The Facts

The pandemic triggered a major shift in the dynamic between lawyers and law firms. Following the pandemic, many lawyers chose to continue working remotely or hybrid. The result is that law firms now struggle to find objective ways to gauge employee effectiveness without everyone being in person at the office. 

According to a recent 2024 McKinsey survey, more than half of the employees surveyed reported being relatively dissatisfied with their jobs. The way to combat disengagement is by establishing value at a firm – in essence, becoming the firm where people want to go into the office. 

How to Build Value 

First, leaders need to understand their employees and how they operate. An anonymous survey for employees to fill out can be a good way to gain insight into lawyers’ needs. Ask questions like what’s working for them and what’s not, any issues they face regularly, or their preferred work style. Once this data is gathered, firms can work to provide employees with a better work-life balance, ultimately increasing the value of the firm.

How to Maintain Value

Once the value has been established, it must be maintained. It begins with the firm’s recruiting efforts. Traditional legal recruitment methods are outdated, expensive, lengthy, and often don’t make lasting placements. At Talent Engines, we do legal recruiting differently. We like to “go slow to go fast” when it comes to legal talent acquisition, meaning that we take our time to truly get to know a candidate and the firm on a deeper level before placing them with a firm.

At Talent Engines, we operate based on the firm belief that “life is relational.” Traditional legal recruitment methods don’t analyze relationship dynamics or consider personality characteristics when matching a candidate with a potential law firm. The result of making hasty placements is unhappy employees, thus lowered retention rates, and an overall decline in the value and success of the firm.

Visit Talent Engines to learn more!

Source(s): McKinsey, 2024