November 2, 2007
Managing Law Firm Professional Development
The move to hire a C level executive to oversee the professional development, is working its way down from the AmLaw 200 group to smaller law firms.
In morepartnerincome’s opinion, the biggest barrier to an effective professional development program is decentralized scheduling of legal work. Associates have no control over the work that is assigned to them. Partners tend to assign work to their favorites, which causes associates to find themselves in a rut doing reparative-style work. An associate reads the absence of professional development considerations in case assignments as a lack of interest in them. As associates start to feel short-changed, the grass begins to look greener elsewhere. Until law firms have someone with the power to counter the preferences of supervising partners, the associate disappointment over professional development will continue to drive associates away. Accordingly to NALP, 80% of associates have left their original firm by their fifth year in practice.
At the same time that firms are beginning to face up to the retention issue many are also dealing with aging baby boomers. Why not combine these two management issues? Many firms have retirement age partners who would like to remain actively engaged but without the demanding work schedule of handling client responsibility. Many are willing to do so for same or less than what the law firm would have to pay to hire an outside professional development director. Combining the two could be a perfect match.
Morepartnerincome.com is sponsored by Juris®. For information about Juris products and services for increasing law firm performance and partner income contact Juris National Sales Center:
877/377-3740, e-mail info@juris.com or go to www.Juris.com.
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Filed under HR by Tom Collins
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