Make Your First-Years Second-Years

One of the most consistent, widespread problems faced by law firms is how to close the learning curve quickly for their inexperienced attorneys. The sooner young attorneys can fully bill without writing off time, formulate effective negotiating strategies, and prepare complex legal documents, the greater the return on investment for their employers. Luckily, there is an alternative path to attorney development capable of achieving this goal. What are some of the perils of typical legal training and how can we alternatively overcome them to maximize performance early on in a legal career?

The 'Magic Johnson' Effect

All too often, legal employers make the mistake of assigning their “Magic Johnsons” to train new attorneys. What do I mean by this? Well, Magic Johnson is one of the greatest basketball players of all time. After his playing career ended, he eventually became the coach of his old team. But he didn't last long, and after ending his coaching stint, he admitted that it was tremendously frustrating because he would demand that players perform at the same level he did when he was a player, but they simply were unable to do so. The same phenomenon occurs in the legal profession. Extremely busy equity partners who, in addition to their practice, are heavily involved in networking, client development, and cultural and political affairs, are often assigned to be mentors. This is problematic for two reasons. First, they often simply don't have the time to answer the numerous questions a young lawyer has. Second, they usually don't have a teaching mentality. They are so experienced and adept at their work, it is difficult for them to envision what it was like to be completely new to the law, and accordingly have unreasonable expectations for the performance of new associates, leaving them floundering.

War Stories

Another common mistake is to hold in-house training sessions that only teach how to spot a subset of issues, without any idea what to do once you've spotted them. For instance, experienced lawyers might say that, in a confidentiality agreement, to make sure you figure out whether or not there is a requirement to actually mark the information as confidential. Senior attorneys have a tendency to share war stories about past deals or cases without an eye toward making sure they actually transfer their knowledge to their audience.

Proper Issues Training

You would be much better off in this confidentiality training example if you removed any discussion of past glories from your presentation and instead focused on the following exact key issues in detail, showing how they would be negotiated in each typical context, including opening and back-up positions, and the exact language involved. A good issues list would look like this:

Business Purpose

Marking

Exclusions

Duties

Term and Termination

Your goal, then, is to think of every issue an experienced attorney would think of on a given matter, and transfer all that knowledge into the minds of junior lawyers. This is rarely done, but, happily, is eminently doable.

The Cost of 'Just Enough to Be Dangerous'

If you fail to take this superior approach to training, and your training program only consists of the Magic Johnson Effect + War Stories, then you are paying a tremendous price in lost billing opportunities due to slow development of associates. The result is a junior workforce that, for a long period of time during their employment, is unable to do a good deal of work properly in a timely manner. Clients are fully aware that junior associates only know just enough to be dangerous and inefficient, and often won't pay for them, causing time write-offs to be quite common. This is revenue that is being lost, but it can be regained with a different approach. What would that alternative look like?

Key Language

If you give smart junior attorneys the key language associated with an issue, then they can turn this omnipresent training problem around. Let's turn again to the confidentiality marking requirement topic. What would the key language look like for this issue? Here's a good example of what a new lawyer would need to nail the marking concept when drafting a contract:

Marking: “Confidential Information” means private or confidential information, data or materials of the disclosing party, and all such private or confidential information, data or materials must be marked as “confidential” or “proprietary” to the disclosing party. However, for oral disclosures of information, data or materials, the disclosing party may describe the disclosure within twenty (20) days afterwards in a written notice provided to the disclosing party, referencing the time, date, and receiving individuals for the disclosure, at which point such described information, data or materials become Confidential Information of the disclosing party on a going forward basis from the date of the receiving party's receipt of this notice.

No Marking: “Confidential Information” means all private or confidential information, data or materials of the disclosing party.

Templates, Not Forms

Unfortunately, we rarely provide new attorneys with such comprehensive information, often only using an old form from a past similar deal, or a “fill-in-the-blank” sample form. What needs to be done is to instead create comprehensive templates for all common matters in the practice, insert key captions in bold to assist with issue spotting, and provide the exact micro-clause needed for every possible permutation of a particular clause or issue. This gives a new attorney all the information needed to handle a matter, sets out all issues that need to be plugged into a negotiating strategy, and makes it possible to quickly execute the commands of a supervising lawyer.

Verbal Toolkit

Additionally, legal employers should develop verbal toolkits. Usually, client contact is handled with a “sink or swim” approach, but instead of throwing attorneys onto a matter and hoping for the best, or shielding them for years until they know your style intimately, you should think about the common, challenging situations faced in your typical matters, and formulate written documents with sample statements a new lawyer can use to surmount these challenges. Role plays and mock negotiations are also excellent for mastering key repeating situations.

Conclusion

Build your firm to much higher profit levels and realize more income by making attorneys achieve higher value earlier in their careers.

This article first appeared in Law Firm Partnership & Benefits Report, a sister publication of this newsletter.

