Rankings Aren't Just for Law Schools: Tier 1 Employees

Talented employees present their own special challenges to their managers, as in-house columnist Stephen Williams explains.

thumbs up lawyer cartoonYou might naturally think Tier 1 employees would not merit their own post. After all, they are the best employees and managing them should theoretically be a breeze. They work hard with minimal supervision. They care about their work product and are attentive to detail. They regularly work longer hours than required to get the job done.

Really all that is left for a manager to do is move out of their way and hire more of them if given the chance – pretty straightforward, right?

Not necessarily.

While a Tier 1 employee’s work requires significantly less review, keeping this subset of employees happy and engaged is often easier said than done. Recall the best and brightest in your firm or law school. While they might be brilliant and hard workers, they probably tend to have their own set of issues and may even trend toward the high maintenance side. When you are good, you know it, and you often expect things to shake out a certain way in your favor.

But with Tier 3 and Unaccredited employees requiring a great deal of time and attention to encourage their success and development, a manager’s time can often be consumed by assisting these Tiers, leaving little time for the top performers.

This is an alluring trap I admittedly have been guilty of falling for. Knowing my Tier 1 employees will continue to work and be successful without my supervision, I have prioritized other issues over making time for this group. And while the quality of my Tier 1 employees’ work may not have suffered, their attitudes certainly did.

For me, an attorney managing a non-attorney team, keeping the Tier 1 employees happy is especially important (although note that the challenge of in-house upward mobility applies to lawyers managing lawyers as well). The reality is, my direct reports have limited opportunities for promotion due to their lack of a JD. While it is selfishly reassuring for me to know they can never take my job, it can be difficult to control the expectations of ambitious, high-performers who have no path to management.

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Just this week, one of my Tier 1 employees confronted me with a rumor one of our law clerks would be getting a promotion upon their graduation and would soon pass him over for a job. He beseeched me to consider his many years of experience over the clerk’s soon to be awarded law degree. While thankfully for me the rumor was unfounded and I was able to assure him I had no promotion to give, it did highlight the real concern faced by some Tier 1 employees who recognize their lack of education creates a proverbial career ceiling.

Truthfully, his concerns were not entirely unfounded. Upon graduation, we, or any other company, might reward the former law clerk turned lawyer with a boost in title and salary — which places a manager in a tough spot for retaining Tier 1 employees and keeping them happy.

To help, our legal team tends to provide a higher level of compensation than similarly situated positions in the organization, but that only gets you so far. The rest comes from creating an environment where the Tier 1 team members feel valued and are excited to contribute to the team. Which, of course, can only be accomplished if you are spending an adequate amount of time with them and giving them the attention they deserve.

To date, I happy to report have retained all of my Tier 1 employees for a number of years, so hopefully, maybe, I am doing something right.

But this seems like a relatively fair trade-off. If my Tier 1 employees are willing to put up with this miserable curmudgeon of a boss knowing they have little chance for upward management mobility, the least I can do is lend an ear even if it is not needed to improve the quality of their work.

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Earlier: Rankings Aren’t Just For Law Schools: Tier 1, Tier 3, And Unaccredited Employees
Rankings Aren’t Just for Law School: Tier 3 / ‘Cooley’ Employees
Inside Straight: In-House Career Paths


Stephen Williams is in-house counsel with a multi-facility hospital network in the Midwest. His column focuses on a little talked about area of the in-house life, management. You can reach Stephen at stephenwilliamsjd@gmail.com.