Hiring & Empowering Solutions

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What Every Attorney Business Owner is So Desperate to Hear

what all attorney business owners want to hearWe talk to attorneys all day, every day. We typically start the conversation off with, “What are you not seeing that you really need and want to?” It starts with what’s not working, what is working and what they so desperately wish they could find time to work on, but can’t because they’re not confident that anyone has their back while they step away from the business.

“So, what I’m hearing is your desperate to know someone in your firm has your back. To know that someone’s got yours (the business owner) and the firm’s (reputation) and the client’s (why we all still have jobs) back?

Every attorney is desperate to hear, “I got your back!” and then see consistent evidence that their employees know what this means.

There is no lonelier feeling than being a business owner. You start off as a solopreneur, practicing law independently. You’re good at what you do, and business is coming in. You soon recognized the need to hire a few people, start growing your team. You got juuuust the right people in place—in your mind, they were going to dive in head-first, clear your plate of the day-to-day operational tasks, and completely free you up to keep growing your business.

But somewhere between your new employees diving in head-first and you being able to focus on growing your business, you get that gut feeling that you need to start paying closer attention. Turns out that people are a lot of work. They require training. They need to be developed into the type of employees who can step up, suit up, and start taking over the tasks that you simply don’t have time for if you really want to focus on building a successful and sustainable business. They need to be taught how to be their own leaders…and unfortunately, that just doesn’t happen overnight.

If you’re feeling frustrated with your team—if you’re sick of balls dropping, office drama, details slipping through the cracks, etc.—chances are your team is feeling just as frustrated. They probably want to help, but are struggling with where to start. They are just as desperate to get you out of the day to day. They want to take the management tasks off your plate, how to stand in for you at that industry event, how to problem solve without asking for your input every 5 minutes…

But training and development alone won’t turn your team into effective leaders—you have to be willing to hand over some ownership. Teach them how to do what you do, and hand over your responsibilities—along with the authority to make decisions without your approval. Not only is this huge for improving employee engagement and loyalty, but it’s what will ultimately free you up to focus on growing your firm.

You also need to let your team members get connected with each other, and with other industry colleagues. It’s no secret that powerful leaders are skilled networkers. Learning from you is great—learning from other industry leaders, too…now that’s a truly valuable experience…for your team member and your firm.

Employee development isn’t a set-it-and-forget-it deal. As your employees progress and really start to stand into their roles as leaders, it’s important that you continue to mentor them. Meeting with your team members one-on-one, whether to discuss new ideas, brainstorm solutions to problems they may be struggling with, or to open up a dialogue about a work-related book or article you both read, is key to keeping the lines of communication open, and making sure your insight and appreciation is evident, always.

We get it, it is a big investment. Not just financially, but time-wise, too. Developing your team members into leaders, hearing “I got you and I got this firm” and having confidence that is finally true, is scary. But Investing in the right people now will reap huge dividends later.

If your team is good, but you’re ready to make them “I got your back” great, schedule a call and we can strategize mastering your next move.

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What Kind of Leader Are You? And What Does That Mean for Your Firm and Team Members?

what's your leadership styleNo two leaders are the same. Two leaders can be equally amazing, even though they have completely different sets of personality traits and professional talents. In fact, being an amazing leader isn’t derived from personality traits or professional talents (though those things, of course, are important). Being an amazing leader is all about understanding your personality traits and professional talents, and how they compliment and support those of your team members.

So, what’s your leadership style? The success of your firm or business depends on your ability to lead your team…so…what it is? Are you bossy and autocratic? Are you a visionary? Ask yourself these questions to find out:

What are your core values?
What are the values that you live and die by? That drive your every decision? Respect, integrity, authenticity, courage, service, humbly, wisdom. Those with deep-seated core values make better leaders. Determining what your core values are will help you weigh your options and make better decisions…especially when it comes to human resources and hiring.

What is your personality type?
There is no right or wrong personality type for leadership. Introvert or extrovert, disciplined or action-oriented, your personality is a huge part of your leadership style, and understanding your personality will help you build a team that will either support or compliment the types of leadership efforts you put in.

What are your strengths and weaknesses?
Assessing your strengths and weaknesses will help you recognize (and ultimately achieve) your full potential as a leader. Consider the wins and losses of your past. Now, consider your present-day wins and losses. What has changed? Where can you deduce patterns? What kind of person do you need on your team to fill in the gaps where you are weak?

