How to Make Your Best Lawyers Even Better

By Naomi Beard –

We all know the conundrum: Skills that make for a successful associate (researching effectively, writing succinctly, performing even the smallest tasks with acute attention to detail) are not identical to the strengths that make a partner (attracting and keeping business, understanding and analyzing client objectives, anticipating and articulating the dynamic relationship between business goals and legal risks). But training associates to develop this latter, more organic skill set is challenging as it does not translate into billable hours.

Professional development leaders have responded to this challenge admirably. Notably, they’ve designed thoughtful, comprehensive talent development models, they’ve created training programs to inspire awareness of key partner skill-sets early on, and they’ve educated their partners to accept the responsibility of becoming committed mentors. Underlying these initiatives is a common goal: to inspire associates to take these tools and run with them – to take conscious control of their career development. Empowering associates by training them to teach their peers – to view their colleagues and teammates as their clients – can reinforce the goal of developing strong associate leaders with clear partner potential.

This kind of sharing may seem anathema to the competitive world of law firm associates. However information-hoarding and obscure reward systems do not serve a law firm’s long-term goals. By challenging associates who perform well with the mandate to teach their colleagues what they did right, firm competencies and values are systematically integrated into associate culture.

This model stands in opposition to the old divide between “those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.” In fact, those who do are vastly improved by the experience of teaching others what they do, and how they do it. When an associate articulates and presents the components that allowed him to succeed, he is developing leadership skills that will allow him to be an effective emissary of the firm’s brand and value. More immediately, he is imparting practical knowledge and experience to associates who may be struggling and afraid to ask for guidance. When associates routinely teach their successes to their peers, they simultaneously lift the burden on professional development staff while carrying its message and values directly to their cohort.

Below are five tips for practical implementation of this “Teach Your Success” Model.

1. Use the Language of Core Competencies and Benchmarks to Celebrate Success

All too easily are core competencies rendered abstract and intangible by their exclusion from workaday reality and their association with annual reviews. Professional development leaders must constantly identify concrete ways to bring these rubrics to life. Acknowledging associates’ good work is an “in the moment” opportunity to consistently demonstrate core competencies in action. Consciously integrating a firm’s core competencies – and the values and emphasis they advocate – into the daily lexicon of the firm — provides partners a shared language with which to evaluate their associates, and gives associates specific and practical ways to measure their progress — and to help other associates gauge their own. While learning to self-evaluate using competencies and benchmarks, associates also gain vital tools they can use to gauge their own progress and develop their own early mentoring and business development skills.

2. Tell Us What Worked: Systematically Reward Successful Associates by Inviting Them to Teach Others

Publicly acknowledge strong associates as they develop — make them immediately visible and available to their peers as resources. Doing so helps to build a culture of transparency and learning and dispels suspicions of favoritism. This model also habituates associates to public speaking and self-reflection, while providing a safe platform to demonstrate rigorous dialogue and information-sharing as firm-wide values. For example, some firms use upward reviews as a tool not only to celebrate strong partner mentors, but also strong senior associate mentors. Such visible firm-wide initiatives go a long way toward embodying and reinforcing a culture of mentoring – from the top down.

3. Cross-Pollinate Across Strengths and Teams

Specialization is important for attorneys to become fluent experts in their fields. However, the components of success are almost always universal, or at least transferable among specialties. By creating opportunities (luncheons, symposiums, bi-monthly meetings, CLEs) for associates to articulate their work in front of diverse teams, communication skills are developed, inter-departmental allegiances are forged, and new perspectives are gained. All of these are intrinsically valuable to the law firm and individual attorneys as client service and business development skills. We’ve seen such efforts make a decisive difference for senior associates and serve as the vital tipping point that makes the star senior associate a near shoo-in for partner. Has that associate built bridges among practice groups? Does she play a visible role in training others, both through one-on-one mentoring and by presenting in group settings? Has she shown her value not only among her immediate supervisors but across key constituencies and firm leadership and thus demonstrated a range of skills and qualities that will contribute to the firm’s continued success? This model can help to increase and highlight associates’ star power, making it easier to confidently and affirmatively answer these questions.

4. Get Partner Buy-In

None of these exercises will be more than annoying “office birthday parties” without partner support. Get partner buy-in early and often. Actively listen to what they complain about in their associates. Is it bad writing? Mumbled or incomplete verbal responses? No communication or is too much hand-holding required? Any and all of these concerns are held to account by “rewarding” associates’ successes with the opportunity to teach others.

Indeed, partners play a pivotal role in reinforcing the value of associate-to-associate teaching. By engaging in active mentoring partners not only impart valuable substantive knowledge and skills, and also are teaching their associates how to mentor. At their best, partners are modeling the behaviors they wish to see their associates express, including the delivery of constructive feedback. As associates learn what is needed from them and experience firsthand the benefits of effective mentoring, associates will understand its value – particularly as their own success is immediately called upon for service.

5. Leverage Associate “Teaching Success” Presentations into Individual Professional Development Plans

A Teaching Success model will enliven and make practical use of the components of an individual Professional Development or Career Development Plan. Such individualized plans for associates are gaining traction at global law firms because they evolve into concrete, actionable career maps for associates to build their practices. Having such a plan puts attorneys in control of their professional trajectory, as they identify, enumerate and measure their goals and progress. If these goals specifically include mentoring and teaching, then this model overtly helps develop these skills. If public speaking is a torture, an introverted associate will nonetheless be better placed to teach his peers with the clarity and focus such a plan provides. Thus the Teaching Success model and the professional development plan complement and enlarge each other as professional development tools. Most critically, this model provides nimble and multi-faceted ways to inspire associates to take these tools and run with them – to take conscious control of their career development.

Blog Author

Naomi Beard is the President and CEO of Naomi Beard & Associates. For more than 10 years as a professional coach to attorneys and law firm executives, Naomi has drawn on her decade of experience as a practicing attorney to incorporate a deep understanding of law firm life in her work with clients.

Combining her first-hand perspective on the unique challenges of a career in law with an instinct for tapping into a client’s strengths and needs, Naomi is able to help professionals at all levels map a satisfying path to career success.