Tomorrow's talent: Win the loyalty of millennial lawyers to your firm

Much has been written on the current and future pressures on the UK legal marketplace, with a number of factors appearing as common themes: the globalisation of the legal market, the increasing demand from clients for value for money and the opening up of the market to alternative business structures. While all levels of firm strategy should be aligned to address these issues, the recruitment and selection of trainee solicitors, and the cultivation of their skills and knowledge, is the obvious starting point to establish your firm’s values and business vision in your future lawyers. Doing so can build loyalty in a generation of lawyers who may not see any one firm as a long-term career prospect.

First, consider how your training strategy can deliver tangible results in areas such as understanding client expectations, leveraging value in the firm’s services to create value in the eyes of the client, and how to adapt to, and anticipate the needs of, an international legal environment. This requires more than an understanding of the workings of the law – if lawyers are able to assess their clients’ business from the inside out, to anticipate issues before they arise, they will be better placed to generate client loyalty.

Knowledge of an industry sector or of clients’ business models will certainly help lawyers to build credibility with clients, but the second piece of the puzzle is for the firm to support lawyers’ personal attributes – their confidence, creativity and resilience, for example – to enable them to exercise their skills effectively.

Third, recognise that change will
need to take place throughout your business. New programmes aimed at developing and supporting trainees and junior lawyers should be introduced that focus on improving their knowledge,
skills and attitudes.

But, your firm will not be able to benefit fully from such initiatives without a complementary change in focus among the partners and other supervisors so that they adapt their management techniques to take into account how trainees and junior lawyers are motivated.

Attracting legal talent

I recently interviewed those responsible for graduate recruitment in 19 law firms of various sizes in the City of London and across England to find out how they
attract and select talent. We discussed how trainee solicitors are managed during their two-year training period and how
they retain qualifiers. Three main themes
of relevance to this article emerged from the research:

1. it can be difficult to identify the business potential in candidates who are recruited two years ahead of their start date and four years ahead of qualification;

2. there is a difference in the approach and attitude of trainees and junior associates to their careers compared with those further along the track; and

3. there is not always a joined-up strategy linking recruitment to the post-qualification development of lawyers.

How do these themes link to the measures that your firm can put in place to meet the challenges presented by the evolving legal services market?

1. Develop the business advisor mindset

It is unsurprising that trainees and junior lawyers focus on increasing their legal knowledge as a priority – after all, most firms measure success by performance against billable-hour targets. However, if your firm is to find new ways of providing value for money in client services, your lawyers will need to understand the
drivers of both their clients’ businesses and their own.

The way in which commercial awareness is developed in trainee lawyers varies from firm to firm. On one end of the spectrum is hands-on experience, creating on-the-job learning opportunities through skills training such as networking, personal impact and effective communication. At the other end of the spectrum are firms that test commercial awareness at the recruitment stage but do include it as
an area for training during the training contract period.

The effectiveness of introducing a business focus to trainee development from the outset of their careers can be seen from the results enjoyed by international law firm Reed Smith following its rollout of a legal practice course (LPC) with MBA-style business learning components to improve the commerciality of its future lawyers.

Before the course, the phrases that students associated with being a lawyer in the City included “legal problem solver”, “giving a legal opinion” and “legal expert”. After the course, during which participants carried out a business analysis project embedded with a client, students associated phrases such as “market understanding”, “industry expert” and “business problem solving” with the role instead. One trainee commented that “the project was a real-world task of genuine use to the client… it forced us to focus entirely on the client’s needs”.

Involving trainees in live business projects will significantly enhance their ability to put the law in context and provide business-focused advice. Some firms use fact patterns from real client matters, firm precedents and financial information in their LPC and professional skills course (PSC) modules. Again, this helps trainees to put what they learn in the classroom into context. To embed this learning further, firms should offer opportunities for trainees to follow this up by linking this learning to what they experience as they go through their training contracts and sharing their learning with others.

In his working paper Provocations and Perspectives, Professor Richard Susskind suggests that another way to provide value for money to clients is to accelerate trainees’ training in mundane and repetitive tasks (such as due diligence) in a classroom setting rather than on the job. These aspects of a matter can then be resourced by paralegals and the firm can avoid complaints by clients that they are subsidising the trainee’s training.

Given the team focus of millennial trainees and junior lawyers (see section 3 below), opportunities for collaborative activities are far more likely to ensure that learning is embedded rather than short, lecture-based training with limited or no follow up. Allowing trainees to determine their own learning plans will also be key to fulfilling their need to feel appreciated as individuals rather than being put them through sheep-dip training.

This all assumes that the firm has managed to identify candidates who demonstrate the potential for commercial thinking. This is a particular challenge for recruiters, particularly when assessing undergraduates whose potential is largely untested. One method to determine if a candidate has this ability is to ask questions which require original thought rather than rehearsed replies. This might refer to a very recent item of news or to the facts of a case study presented to the candidate just before the assessment or interview.