What do your team members say about you?
Ask your team members how you’re doing as a leader—what your strengths are, and how they would characterize your style. Ask them what you can do to improve. Sometimes we are so blind to our own areas of strength and weakness that we need other people to point it out for us…constructively, of course.

Once you’ve answered these questions for yourself, you’ll have a better sense of what category of leader you fall into. There are so many different leadership styles, but these three tend to cover most of the bases:

1. Autocratic. You’re maybe a bit bossy, and like having total control of your team. Your employees aren’t expected to have ideas or opinions—they’re just supposed to execute on demand.

2. Visionary. You’ve got a vision, and know how to pull your team together to achieve it. Visionary leaders are great at fostering employee loyalty, and encouraging employees to achieve a goal via their own path.

3. Democratic. Democratic leaders are sometimes uncertain, which leads them to rely on the input of their team members for fresh ideas and initiatives. The democratic leader is in the trenches with his team, though he or she makes any final decisions.

Each leadership style has its pros and cons, but there are famous leaders in each category. Steve Jobs was known for being bossy, while Larry Page has honed a more democratic leadership style, and Nelson Mandela is the prime example of an effective visionary leader.

Once you understand your leadership style…then what? Apply what you now understand about yourself to your firm’s hiring, training and development practices. At Hiring & Empowering, we’re huge advocates for using the Kolbe Personality Test to help leaders and team members understand each other, communicate more effectively, and leverage each others strengths for the benefit of the firm as a whole. At the end of the day, the big takeaway here is that leadership style matters…and the success of your firm or business depends on your ability to leverage it.

Schedule a Free 30-Minute Discovery Session

If you’re unsure about your leadership style and think that some of the problems at your firm could be addressed if only you had a better understand of your own personality or your team members’ personalities, then click the button below to schedule a free 30-minute discovery session with our co-founder, Molly Hall. You’ll have the chance to explain the pains your firm is feeling, and she’ll have the chance to suggest some solutions.

schedule a discovery session

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Here’s How to Become Grateful in 10 Minutes or Less

molly and laneyOver the years, it has become a tradition for us to post a blog about gratitude as we enter the holiday season. It’s the blog we get the most response to—by far!—which is great, because it means we’re getting people to focus on the positive and think about what they’re grateful for!

We know how easy it can be to worry about all of the things we don’t have, or the things that haven’t happened to us yet. These thoughts distract us from making note of the beautiful relationships that exist in our lives, and the amazing things that have already happened. A negative thought or action can impact our mood for the whole day.

But, in that same token then, can’t a positive thought or action also impact our mood for a whole day?

The holiday season, while rooted in the spirit of gratitude, peace and love, has turned into this impossibly hectic, high stress, say-yes-to-every-party-invitation, go, go, go time of year. And when we’re in the middle of that chaos, it’s so easy to lose sight of what’s truly important in life. With Thanksgiving already here, and the holiday season knocking at our front door, let’s stop, take a moment, and acknowledge all that we are grateful for. The simple act of expressing gratitude will start your holiday season on a stress-free note, while allowing you to center your focus on why you do what you do everyday—what it’s all for.

Here’s how to be grateful in 10 minutes or less:

Spend 5-10 minutes tapping into five things that you are grateful for. Things that your life would be less rich if you didn’t have. Make note of why you’re grateful for each things. And there you have it—a ten minute gratitude challenge that can recharge your batteries, instill confidence, and start your holiday season on the right foot.

Here are Hiring & Empowering Solutions, some of the things we’re most grateful for are:

1. Family: Our children are healthy and happy. We have a family that loves us, and that can be a part of our children’s lives—not many can say that. It’s the little things that are so very impactful to our children that make our hearts swell with gratitude. What more can we ask for than children who are healthy enough to experience the thrills of childhood and everything in between?

2. Health: We know it sounds cliche, but we start and end our day by moving our bodies. We are healthy enough to work long hours and serve our clients well. We have nothing if we don’t have our health.

3. Clients: The people who have been there for us for decades, supporting us and trusting us with their business needs…and making us better people for it. The people who hold us accountable for being awesome every day. Thank you!

4. Faith: For bringing us calmness, inspiration, and strength, and for making us feel amazingly connected to humanity.

5. Community. In our connectedness, we have the opportunity to serve others, learn from others, share, and connect with humanity. It makes all the “work” worth it!

