Posted In: Business Development, Culture & Diversity, Practice Group Management, Strategic Planning, Talent Strategy
Did You Make the Naughty or Nice List at Your Law Firm This Year?
It’s that time of year again for Santa Claus to evaluate everyone’s behavior over the past year and develop his “naughty” and “nice” lists. To improve efficiency, he outsourced some of this task to the LawVision Group this year. While we cannot share individual results to protect the confidentiality of the process, we can share with you some recurring behaviors that we identified and shared with our client.
Lawyers Made the Naughty List Because:
- They took responsible attorney credit… but weren’t actually responsible
- They worked exactly up to the billable hour target to get a bonus, then stopped
- They passed up great opportunities to mentor young lawyers
- They took the easy way out and didn’t push themselves in business development
- They volunteered for a committee and then worked on pre-bills during the meetings
- They looked busy even when they weren’t
- They hoarded work
- They talked behind someone’s back rather than addressing the problem… repeatedly
Lawyers Made the Nice List Because:
- They treated staff well – and gave their administrative assistants and paralegals personal gifts
- They tried to do more marketing, even though it makes them uncomfortable
- They admitted when they didn’t know how to do something – and asked for help
- They met deadlines better than in 2012
- They took a program that helped them to understand the changing business of law
- They met all deadlines and returned all calls in a timely manner
- They took an active role in trying to attract lateral talent to the firm by reaching out to former law school friends
- They tried to understand how to make their work more profitable – implementing that knowledge will be part of 2014
- They did volunteer mock interviews for their law schools
- They found a pro bono cause they were truly passionate about
- They talked my niece out of going to law school (maybe this puts me on the naughty list)
After we made these lists – and checked them twice – we sent them to the North Pole. You probably know which list you are on and we’re not authorized to discuss this work with anyone so please don’t call about your list placement.
We’re hoping you made the “Nice” list this year, but if not, there’s always next year. Of course, we have an inside track as to what it takes to stay off the “Naughty” list in 2014 – Just ask and we’re here to help. Happy holidays!
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