Let’s just call it what it is.
Employee termination is one of the most avoided, emotionally charged, and financially dangerous decisions law firm owners make.
And yet…
It’s also one of the most defining leadership moments inside your firm.
Let me ask you something most law firm owners won’t say out loud.
How long have you been suffering over the “how to terminate an employee the right way?” situation?
Not “thinking about it.” Not “keeping an eye on it.” Suffering. Walking around the situation on eggshells. Dreading Monday mornings. Dodging the breakroom when you know they’re in there. You know the decision that needs to be made — you’ve known for a while — but you keep waiting for something to change. A breakthrough. A light bulb moment. Proof that you were wrong about what your gut has been telling you for months.
Here’s the truth I’ve learned from nearly three decades of working inside law firms and watching attorneys make this call: the longer you wait, the more it costs you. In morale. In time. In money. In the confidence you need to run a firm that actually functions without you holding it together with both hands.
Employee terminations are among the most sensitive, high-risk decisions you will ever make as a law firm leader. And most attorneys walk into them without a documented case, without a process, and without any framework for doing it in a way that protects the firm, honors the employee, and keeps the rest of the team intact.
Let’s fix that.
The Real Cost of Avoiding the Decision
Before we get into the how, let’s talk about the why — because law firm owners are extraordinary at rationalizing delay.
“Things might turn around.” “I don’t have time to hire someone new.” “At least they know the files.” “It’ll create drama with the rest of the team.”
These are not reasons. These are the symptoms of suffering.
Think about what a bad hire or a mismatched team member is actually costing your firm. The U.S. Department of Labor has estimated that a bad hire can cost up to 30% of that employee’s first-year earnings — and that number doesn’t touch the hours lost to managing problems, the client experience impact, the morale drain on your high performers, or the opportunity cost of every hour you spent discussing this person instead of growing your firm.
Your team is your highest budget line item. It’s your biggest loss of time when it goes wrong, and your biggest growth lever when it goes right.
The attorneys who scale well understand that protecting the team — and your firm culture — sometimes means making hard decisions before you feel fully ready.
Step One: Termination vs. Training—Know the Difference Before You Act
Not every underperformance situation ends in termination. That’s actually the first place most law firm leaders get this wrong — they skip the diagnostic.
Before you do anything else, you need to determine which of three categories your situation falls into:
Right Role, Training Issue. This employee has solid intentions and is in the right seat. They understand the big picture of where the firm is going — they just don’t have the day-to-day process clarity or documented expectations to perform at the level you need. They’re actively trying to learn. They’re invested. They just need a roadmap, structured training, and clear metrics. You’ve got untapped potential sitting right in front of you. Don’t fire that person. Train them.
Right Person, Wrong Role. This team member takes your coaching, shows up with ideas, passes your gut check — but something isn’t clicking in their current position. Their natural wiring might be better suited to a different function in the firm. Before you assume this person needs to go, explore whether a role adjustment could unlock what you can both see is a high-potential employee sitting in the wrong chair.
Wrong Person. This is the category that requires termination. No amount of training, coaching, or role reassignment will change the outcome. They’re not meeting your core values. They don’t embrace feedback. They’ve checked out. They dread being there — and you dread seeing them. That requires action.
The reason this diagnostic matters so much is that firing is not always the answer. But knowing which answer applies to your situation requires you to stop operating from emotion and start applying a standard — an objective, repeatable framework that you can stand behind.
Step Two: Termination Documentation—Build a Defensible Business Case Before the Meeting
This is where most law firms are completely exposed.
If you walked into a termination meeting tomorrow and the employee — or their attorney — asked you to show your documentation, what would you produce?
A text thread? An email you remember sending? Notes you wrote to yourself after a frustrating afternoon?
That’s not a business case. That’s a liability.
A defensible termination requires documented evidence that the performance issues were communicated, that the employee was given clear expectations and a reasonable opportunity to meet them, and that the decision was made based on standards — not emotion.
Here’s what that documentation needs to include:
Written expectations from day one. Before you can hold someone accountable to a role, they need to know exactly what that role requires. Every team member’s responsibilities should exist in writing. If you don’t have documented job descriptions and performance standards, that’s the first gap to close — not just for terminations, but for the health of your whole firm.
A documented coaching and feedback trail. If you’ve had conversations about performance, those conversations need to be logged. Verbal conversations without a paper trail are nearly impossible to reference in a termination meeting and offer little protection if a claim is filed. For every coaching conversation, record the date, what was discussed, what was agreed upon, and any follow-up due dates.
A clear record of warnings. If your firm uses a progressive discipline model — a verbal warning, a written warning, a final written warning — each of those steps should be documented and signed. The employee should acknowledge receipt. This is not about catching someone. It’s about protecting both parties and giving your team member every fair opportunity to course-correct before the decision is final.
