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Undercutting the Cost of Underperforming Attorneys

By Sharon Meit Abrahams
September 01, 2020

As a firm leader it is your fiscal responsibility to address underperforming attorneys. Altman Weil reports in their Law Firms in Transition Survey 2019 that 84.2% of firm leaders say they have "chronically underperforming lawyers." With COVID-19 are your underperformers flying under the radar? The cost to a firm is not only to the bottom line, but to your reputation as a leader.

It became apparent to me, while doing 10 years of exit interviews that partners in their 15th to 20th year of practice leave because of underperformers. These partners felt stifled. They questioned their ability to move into better client relationships or leadership roles. Associates see and hear these grumblings and wonder how this will affect their future career.

The first step in addressing an underperforming attorney is to look inward to determine if your firm has written expectations so the attorneys know the standards to which they are being measured. It is hard to hold an attorney accountable to an intangible idea of success.

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