Take the time today—right now, even!—to practice this simple act of gratitude. Gratitude is a magnet for miracles. It will create new opportunities, improve your physical and mental health, keep you calm—even during the chaotic holiday season, and improve your self esteem. Furthermore, scientific studies have connected gratitude with the ability to achieve one’s goals.

What are you grateful for today? Grab your journal (or buy a new one…we hear there are a few Black Friday deals going on right now ?) and take a few minutes to acknowledge and write down the five things you are grateful for. We get it, and we know you are busy. We all are. But you can set aside 5 minutes for gratitude. And…you’ll be grateful you did!

This Thanksgiving, we will be remembering all of you with extraordinary gratitude. Gratitude for the constant support in its countless forms, for sending encouragement, sharing our resources with your colleagues, referring us to your friends, trusting us with your teams, befriending us on Facebook, and keeping us in your thoughts. We are constantly amazed by your kindheartedness, year after year.

To quote Johannes “Meister” Eckhart, “If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, ‘thank you,’ that would suffice.”

A very grateful Thanksgiving holiday to you and your family!

Molly and Laney

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The Biggest Mistake in Legal Staffing: Keeping Integrity at the Core of Your Firms’ Hiring Practices

integrity and legal staffingWhen it comes to finding, recruiting, hiring and training a new hire, there is one key that is a 100% absolute must that can never, ever, ever be ignored: integrity.

Sure, when you’re dealing with people, there’s usually room to break the rules a little, to defy expectations a teeny, tiny bit. But not in this instance. When it comes to legal staffing, the key to hiring is 100% of the time based on integrity.

integrity (n.) – the quality of being honest and having strong moral principles; moral uprightness.

In layman’s terms: do what you say you’re going to do, when you say you’re going to do it, with complete authenticity, every inch of every step of the way.

We want to make sure we’re clear about what integrity really is, because there can be an air of misunderstanding around the term. Some people confuse integrity with morality, but there is an important distinction between these two characteristics: morality describes a person who knows the difference between right and wrong. Integrity describes a person who not only knows the difference between right and wrong, but chooses to actually do the right thing.

If a lawyer, paralegal or member of your legal support staff doesn’t have integrity, it doesn’t matter how talented they are, how good they are at what they do, how many hours they work, or anything else you might gauge their performance by. Without integrity, they are not right for your firm. The fact that they won’t work out in the long run is just a minor problem. They will poison your team. They will disease your client relationships. They are not a good fit for your firm, and, in fact, they are a downright bad fit!

During the hiring process, if you have a bad feeling about a candidate—if you get that feeling in your belly that says something is “off”—don’t even bother moving forward with on boarding. Because our intuitions rarely lie, and integrity can’t be trained. A person either has it or they don’t. And if they don’t…

…they’re not a good fit for your firm.

Case in point: Amy passed every interview, Kolbe matching and reference check with flying colors. Less than five days into the job, red flags were popping up everywhere. It started off with her first business trip on the company dime, where her room service bill was $65.00—for one person, for one dinner. Let us paint the picture: this was a single mom of two teenage boys who were getting ready to head off to college, on public assistance, and her annual salary was $19,000. This was not a CEO making six figures who would order a $65 meal regardless of who was footing the bill. This was a person with the entitlement mentality that she was going to get fat, literally, off the company hog. Lack of integrity. It doesn’t need to be more complicated than that, my friends.

Keys of Integrity

So, we’ve hopefully made it clear that your law firm should be looking for integrity in its new hires—but integrity is tricky, and can be clouded by things like talent, char, wit and charisma. And while those characteristics are nice, they’re just lucky add-ons once you’ve deemed a candidate rich in integrity.

What is integrity? How does it manifest in an employee?

• Doing the right thing, especially when nobody is watching
• Taking a complaint to someone who can actually do something about it
• Refraining from gossip and asking coworkers how they can help solve their complaints, rather than going along for the gossip ride and contributing to developing a “workplace sucks” corporate culture
• They do the right thing at work and at home

Here are some warning signs that a candidate may not have the most integrity:

• Talking about cheating on a spouse or partner, shopping ’til they drop even though they say they don’t make enough money, or putting down friends, neighbors and ex-coworkers
• Starting conversations with “Between you and me” or “Don’t say anything about this, but…” or “You didn’t hear this from me…”

How to Keep Integrity at the Core of Your Legal Hiring Practices

As a team leader, get everyone involved and develop a set of core values for your team to live by. Have each team member define the values that are important to them, and then have everyone convene—over coffee and food, even—to determine what your team, as a whole, will stand for, operate by, and hold each other accountable to live by.