Also important is ensuring that all interviewers/assessors understand what the firm’s definition of commercial thinking is so that it is an objective competence that can be tested (rather than relying on interviewers’ own interpretations), enabling the firm to measure like-for-like as far as possible across all candidates.

2. Build personal attributes that promote strong business performance

Junior lawyers often demonstrate a lack of knowledge and confidence when discussing business development and commercial awareness. The result is a reactive and passive attitude, rather than
a creative approach of coming up with
new ideas or making suggestions. Clearly, this is not helpful if the firm wants its trainees and juniors to contribute to growing its business.

For example, a junior lawyer said recently that the managers from a large client kept asking him to organise a social event. He was unsure what to do. It was not a question of practical logistics, more whether it was appropriate for someone at his level to connect with the clients in
this way.

Setting out the firm’s expectations at the start of the training contract and throughout it is vital – whether in relation to business development, performance management or any other aspect of the firm’s relationship with the trainee – so
that trainees have a frame of reference
to work within.

A big driver for millennials is the sense of belonging to a team and understanding how their individual contribution will benefit the firm and, ultimately, what it will do for them personally. Recruiters say they offer positions to candidates on the assumption that they will stay with the firm on qualification. So, start building trainees’ loyalty from day one by encouraging them to see themselves as an intrinsic part of
the firm.

Even if things do not work out as planned on qualification, there is a better chance of them leaving the firm feeling that they have been through a valuable two years, with skills that will stand them in good stead in the job market. For the majority who stay, you will have already started putting in the groundwork to encourage them to see the firm as a
longer term prospect than they may
first have thought.

3. Raise awareness among
senior lawyers

Turnover in junior associates with two to three years’ post-qualification experience (PQE) is not uncommon. This churn may well result from the differing motivations of millennials – those born into generation Y (early 1980s to mid-1990s) – who make up the majority of trainee recruits.

Millennials believe that they will work for a number of employers and even start other careers at different stages of their lives. According to a university adviser, students see themselves as staying with the firm they trained with for only five years. Given the two-year training period, this equates to departure at three years’ PQE, the time at which an associate is becoming most profitable to the firm. Consider the effect of attrition on your client relationships, as well as the loss of intellectual capital.

In addition, millennials’ loyalty to the firm is gained very differently to that of previous generations. Millennials favour a sense of belonging to a team, flexible working and opportunities for learning and personal development, including immediate feedback and recognition. Compare this with the desire for a clear promotion path and a strong work ethic displayed by the baby boomer generation (born 1945 to early 1960s), and the strong self-reliance and need for freedom to work independently of those in generation X (born mid-1960s to early 1980s).

The popularity of secondments illustrates the value that trainees place on understanding the options that are available to them in their careers. While firms are keen to place lawyers with clients to build relationships and give trainees exposure to clients’ worlds, trainees are busy working out where their careers may go in a few years’ time.

It is therefore vital to recognise the changing face of lawyers entering the profession and in their first few years of practice. Recruiters said that trainees have been described by senior lawyers as ‘lazy’, ‘entitled’ and ’more demanding’. This is only their perspective – not a fact.

If supervisors have the tools to tap into what interests and motivates trainees and junior associates, they are more likely to boost performance and loyalty. This may not come without resistance from previous generations of lawyers but, since millennials will make up the vast majority of your hires at the junior end of the business, your firm needs to take their requirements seriously.

This does not mean that millennial supervision is a one-way street – you will need to spend time helping them to understand the generational differences in expectations and motivations too, and explain that they can expect a rewarding career if they also invest effort in making
it work.

For supervisors, this means giving specific and pertinent feedback on a regular basis, highlighting the positives and developmental points, carrying out appraisals in a timely manner and talking with juniors to find out their career aspirations and how the firm can support them in their professional development.

Formal mentoring schemes have met with great success in firms that have implemented them. While informal mentoring is said to take place quite widely, a formal scheme will ensure that every trainee is matched up rather than leaving this to chance. A scheme will
also have certain expectations built
into it, such as frequency of meetings
and confidentiality, and can provide
further connections with the firm for
junior lawyers.

Tangible effects

Few firms appear to follow the progression of their trainees after qualification to determine the tangible effects of their trainee strategies on the firm’s business success. This is far easier in smaller and mid-sized firms, in which recruiters may still be able to follow an associate’s progress. But, given the investment firms make in their trainees, both financial and otherwise, this may become more of a necessity if they are to continue to justify recruiting their current number of trainees.

Paula McMullan is an L&D consultant with more than 20 years’ experience
in the legal profession and author of Trainee Recruitment and Management: A Definitive Law Firm Guide
(www.mcmullanpartnership.com).