From legal departments to small law firms, succession is a growing concern. Characterized by limited resources, sizeable administrative commitments and often featuring long-tenured staff, such operations breed the sort of specialization and hoarding of institutional knowledge that can make retirements or other departures a particular nightmare. Worse, according to a recent Thomson Reuters survey, only a quarter of legal departments have made any kind of succession plan.
The problems bedeviling private legal departments may be an even greater challenge to public ones. Government legal departments are facing an enormous generational shift that most are not equipped to handle. One study found that more than half of all government employees will be eligible for retirement over the next two years. What’s more, state and local government lawyers face the same pressure to do more with less as attorneys in private practice — with generally smaller paychecks to show for it. Given those pressures and realities, government lawyers need a multi-pronged effort to attract, develop and retain talented staffers and plan for their agency’s future legal needs.
Recruitment and Retention
Those needs are growing: The survey showing the potential wave of retirements also has government lawyers reporting work on 32 unique legal matter each week. What’s more, 80% of them expect their workloads to grow in the coming years. The same ceaselessly constrained government budgets behind the burgeoning responsibilities aren’t likely to include much room for better pay to make up for them.
There are ways to attract talented lawyers to civil service, of course. Much like in-house legal departments and smaller law firms, government legal departments offer a better work-life balance than large law firms or prosecutors’ offices, with better benefits and pension plans that can, in part, make up for the earnings foregone by working in the public service rather than private practice. Young lawyers may also be attracted by the variety of work available at City Hall, offering broader training and exposure, as well as the ability to develop skills and rise through the ranks faster than at a law firm.
This, of course, can lead to greater turnover, as attorneys seek to capitalize on the expertise they’ve built. But this isn’t necessarily a bad thing: Many government legal offices are staffed by decades-long veterans, with few mid-level lawyers ready to take their places when they inevitably retire. Indeed, some city attorneys are consciously moving to diversify the age and experience levels within their offices. Such purposeful staggering can help ensure that all of an agency’s legal talent and institutional knowledge won’t claim their gold watch at the same time.
Mentoring and Training
Bringing on a younger workforce also creates an opportunity to groom specific successors for specific jobs through targeted mentoring and training. Planning for the departures of senior lawyers well in advance can give potential replacements the chance to closely work with office veterans, learning their processes and developing their own institutional knowledge base.
“Knowledge transfer contracts” can extend this process beyond a person’s retirement, having them return to the office once or twice a week to answer questions and to assist their mentees-turned-successors.
Retaining Institutional Knowledge
Larger government offices have also adopted cross-training programs, to ensure that multiple lawyers across the department know how to handle individual issues. This helps spread knowledge and ensure it doesn’t become the province of a single senior lawyer who plans to move to Florida next year.
Training and teamwork aren’t the only ways to keep institutional knowledge from being lost. In-house corporate legal departments and small law firms are increasingly turning to technology to both make them more efficient and retain knowledge when experience is lost. Government legal departments can do the same. Document management systems make years of work accessible and usable by all team members, and can help ease transitions. Of course, with lawyers tight for time and departments tight for cash, such investments in technology (and the training necessary to properly use it) are not easy or always possible. Still, they offer another avenue for ensuring continuity.
Whatever a government legal office’s size, budget, or capabilities, however, it’s clear that some sort of succession planning is critical. Download this free white paper from Thomson Reuters for expert insight and ideas on how to meet the myriad, critical challenges of sound succession planning.