Some examples of core values to consider: respect for others, the “golden rule,” commitment to family, community contribution, spiritual guidance and growth…

These core values can be used to assess potential new hires or team members, as well evaluate existing team members during their reviews. Think about framing your list of core values so clients, referral sources and even vendors know what is important to your law firm. Not only are you creating a place of peace and possibility, but a beautiful, deliberate byproduct of increased referrals. Who would read those core values and not want to refer their friends and family to you?

Contact Hiring & Empowering Solutions

Sometimes, finding the best employees—the ones with real integrality, who will actually step up and make a measurable difference at your law firm or company—takes a little help from a friend. At Hiring & Empowering Solutions, we take care of the finding and recruiting, and help you through the interviewing, hiring and on boarding processes to ensure you hire the best possible person for the job, and for your corporate culture. Contact us today to learn more about our Smart Hire Solution™ process and how it could help your firm save money and increase productivity.

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How to Compete with Major Firms When It Comes to Attracting Top Talent for Your Boutique Law Firm

how to attract top talent law firmWe’ve said it once, and we’ll say it a million more times: your people are your most valuable assets. No matter how big or small your law firm is, without top lawyers, paralegals and legal support staff, your firm simply cannot thrive.

Finding and recruiting the best-of-the-best legal talent is simple—you hire us to do it! However, if your law firm isn’t attractive to the industry’s top talent, it makes our job a lot harder.

More so than ever before, the job market heavily favors candidates—not companies. The kind of talent you want, well, they know you want them. They know what they’re worth. And they want to know what’s in it for them if they bring all they have to offer to your law firm’s table.

To stay competitive when it comes to attracting the cream of the crop to your boutique law firm, here are a few recommendations:

Have a mission, and make it clear
When candidates can connect with your firm on a deeper level than job title and salary, you instantly become a more attractive employer. Communicate that what they would be doing for you firm matters, and that they would be working alongside other employees who also care about making a difference. Having a dedicated career page on your website is a great way to communicate your firm’s mission.

Be non-traditional
Gone, gone, gone are the days of 9am-5pm, a strict one hour lunch break, two weeks of paid vacation, and a 401K match program (although the 401K thing is still a big seller). Today’s talent wants some semblance of work-life balance. If you can’t offer a work-from-home benefit, consider an open office environment that allows your team to float around a little more freely.

Get your team involved
The best ambassador for your firm is a loyal employee. Ask leaders and employees at your firm to create talent ambassador LinkedIn profiles, to conduct interviews about your firm on Glassdoor or Indeed, or to generate content that positions your firm as an enviable “employer brand.”

Don’t just have a value proposition—live by it!
Any firm can rattle off an out-of-the-can value proposition about why they’re the best law firm to work for ever in the history of law firms. However, if you can articulate how your firm “walks the walk,” so to speak—that is what will resonate most with the top talent you’re seeking to attract.

Treat your people like what they are—your most valuable asset
Have we mentioned that your people are your most valuable asset? Because they are, and they deserve to be treated as such. When you create an environment of trust and respect, you people will talk and, eventually, you’ll develop a reputation as being one of the more desirable firms to work for.

Leverage the power of social media
Fill your firm’s social media profiles with more than business-to-consumer focused content. Sprinkle in photos from employee-centric events and present yourself as the kind of firm that puts its people first. Before a job candidate accepts an interview with your firm, you can guarantee he or she looks at your Facebook page to gauge what it’s like to work for you. Give them a taste of your firm’s culture and commitment.

Offer career trajectories rich with training & development
Many of the law firms we work with enroll their people in our Team Empowerment Academy, a virtual training and development program that fosters professional growth and teaches employees hundreds of tools and techniques to become effective leaders. Knowing that they will be able explore new experiences is always attractive to talented lawyers, paralegals and support staff.

Our Smart Hire Solution™ process is highly effective for finding and recruiting top talent for your law firm—and it’s even more effective when your firm can compete with what the major industry players are offering new hires. Just because your firm isn’t world-renowned doesn’t mean you can’t play in the same talent management ball game—you just have to get a little more creative with what you have to offer.

Contact Hiring & Empowering Solutions

Whether you have an open position you need help filling, or you just want to bounce around some ideas with our team of highly experience legal staffing and HR consultants, we’d love to hear from you! Contact us using the brief form below, and we’ll get in touch with you shortly.