It discusses the main reasons associates leave, including lack of training, mentoring, and development opportunities, and provides insight on how to minimize attrition in your firm.
 

3. Eight Ways Law Firms Usually Stifle Creativity: How to Encourage Innovation in a Law Firm

Innovation might be the key to your firm’s long-term success and survival. This article explores the eight killers of creativity, such as surveillance, competition, over-control and restricting choice. Find out how to foster an inspired workplace and not stifle the innovation your firm needs to rise to the top.
 

4. Solving Lawyer Career Dissatisfaction: How to Create a Culture That Makes Attorneys Happy

Whether it is a feeling of lack of recognition or lack of a work-life balance, attorney dissatisfaction is a widespread problem. But more satisfied workers lead to more productive workplaces. This article tells you how to alleviate the most common reasons for attorney dissatisfaction.
 

5. The Drug & Alcohol Policy No Law Firm Should Be Without

This article gives you a model drug and alcohol policy to use at your firm along with your firm’s existing policies on things like leave and compensation.
 

6. Twelve Tips for Doing Associate Performance Reviews

How can you make associate reviews as productive as possible? This article gives you 12 guidelines for every step of the performance review process, from preparation to follow-up.
 

7. Tips on Hiring Paralegals

Your firm could not operate without competent, efficient and dedicated paralegals. This article helps you understand the paralegal hiring process so you secure the best talent for your paralegal positions.
 

8. Law Firms Are Working Like It’s 1995

If your firm is falling behind, it might be because you have not implemented the latest technological innovations. This article explains how technology can help your firm with litigation tasks as well as M&A deals and antitrust work.
 

9. Top 7 Rules for Law Firms Conducting Call Back Interviews of Law Students

There is so much focus on job sites about how to “do well in an interview,” but it is generally from the perspective of the person being interviewed. This article looks at how to ace an interview from the vantage point of the person doing the interviewing. Whether you are new to interviewing or a seasoned veteran, this article has information that can help you improve your interviewing technique.
 

10. The Benefits of Hiring an Administrator in Law Firms

More and more law firms are hiring law firm administrators. They understand that law firms are businesses and a great law firm administrator can help things run much more smoothly and increase profitability. This article tells you what to look for in a law firm administrator.
 

11. Will Robots Replace Attorneys?

When a good percentage of law firm leaders say they can imagine replacing first-year associates with law-focused artificial intelligence in the coming years, it is time to take a close look at the way the legal profession might become automated in the coming years. This article gives you all the latest information on this important and cutting-edge topic.
 

12. The Legal Job Postings That Always Work!

Lack of interest generated by your firm’s job postings will cease to be an issue if you following the simple steps in this article. This article explains how to capture the interest of today’s best legal talent.
 

13. How Will Law Firms Increase Growth?

Building a brand, utilizing social media and engaging in targeted marketing campaigns are a few of the ways firms can increase growth in the coming years.
 

14. What Should You Know about Law Firm Succession Planning?

If your firm has not given serious consideration to law firm succession issues, now is the time to start. This article tells you how.
 

15. Things to Keep in Mind When Reorganizing or Downsizing

All law firms should consider certain issues when it comes to reorganizing or downsizing. This article will help you and your employees weather the storm through communication and other strategies.
 

16. Hiring on Responses to the Most Common Interview Question

This article tells you how to interpret the responses of the candidates you interview.
 

17. The Importance of Having an Employee Handbook

This article tells you what your firm’s employee handbook should include, the reasons you have an employee handbook and the precautions you should take in preparing your employee handbook.
 

18. How to Keep and Attract the Best and Brightest Talent

This article explores how your firm can position itself to hire the very best legal talent, including by making professional development a top priority, ensuring a coherent approach to professional development, and creating quantitative and qualitative measurements that provide data about the effectiveness of professional development activities.
 

19. What Does an Effective Job Description Look Like?

As this article explains, some of the key components of an effective job description are a familiar yet attractive job title, a good description of the day-to-day responsibilities of the advertised role, and the tenure of employment.
 

20. How Attorneys Choose Law Firms

What factor is most important to attorneys in selecting a law firm? We tell you what it is – as well as other important selection factors – in this article.