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Law Firm Basics: How To Retain Excellent Attorneys and Support Staff

If you’ve been running a law firm for any length of time, you already know that the old adage “good help is hard to find” is in most cases 100% correct.

Female-partner-bending-over-backwardsIf you’ve been running a law firm for any length of time, you already know that the old adage “good help is hard to find” is in most cases 100% correct. But what can you do to keep good attorneys and support staff when you find them?  There are a few key tactics that you can use that we practice at Smokeball to retain your most important asset—your employees.

Raise Their Pay

If you recognize excellence in your employees don’t just pay lip service about a job well done, put a little extra cash in their wallet in the form of a bonus or a pay raise.  Since it is difficult for law firms to find and retain top notch attorneys and support staff, underpaying your best people is almost the same as handing them over to the competition.  If they can find the same rewarding work elsewhere and get paid more, why would they stay?  Create a process for increasing pay or offering bonuses based on merit so that you can immediately reward an attorney or support staff for consistently putting forth work that is above and beyond what they job demands.

Offer A Promotion

Every talented attorney wants to advance in their career. Even if they have no desire to become partner, they may seek new opportunities, challenges, and ways to expand their experience and knowledge. Once you recognize greatness in your attorneys (or support staff) come up with a plan to help them advance their career. A promotion—new job, title, and salary is only one way that you can reward excellent employees by advancing their career, you can also offer additional training, mentoring, and an opportunity to shadow a more experienced lawyer on a case. Get creative, a promotion can mean more money and responsibility but it can also mean more training and experience.

Trust Them

If you’re accustomed to working alone or with a small staff, you may be tempted to micromanage even your most effective attorneys. Don’t do it.  Trying to tell your best attorneys how to do the details of their job will backfire.  Micromanaging is tiresome and can cause employees to lose morale and might motivate them to start looking elsewhere for work.  Instead of fussing over all the details of how your best attorneys and support staff work, give them the space to shine at what they do best—their jobs. Let them decide how things get done.

Value Their Feedback

The most successful law firms are fueled by the innovative solutions offered by their employees. If you want to retain your best people, listen to their feedback, criticisms, and solutions to problems then implement the advice that works.  When talented attorneys and support staff see that their feedback is taken seriously they become more invested in the success of your law firm and are less likely to leave even when presented with more lucrative opportunities.

Attracting the best attorneys and support staff is only the beginning of making your law firm successful. If you want to keep the best talent working for your law firm long-term, you’ll need a strategy that will keep them engaged long after the honeymoon phase for new hires has ended.

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janeJane Oxley is President of Smokeball, a productivity and case management software provider that increases efficiency and profitability for solo attorneys and small law firms. Jane’s worked in the legal field for her entire career, spending over 20 years engaged with small law firms. She has a strong affinity with small law firms and the crucial role they play in the communities they serve and is passionate about helping them work towards more productive and less stressful practices.

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