Millie Dyson, 37, is the epitome of legal support staff competence. She did word processing at a law firm while in high school and steadily worked her way up the ranks. From secretary to three litigators in an insurance defense practice to senior legal assistant in the intellectual property department of a 150-year-old firm in Kentucky, she has done it all. She has a razor-sharp intellect, a brutally honest worldview, and over seventeen years of battle-hardened experience in the legal trenches.
We interviewed Millie while researching management issues in the legal profession for J.Ferm’s No Frills No Fluff(TM) Management Skills Lawyers Edition Program. As we began to correlate data and analyze the lack of management skills training in the legal profession, we realized that Millie had provided us with a steady stream of quotes that perfectly describe a wide range of law firm management issues. Through Millie’s wit and wisdom, we’ll introduce you to three common management challenges and offer some simple strategies to mitigate these pains.
1. Lack of Management Skills in Young Lawyers
The challenge:
“I don’t want to train young lawyers. Every time an arrogant kid tells me to do something, I have a choice. I can take the time to train her to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you,’ or I can use that moment to make a extra effort for the managing partner. Guess who wins.”
Millie perfectly illustrates the folly of management not taking the time to start young lawyers off on the right foot. Lawyers need to manage their support staff, and without the necessary management skills to create a positive attorney-paralegal relationship, both parties experience miscommunication, stress, and unnecessary frustration. The conventional wisdom is that it takes three or four years of practice after law school before young lawyers are profitable. It takes the same amount of time to develop a good foundation of management skills. Unfortunately, very few companies make this investment in training and thus inadvertently support mismanagement, miscommunication and turf warfare.
The strategy:
Wouldn’t it be great if new attorneys had taken a course on “Managing Your Secretary 101” and could co-create powerful partnerships with staff early on?
In the meantime, and while not a substitute for formal management training, these two strategies can help attorneys and paralegals manage their relationship more effectively:
* At the beginning of a new attorney-paralegal relationship, have each party share their most important pet peeve. For example, Millie hates it when others don’t say “please” and “thank you.” While it may seem like a minor problem, the lack of these common courtesies pushes Millie into passive-aggressive behavior. A favorite lawyer annoyance can be paralegals hovering at the door asking questions while the lawyer is on the phone. By discovering these hot spots early on, both parties can avoid triggering each other’s hidden behaviors.
* Establish formalized regular scheduled times for consistent checks on what works and what doesn’t. It is often effective to ask what someone wants “more” and “less” to avoid triggering personality differences and hurt feelings. Continuous feedback is the key to any great business relationship.
2. Not firing deadlift staff members
The challenge:
“I can handle the arrogance and social awkwardness of lawyers very well. It’s the cluelessness of the staff that puts me on edge. I once worked with a long-time secretary whose tech skills were so out of date that they seriously hampered the work. It was easier to do it myself. As a paralegal, I didn’t have the authority to criticize her let alone fire her. We had 25 tough-as-nails attorneys at the firm and no one had the stomach to let her go.”
Unless your company is blessed with a cold-blooded man-of-war who spends his free time looking for people to throw overboard, chances are you have more than your fair share of dead weight. Millie’s quote addresses a common pattern that emerged during our research: conflict avoidance among attorneys. Lawyers can be great at negotiating complex deals and destroying opponents in court, but ironically, they avoid firing underperforming staff members within their own firms for fear of being perceived as bad.
While it may be tempting to discuss the psychological reasons for this phenomenon, let’s tackle the more important driving pain. Most law firms have ineffective performance management systems. Often, they get caught up in year-end appraisal-heavy inefficiency that focuses too much on meeting required billable hours or relies too heavily on managers’ skills to appraise employees effectively. When companies have and use effective performance management systems, firing non-performers, people with bad attitudes, and toxic people is simply a matter of process.
The strategy:
These two strategies will help companies and individuals retain the best and fire the underperformers:
* Develop well-thought-out competencies for each position within the company and link them to the strategic plan/vision. Avoid simply listing things like “team-focused” or “effective communicator.” Really consider what specific competencies are needed to deliver the work in the most effective, efficient and productive way. In Millie’s case, the secretary needed up-to-date technology skills. A clear competency may have been: “Tech-savvy – Consistently uses technology to efficiently solve everyday problems, improve cross-departmental communications, and provide customers with exceptional service.”
* Conduct a performance audit of your staff using a high-low performance to high-low potential axis (often called a 9-box system). Then proceed to place your people based on your performance audit. For example, if they are an outperformer with high potential, they would be placed in the top right corner of their chart. Underperformers with medium potential would sit in the bottom center of the chart, etc. This will give you a starting point from which to assess each person’s performance. You can suggest individual areas for development for people with potential and determine an exit strategy for those in low-achieving, low-potential positions.
3. Lack of Delegation and Time Management
The challenge:
“I understand that crises happen. I’m okay with doing everything I can in an emergency. But when I miss a weekend because a lawyer gave a client a ‘deadline’ instead of adding a day or two to my work, it makes me want to quit. When it happens every weekend, it makes me want to hurt someone.”
At first glance, this seems like an everyday problem between the attorney and the staff. Lots of things could be going on here. Perhaps Millie’s boss has lost control of the client and is afraid to enforce deadlines. Maybe Millie’s boss just doesn’t understand the concept of a deadline. Perhaps Millie is not communicating this problem to her boss; after all, there is a culture of martyrdom in law firms where status is conferred on those who work the craziest hours. (Nothing says “BONUS” like running into a big name partner in the office at 7:00am on a Saturday morning.)
Whatever the root cause, the bottom line is that a lack of effective delegation and time management often leads to mistakes and miscommunication, which can create deeper problems if not addressed. To create an effective delegation system, the attorney and paralegal must agree on specific definitions. For example, what is the difference between a due date, a quit due date, and a registration date? By clarifying these definitions, both parties will be able to manage their time more effectively. Another important aspect of effective delegation and time management is setting aside time to prioritize tasks and projects. Without prioritizing, many tasks tend to slip into the immediate or urgent category, leaving little to no time to organize, plan, and strategize. As we saw in Millie’s quote, it can have such a negative ripple effect that you end up losing top staff members due to ineffective delegation and time management.
The solution:
These two strategies can take a dysfunctional team from constant crisis mode to a well-oiled machine:
* Identify two common challenges that appear constantly and prevent the team from working in sync. They could include frequent miscommunications about deadlines, documents filed late, disruptive interruptions, negative attitudes, etc. Conduct a mini root cause analysis by asking probing questions about when these scenarios appear and what may be causing them. Once causes are identified, create a list of non-negotiable expectations to avoid falling back into old patterns. For example: “We will establish deadlines, eliminate deadlines and record dates for all client matters.”
* Use a priority code system to assign to-dos. Use a 1 for things that need to be done today, 2 for things that need to be completed within the week, 3 for this quarter, and 4 for long-term projects. Share the codes daily to produce an overview of what needs to be done and what can be delegated.
We appreciate Millie’s candor and unique perspective when it comes to the law firm management pains experienced by the staff. These strategies are intended to serve as initial action steps and are not comprehensive solutions to often complex problems. We hope they will generate ideas for creative problem solving and offer tools to manage more effectively.
