“Delegate or die” might sound hyperbolic, but in the legal field today, it’s all too accurate—at least where your professional life is concerned. Countless attorneys are drowning in work, and their failure to meet unrealistic demands is sinking their careers. The worst part is that law firm culture shrugs this off as normal. “Sink or swim,” right? Wrong. You don’t need to work this way, but you won’t break the cycle (and save your career, and preserve your mental health…) until you learn how to delegate with confidence.
Legal Staffing 101: How to Delegate Effectively
Effective delegation begins with identifying the “what.” You can only assign tasks when you know what needs doing. And, more importantly, you can only set your team up for success if you’re able to provide them with the tools needed to accomplish the tasks you assign. Achieving this means getting far enough ahead of the hustle, however, to reflect, prepare, and execute—and you and I both know that’s never going to happen with the workload that most attorneys shoulder.
You can’t delegate effectively if you’re hardly keeping your head above water, and hoping for a miracle won’t help. This is why step one in delegating with confidence is bringing in experienced outside help. You need to enroll your team in our Law Firm Admin Bootcamp if you want to get the jump that allows you to get on top, and stay there.
When you bring in a legal management consultant like Hiring & Empowering Solutions, you allow an expert to accelerate the process of instituting systems that solve your delegation problems.
In our bootcamp, for instance, your team will learn not only how to manage, but also how to streamline new client intake, conversion, cancellations, reschedules, and follow-ups. You’ll gain concrete data on what’s working and what isn’t. Your team will learn to track key performance indicators (KPIs) related to marketing, conversion, and hiring. And, crucially, you’ll gain the confidence and perspective needed to delegate effectively, so that your time can be spent where it’s truly needed.
When you institute systems that allow your team to both see the importance of their role and perform it to the best of their ability, you empower them to fully express their talent. In turn, you discover you can trust them with responsibilities you may right now be reluctant to relinquish. This is gratifying for everyone.
The best systems in the world don’t matter if you don’t embrace them, however. Successful delegation means you don’t have to do everything, but it also means you don’t get to do everything. Many attorneys struggle to cede control, even when doing so is in their and their firm’s best interest. Addressing this fear is yet another reason to bring in a law firm consultant. After all, the best way to gain confidence that something is “okay” to do is to have someone show you how to do it right.
To learn more about how you can learn to delegate important tasks with confidence and free up time to be the best attorney you can be, get your team on the Law Firm Admin Bootcamp waitlist today. The next course starts on January 10, 2023, and slots are already filling up!
