Being an attorney is a very rewarding yet challenging profession. There is always so much to do…..draft and finalize pleadings, make sure that deadlines are met, making sure that your staff is doing what they are supposed to be doing, getting more clients and business, and the list goes on and on. If you are like me, you have realized that one of the most vital parts of your practice is making sure that you have the right people in the right seats.
As the Managing Litigation Attorney at previous firms, I was responsible for up to 100 people at one time. I constantly found myself wanting to train my team to make sure that they had the tools to do their jobs well, but like many of you, I unable to clone myself, and therefore unable to get as much training in as I would have liked. When you are managing that many people it becomes quite the challenge to ensure that everyone is properly trained and to make sure that each person is doing the job that he/she is best at. It is to our advantage to make sure that each member of the team is working in a capacity that maximizes his/her her abilities. We have to make sure that we have the right people for the job and those people are in their correct seats otherwise we run into unproductivity, too many errors and a frustrated attorney.
But how do you do everything that you need to do to run your firm, or your department? Where do you find the time to train everyone properly and still find the time to bring in clients and make money? Bringing in a third party who had experience would have been a great asset for our department as well as the firm. You’ve heard the old saying, “be slow to hire and quick to fire.” In order for your practice to thrive you may need to bring in someone to do consulting or training to assist you in making your team the best that it can be. It’s not a strike on you, nor your abilities, instead it is an effective way of delegating the responsibility in order to maximize your potential and the well-being of the firm. And face it, not everyone has the ability and patience to train and create the proper structure that you need to make your firm thrive. At the end of the day, having your team properly trained is what will allow you to do what you do best, be a lawyer, and generate business to sustain the firm.
The BMS Law Group would love the opportunity to assist you with training to get your team up to speed, help you move your staff to the right seats on the bus and help you to realize who needs to get off the bus.