One of the most consistent, widespread problems faced by law firms is how to close the learning curve quickly for their inexperienced attorneys. The sooner young attorneys can fully bill without writing off time, formulate effective negotiating strategies, and prepare complex legal documents, the greater the return on investment for their employers. Luckily, there is an alternative path to attorney development capable of achieving this goal. What are some of the perils of typical legal training and how can we alternatively overcome them to maximize performance early on in a legal career?

The 'Magic Johnson' Effect

All too often, legal employers make the mistake of assigning their “Magic Johnsons” to train new attorneys. What do I mean by this? Well, Magic Johnson is one of the greatest basketball players of all time. After his playing career ended, he eventually became the coach of his old team. But he didn't last long, and after ending his coaching stint, he admitted that it was tremendously frustrating because he would demand that players perform at the same level he did when he was a player, but they simply were unable to do so. The same phenomenon occurs in the legal profession. Extremely busy equity partners who, in addition to their practice, are heavily involved in networking, client development, and cultural and political affairs, are often assigned to be mentors. This is problematic for two reasons. First, they often simply don't have the time to answer the numerous questions a young lawyer has. Second, they usually don't have a teaching mentality. They are so experienced and adept at their work, it is difficult for them to envision what it was like to be completely new to the law, and accordingly have unreasonable expectations for the performance of new associates, leaving them floundering.

War Stories

Another common mistake is to hold in-house training sessions that only teach how to spot a subset of issues, without any idea what to do once you've spotted them. For instance, experienced lawyers might say that, in a confidentiality agreement, to make sure you figure out whether or not there is a requirement to actually mark the information as confidential. Senior attorneys have a tendency to share war stories about past deals or cases without an eye toward making sure they actually transfer their knowledge to their audience.

Proper Issues Training

You would be much better off in this confidentiality training example if you removed any discussion of past glories from your presentation and instead focused on the following exact key issues in detail, showing how they would be negotiated in each typical context, including opening and back-up positions, and the exact language involved. A good issues list would look like this:

Business Purpose

Marking

Exclusions

Duties

Term and Termination

Your goal, then, is to think of every issue an experienced attorney would think of on a given matter, and transfer all that knowledge into the minds of junior lawyers. This is rarely done, but, happily, is eminently doable.

The Cost of 'Just Enough to Be Dangerous'

If you fail to take this superior approach to training, and your training program only consists of the Magic Johnson Effect + War Stories, then you are paying a tremendous price in lost billing opportunities due to slow development of associates. The result is a junior workforce that, for a long period of time during their employment, is unable to do a good deal of work properly in a timely manner. Clients are fully aware that junior associates only know just enough to be dangerous and inefficient, and often won't pay for them, causing time write-offs to be quite common. This is revenue that is being lost, but it can be regained with a different approach. What would that alternative look like?

Key Language

If you give smart junior attorneys the key language associated with an issue, then they can turn this omnipresent training problem around. Let's turn again to the confidentiality marking requirement topic. What would the key language look like for this issue? Here's a good example of what a new lawyer would need to nail the marking concept when drafting a contract:

Marking: “Confidential Information” means private or confidential information, data or materials of the disclosing party, and all such private or confidential information, data or materials must be marked as “confidential” or “proprietary” to the disclosing party. However, for oral disclosures of information, data or materials, the disclosing party may describe the disclosure within twenty (20) days afterwards in a written notice provided to the disclosing party, referencing the time, date, and receiving individuals for the disclosure, at which point such described information, data or materials become Confidential Information of the disclosing party on a going forward basis from the date of the receiving party's receipt of this notice.

No Marking: “Confidential Information” means all private or confidential information, data or materials of the disclosing party.

Templates, Not Forms

Unfortunately, we rarely provide new attorneys with such comprehensive information, often only using an old form from a past similar deal, or a “fill-in-the-blank” sample form. What needs to be done is to instead create comprehensive templates for all common matters in the practice, insert key captions in bold to assist with issue spotting, and provide the exact micro-clause needed for every possible permutation of a particular clause or issue. This gives a new attorney all the information needed to handle a matter, sets out all issues that need to be plugged into a negotiating strategy, and makes it possible to quickly execute the commands of a supervising lawyer.

Verbal Toolkit

Additionally, legal employers should develop verbal toolkits. Usually, client contact is handled with a “sink or swim” approach, but instead of throwing attorneys onto a matter and hoping for the best, or shielding them for years until they know your style intimately, you should think about the common, challenging situations faced in your typical matters, and formulate written documents with sample statements a new lawyer can use to surmount these challenges. Role plays and mock negotiations are also excellent for mastering key repeating situations.

Conclusion

Build your firm to much higher profit levels and realize more income by making attorneys achieve higher value earlier in their careers.

This article first appeared in Law Firm Partnership & Benefits Report, a sister publication of this newsletter.