Junior solicitors create more value, and make firms happier places

Increasing profitability is currently a number one priority. Everyone is pulling out all the stops to bring in work - and junior solicitors are an important resource who can help too, if attention is paid to their performance and motivation.

Many firms have more pressing business needs to address.

I agree – the current economic climate is a tough one.

However, this is an even bigger reason to be building a productive group of lawyers who can increase your profits now and in the future.

Through improving the productivity of junior solicitors, firms can achieve some great things including:

• Accelerated progression of junior solicitors through increased resilience.
• Increased commitment from staff.
• Increased profitability through reduced risk of poor performance.

All that’s needed is to ensure the challenges your junior solicitors face are identified and resolved straightaway.

In achieving this, junior solicitors will progress more quickly as their resilience and performance improves and as they become better solicitors and contribute towards accelerating the success of your firm, their commitment to you will increase.

Poorly received feedback could be costing a firm £135,000 per trainee.

This can happen when an issue is not resolved – something I have seen coaching junior solicitors.

For instance, say you have recently discovered that your 2 year PQE has had an issue with taking feedback personally since their first seat as a trainee solicitor.

When they are given feedback, they dwell on it for days and become fearful of making another mistake.

During these times, their focus is reduced and they feel stressed and lose you money.

Losing just an hour a day of a solicitor’s time at only £150 per hour for four years costs approximately £135,000.

This is in addition to the time and money you have already invested in them.

In these circumstances, giving support and guidance on how to receive feedback can make a huge difference in improving the concentration, motivation and quality of work of your junior solicitors. Such guidance can include:

1. Ensuring they are not mistaking feedback for criticism. Lawyers are high achievers and it is important they see feedback as a means for becoming an even better solicitor.

2. When receiving feedback, they need to ensure they understand it properly and be open to what the other person is saying before they respond.

Once they have this understanding, they can ask questions to clarify what the person giving feedback is wanting from them and what changes they can make to improve their work. This gives the conversation a positive forward thinking focus.

3. With respect to taking feedback personally, perhaps suggest to them that they model themselves on someone they know who takes feedback well.

How does this person behave? How do they talk and act? They should think about what they need to believe in order to behave in the same way. They should use this new belief to enable them to try a different response when they next receive feedback.

Another common challenge faced by junior solicitors is time management. Junior solicitors can often feel overwhelmed by the volume of work they have to do.

During these times it is really important that they review their working patterns to ensure they are working in the most effective way. These tips can be given to assist:

1. Every morning make a list of the tasks that must be completed that day.

2. Do the least attractive task first.

3. Eliminate distractions when working on a large piece of work. For instance, turn mobiles off and close emails.

4. Focus on one thing at a time. For example, allocate part of the day to making telephone calls and another part to responding to emails.

5. Delegate work where possible.

Often the smallest alteration to a working day can make the biggest difference in enabling junior solicitors to work more quickly and effectively.

The outcome should be that junior solicitors will be happy, motivated and focused, the number of chargeable hours recorded will increase, and profits will rise.

Tessa Armstrong is a careers and performance coach.