Performance improvement plans with measurable benchmarks. When you put a team member on a performance plan, the expectations must be specific, measurable, and time-bound. Not “needs to improve client communication” — but “will respond to client emails within 24 business hours, as verified through weekly log review for the next 30 days.” When those benchmarks aren’t met, your documentation speaks for itself.
The test is this: could a reasonable third party read your documentation and conclude that the termination was fair, consistent, and not discriminatory? If the answer is yes, you’re ready to move forward.
Step Three: Immediate Termination Situations (No Process Required)
There are situations where you skip the progressive discipline altogether.
These are what I call Deal Killers — actions that constitute grounds for immediate termination and don’t warrant a coaching conversation or a second chance.
In a law firm, these include: theft from the firm, a client, or another team member; any behavior that creates legal exposure — harassment, fraud, or conduct that triggers an employment claim; a violation of client confidentiality rules (this one can cost you your license, not just your employee); and drastic changes in character or behavior that suggest substance use.
If any of these have occurred, do not proceed with a standard termination process. Move swiftly, involve your employment counsel, and act decisively. These are not gray areas.
Step Four: Conduct the Termination Meeting with Integrity
Here’s something I say to every law firm owner I work with: the way you fire someone tells your whole team who you really are as a leader.
Even when you’re confident in the decision, even when it’s the right call, how you handle the exit shapes your firm culture long after that person has gone. Your remaining team is watching. And they’ll decide — based on how you showed up in that room — whether they can trust you.
The fundamentals of a high-integrity termination meeting:
Make it a decision, not an emotional reaction. If you’ve done the diagnostic work and built the documentation, this is not a surprise — it’s a conclusion. Go in steady.
Do it in person when at all possible. Or, at minimum, by phone. Never by email or text. Never through a third party relay. This is a direct conversation that requires your presence and your humanity.
Do it early in the day, early in the week if possible. Letting someone sit through hours of work before a termination meeting — or leaving them to spiral over a weekend — is unnecessarily cruel and does not serve your firm.
Have a witness. A member of your leadership team, an HR consultant, or a trusted advisor should be present to observe and document. This creates protection and transparency for everyone involved.
Be clear that the decision is final. This is not open for discussion or negotiation. If you open the door to debate, you undermine the integrity of the entire process and signal to your team that decisions aren’t real decisions.
Prepare the paperwork before you walk in. Have the written termination letter ready. Two copies, both signed by you. Cover the basics in that letter: who is being terminated, the effective date, the reason for separation, any prior warnings or documentation, how final compensation will be handled, what happens to any benefits, and what company property needs to be returned.
Keep the conversation short. A brief, factual summary of why the decision was made is appropriate. A lengthy monologue is not. You are not prosecuting a case in that room. Say what needs to be said, give the person the letter, and let them speak.
Close with dignity. Stand, extend your hand, and wish them well. Mean it. There is someone else who will want to be there and will appreciate the opportunity — for your firm and for them.
Step Five: Post-Termination Communication with Your Team
After the meeting ends, your work isn’t done.
Tell your team — thoughtfully and briefly. No gossip. No detail that doesn’t need to be shared. No venting disguised as transparency. Your statement to the team should be direct, short, focused on what this means for operations going forward, and forward-looking. How you speak about the person who left tells your team exactly how you’d speak about them if they ever left.
Redesign before you rehire. One of the most valuable things you can do after a termination is take stock of what the role actually needs to be — not just backfill the vacancy. What were the gaps? Were they about the person, or about how the role was structured? Was this position set up to succeed from day one? Did we give this person a real roadmap, or did we just hand them a title and hope for the best?
This is where the conversation usually shifts from “How do I get rid of the wrong person?” to “How do I make sure I never end up here again?”
Building a Firm That Hires Right the First Time
Terminations are expensive — emotionally, financially, operationally. The best version of this process is the one you have to use as rarely as possible, because you’ve built a hiring and onboarding system that puts the right people in the right seats from the start.
That’s exactly what we do at Hiring & Empowering Solutions. We’re not just legal recruiters. We’re performance advisors. Our Smart Hire® Solution process is designed to identify candidates who fit your firm’s culture, role requirements, and growth trajectory — not just their resume. And we stay in the conversation through onboarding and beyond, because a great hire without a great onboarding process is just a delayed bad outcome.
The goal isn’t to fill a seat. The goal is to drive profitability and build a firm that works, even when you’re not the one holding it all together.
There are two kinds of suffering: long-term and short-term. Making the right hire — and when necessary, the right termination — ends the long-term suffering. It’s not comfortable. But it’s the decision that gets you back to leading your firm instead of managing your headaches.
If you’re sitting in that place right now — uncertain whether to fire, uncertain how to hire, wondering if anything will ever be different — that’s exactly where we start. Let’s talk.