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Learn from legal expert, Harrison Barnes
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Even though the recession, downsizing, a poor job market, and declining demand for traditional legal services and billing continues to plague the industry, law firms recognize the need to retain their top talent, and therefore the need to address issues of work-life balance. The simple fact that it seems to be an employer’s market does not deceive law firm leaders that the true nature of things has not changed – it is still an employee’s market, as far as top talent is concerned, and the cost of replacing a key attorney or employee is difficult to measure.
A recent paper authored by Laura Empson of the Cass Business School, titled “Who’s in Charge? Exploring the Leadership Dynamics in Professional Service Firms,” took a refreshing look at some of the top law firms of the world and made some interesting observations.
High-potential employees, as opposed to high-performing employees, or highly-knowledgeable employees, are exceptionally important for talent management. While there is nothing that prevents a high potential employee from being a high performer or highly knowledgeable, quite often these three are not the same. A high performer or highly knowledgeable employee may not be ready for promotion due lack of competence required at the next level up. However, high-potential employees are those who are ready to be promoted, and therefore they need to be properly managed, developed and retained.
Training is the key to creating teams, organizations, and realizing business objectives. We are no more in a world where things are predictable – successful hires are random, unless it is being done by a leading expert in a field and in a narrow field. Generally, the HR people recruit across a broad range of job functions, and truly speaking, there are very few predictors of success of an employee. The only thing that a company might do is to train people to do their jobs and orient them to company culture and objectives.
The new employee-employer relationship that is firmly in place, more so post-recession, focuses on an immediacy of things and lacks permanency. The psychological contract, unsaid things, trust, and other values like loyalty had played a role in the employee-employer relationships of the past.
Like every other company owned asset or process, the HR department would also play a role ascribed to it – and that means it would respond to expectations and try to deliver according to what it perceives its role to be.
There are a number of basic management concepts that have relevance to professional organizations. They also apply to the management of law firms. They are planning, organization, communication, delegation, direction, leadership and many such factors are responsible for healthy law firms or law practicing.
Management is the art of achieving desired objectives by using available resources. Although the term is most often used in a business setting, it applies equally to service organizations, the raising of children, or the practice of a profession.
An attorney's employees are deeply interested in their organization's plans for the future. Internal communication among all concerned is essential to create a unified group who understands the organization's objectives (both marketing and otherwise). The benefits are high morale and loyalty toward those objectives. Internal informational meetings, training programs, and newsletters play a critical role in this.
Regular and frequent communication with clients can go far to hold together the client-attorney relationship. Some of the communication can also be used effectively as a method of developing new business.
Good mailing list management is the key to newsletter distribution. Personalized notes improve readership and effectiveness dramatically. Since the outward appearance of the newsletter in the mail can determine if it gets read or tossed, first-class delivery is generally worth the extra cost.
Client newsletters are an effective method of maintaining regular client contact. Their popularity with attorneys is growing, and they are proliferating because people everywhere demand specialized news, hence the tremendous amount of special-interest publications. Successful newsletters require equal attention to content, production, and distribution.
Affinity marketing is an approach to business development wherein an attorney or firm provides significant assistance to a single nonprofit organization. It helps attorneys focus their contribution efforts for maximum impact and can provide solid business development benefits.
The time required to perform marketing activities is usually greater than expected. Further, the completion of the marketing activity does not mean that marketing is successful, because results from the activity will take even longer to return. With few exceptions, most marketing activities take weeks to complete and may take months to produce results.
Because marketing is by definition an effort that takes time, frustration grows and interest often wanes among attorneys. Typical first steps undertaken by attorneys are exactly those that take long and bring few immediate results. There are several marketing activities that require little time and can bring immediate results. If appropriate initial actions are taken, internal support for other longer-range activities grows.
The most overlooked element in successful marketing programs is the evaluation of ongoing activities. This forms the basis for taking correct action and making future programs successful. But good evaluations are possible only when clear and quantifiable objectives have been set. There Is never one reason why a client hires an attorney, so all the factors affecting the decision must be considered.
External business development efforts depend heavily on the internal marketing program. Where an internal plan does not exist, the results of a marketing effort can at best be ineffective and at worse chaotic and embarrassing. Just as external programs frequently measure the audience to see if their needs are being met, so too does a good internal program. The internal component serves four purposes: to motivate, inform, coordinate, and educate. An internal program is a vital part of the external plan.
What are some of the options and issues regarding attorney compensation? This one issue is central to every other decision in a law firm, especially the firm's strategy and direction. Certainly this is one of the most often discussed subjects of law practice management, since by definition it affects all attorneys. The pages of practice management books and law journals have lengthier analysis of more types of plans than one would think possible to exist. Someone once made the comment that for every 20 law firms there must be at least 25 different compensation schemes—just for partners!
A firm of 10 attorneys in a large city relied on 12 staff members to keep office operations running smoothly. All of the attorneys agreed that the employees were meeting the firm's basic expectations. No one felt that more could be expected from the staff because of the limits of staff education, training, ability, and even desire. One former staff member had resigned to enroll in law school the previous year, but the attorneys agreed that this particular case was an exception to the norm and that the rest of the staff had limited career aspirations.
Too often, attorneys think that because they are committed to building a practice, their partners, associates, and staff will share their commitment, they eventually discover that this type of enthusiasm does not exist simply for its own sake. They learn that a marketing program, in order for others to embrace it fully, must have its purpose clearly communicated, its strategy logically outlined, and its expectations fully understood. Just as a new practice area can change the way a firm operates, a decision to become proactive with regard to marketing impacts everyone in the firm, from the senior partner to the receptionist. Marketing success depends, therefore, to a great extent on the synergetic force created by a united office effort.