Risk management

What does supervision really mean?

Solicitors complain that if they were supervised at the level expected by their insurers, the Legal Services Commission or the Lexcel quality standards, there would be no point in employing assistants.

They believe that intensive supervision keeps senior lawyers away from their real work of earning fees from clients.

The popular view is that an unrealistic standard is being set by institutions that do not understand the realities of professional practice - in other words, that staff must learn to stand on their own feet, rather than have their hands held constantly.

This is based on a misconception about supervision.

Unsupervised staff, and the mistakes that can then occur, are a common cause of negligence claims.

Therefore, competent management of staff should be at the heart of a firm's risk management procedures.

Firms too often neglect basic principles of supervision or only put in place procedures for junior staff.

Supervision is about having appropriate procedures for different competency levels of staff.

Not all staff need day-to-day supervision, but all staff need support some of the time.

Firms should consider a supervision policy based on the following principles:

- Know your staff.

Know what experience they have, their skills and aptitudes and their training and development needs.

When work is delegated, supervision can then be assessed and put in place.

- Supervision should be appropriate.

Junior staff will need close supervision of their day-to-day work, but, as they gain experience and skill, supervision needs to be adjusted to their growing competence.

The level of supervision should be set by the complexity of the work and the skill of the practitioner, never by the supervisor's timetable.

- Supervision must be proactive.

Do not wait for staff to come to you.

Make sure you have regular meetings with all staff to review case loads, and set aside time to discuss problem files.

- Communication is the key to good supervision.

Too often partners think they have an open door policy but do not realise that staff may be unwilling to interrupt them.

- Train your supervisors.

Most partners supervise in the manner in which they were supervised, so bad, as well as good, practices are perpetuated.

Share good practices but change bad ones.

In the long run, supervision pays because it reduces the risk of claims, enables the firm to profit from well-trained and confident staff, and provides clients with the assurance that even when dealing with junior staff they will have the benefit of back-up from more experienced personnel.

This column was prepared by Alexander Forbes Risk Services UK